Witches Night Out grows, expands at Glen Carbon's Miner Park

Written by: Billy Woods, Staff Writer

GLEN CARBON — Since starting Witches Night Out five years ago, the Junior Service Club has seen the event grow and expand.

For this season’s event Saturday, vendors were doubled from last year. Roughly 60 vendors were at Glen Carbon’s Miner Park, with some coming from as far as three hours away.
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With more vendor and food options than before, Witches Night Out saw about 500 tickets sold in advance.

“It is a women’s night out to leave the kids and husbands at home,” JSC chairwoman Maria Ferrari said.

Ferrari is one of a handful of chairwomen for JSC, which runs Witches Night Out. Planning for the event starts in May with weekly meetings.

Witches Night Out in Miner Park on Saturday brought out roughly 500 attending 'witches' to have a women's night out.

Junior Service Club president Bethany Stoltz and public relations director Kristi O’Neill attend Witches Night Out on Saturday at Miner Park. The club has hosted the event for five years now.

The club was inspired to start the event five years ago by a similar Witches Night Out event in Kimmswick, Missouri, which draws roughly 7,000 attendees.
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“It’s very rewarding,” Ferrari said. “To have an opportunity to give women a night out and then to raise money too, to put back into the community, is enormous.”

JSC chairwoman Jamie Horstmann added, “Everybody from the groundskeeping on up has made it successful.”

On top of the nearly 60 food and craft vendors, Witches Night Out featured a DJ, spiritual hand readers and axe throwing, courtesy of Riverbend Axe Throwing.

The JSC was assisted by the Village of Glen Carbon, which closed Miner Park for the event and provided a bus shuttle to and from the park, and officers from the Glen Carbon Police Department.

Upon entrance, attending witches received goodie bags with drink tickets and miscellaneous items.

Glen Carbon's Miner Park was the site of Witches Night Out, which has been hosted for five years now by the Junior Service Club.

​Day-of admission tickets were $30, and raffle tickets were $10 each. The JSC prides itself in putting that money back into the Glen-Ed area.

“We do a lot of grants for the community,” Ferrari said. “Everything we do is just to give back to the community.”​

Day-of admission tickets were $30, and raffle tickets were $10 each. The JSC prides itself in putting that money back into the Glen-Ed area.

The main raffle of the night featured an item from every vendor. There was an additional raffle that had a bingo-style twist to it. Participating witches would receive a stamp for visiting different vendors across the park.

While the big attendance numbers are exciting, what the JSC loves to see is the effort the attendees put into their costumes.

“The costumes and the amount of detail is just amazing,” Ferrari said. “Some of these women are more creative than I ever hope to be.”
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​The JSC hopes to see similar numbers one day in Glen Carbon compared to the Kimmswick Witches Night Out in Missouri, which draws thousands of attendees.

​See the original article on The Intelligencer.