Murphys Witch Walk Halloween Festival History

The Murphys Witch Walk Halloween Festival and Costume Party was founded in 2016 by Teresa Rodriguez, owner of the Potted Plum, located at 90 Big Trees Road at the corner of Main Street, next to Friends Real Estate, in Murphys, California. 

The Witch Walk idea is really not a new concept. Teresa learned about a successful witch-themed community costume party that was held in an East Bay town as a means to attract attention to local retailers. 

Determining that it was a fun idea that could be implemented in Murphys to promote those retailers that are 'off the beaten trail' at the far east end of Main Street, like her Potted Plum, the Murphys Witch Walk was born as a promotional endeavor to bring more fun people to Murphys to enjoy the town’s unique shopping, wine tasting, entertainment, and dining opportunities.  

It was pretty much all word-of-mouth, social media, and ‘postering’ that carried the Murphys Witch Walk promotional efforts from 2016 to 2018. 

In 2019, some of the support personnel who volunteered their time to produce and promote the event moved out of town. Well, with about 6 weeks before the 4th Annual Murphys Witch Walk was to take place, several business owners and Murphys residents stepped forward to help Teresa produce, promote and execute the 2019 event. Those individuals will be recognized later in this article. 

The 4th Annual Murphys Witch Walk, held in October 2019, really exceeded everyone’s expectations for attendance. 

The social media accounts of Facebook and Instagram really were the driving promotional force that motivated so many people to attend. Prior to a new crew of local business people taking over the reigns of the Murphys Witch Walk, one individual who had previously worked on the event set up a duplicate Facebook event page, so, at the end of the day, it was little bit harder to gauge the overall interest and event attendees after the fact. 

After crunching the social media statistics, if we determine attendance just on who ‘checked in’ on Facebook, the event drew 1,100 people to the town for the October 2019 Murphys Witch Walk. Knowing that Facebook check-ins are never an accurate recording of attendance to an event, especially a non-ticketed free street fair, which is more of a gathering, conservatively we estimate there were about 1,500 attendees that passed through Murphys during the day and evening of the 2019 Murphys Witch Walk. 

A good portion of the 2019 attendees had in tow children, along with their tolerant, doting, and good natured husbands and counterparts. 99.8% of the women were in costume and a huge segment of the guys were not. 

Sheepishly the guys admitted the whole costumed affair was so much fun, especially after seeing their female better halves regaling in the pageantry, many of them promised they’d be in costume for the next Murphys Witch Walk. 

Per the Murphys Business Association, social media data reports that 85% of the driving force behind Murphys tourism are the ladies. 

Yep, the ladies are the overall critical driver of Murphys tourism by a huge percentage. 

We knew those social media statistics in 2019 when the Murphys Witch Walk social media data revealed that Instagram respondents were 83.9% women and Facebook respondents were a whopping 91% women. 

When you crunch those numbers, Murphys is the perfect town to host a Women’s Empowerment Event like the Murphys Witch Walk, because the audience is already built-in and just looking for another reason to come to Murphys. 

So, that’s the math behind both the driving force of Murphys tourism and Murphys Witch Walk participants. 

...Thank you for your continued support of the event and the town. 

Respectfully, 

Murphys Witch Walk Festival Management

Teresa Rodriguez - The Potted Plum and Co-Owner

Christopher Buttner - Murphys Witch Walk Marketing and Creative Director and Co-Owner