I went to the Oklahoma City Farmers Public Market for a completely normal reason: I needed garlic.
I’ve been wanting to get some cloves sprouted and growing, so I figured I’d stop by the market, pick up some locally grown garlic, and go about my day. Instead, I walked into the building and discovered I had picked the one weekend when carrying a bunch of garlic around also counted as excellent vampire-defense planning.
The Gothic Market had taken over part of the OKC Farmers Public Market on September 26 and 27, bringing witches, monsters, horror, dark art, candles, crystals, clothing, handmade goods, and all kinds of wonderfully strange stuff into one of Oklahoma City’s oldest public market buildings.
I hadn’t planned on going to a gothic festival. I didn’t even remember seeing the event on Instagram until after I was already there.
Sometimes Oklahoma City plans your Saturday for you.
The Gothic Market Comes to Oklahoma City
The event was Grimoire Academy’s Gothic Market, a traveling horror, Halloween, folklore, and gothic-style marketplace. The Oklahoma City stop ran from noon to 5 p.m. both days inside the OKC Farmers Public Market’s Expo Hall at 311 S Klein Ave.
The organizer’s whole lane is gothic culture, dark fantasy, folklore, classic monsters, horror, and the kind of supernatural shopping that makes complete sense once September starts pretending it is fall in Oklahoma.
The vendor mix leaned into that world pretty hard. There were crystals, candles, fragrances, plushies, herbology-style goods, clothing, handmade pieces, and darker art. Gothic or formal clothing was encouraged, but not required, which is good because I showed up dressed for produce.
One detail I appreciated: the event’s vendor rules prohibit AI-generated artwork. For a market built around artists, makers, and odd little creative corners, that rule fits. This kind of event works best when it feels like actual humans made the strange things on the tables.
Meanwhile, I Was Just Trying to Buy Garlic
The funny part is that the regular Saturday farmers market was still happening too.
The Farmers Public Market’s normal Saturday market runs downstairs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., while the Gothic Market started at noon and went until 5. So for a little while, the building was doing both jobs at once.
Downstairs, people were buying produce, meat, honey, canned goods, and the practical stuff that public markets were made for.
Upstairs, Oklahoma City was apparently preparing for vampires.
Walking through a gothic market while holding fresh garlic felt either very smart or mildly offensive to half the room. Fortunately, nobody turned into a bat while I was there.
The garlic did make it home. I’m still deciding whether to plant all of it or keep a few cloves by the front door, just in case. You can never be too careful.
A Pretty Perfect Building for It
The more I thought about it, the more the venue made sense.
The OKC Farmers Public Market opened on June 16, 1928, after businessman John J. Harden worked with the city to create a centralized place for farmers to sell produce. Before that, trucks and wagons were crowding downtown streets because there was no single public market setup for all that business.
Harden built the 40,000-square-foot market on the former site of Delmar Gardens amusement park, which is already a pretty Oklahoma sentence.
The first floor was designed for farmers and food vendors. The upstairs was used for entertainment from the beginning, hosting dances, boxing matches, roller skating, and concerts over the years. Count Basie, Hank Williams, Hank Thompson, and Jim Reeves are all tied to the building’s long event history.
So nearly a century later, filling the place with witches, vampires, horror vendors, and gothic shoppers does not feel as strange as it probably sounds.
The upstairs has always been for the weird stuff.
Okay, maybe Count Basie would not have phrased it that way.
That is what I like about the Farmers Public Market in general. It still does the thing it was built to do. You can show up on a Saturday and buy food directly from local producers. But the same property also hosts concerts, weddings, antique shopping, festivals, and whatever else Oklahoma City decides to throw at it.
Some days you leave with vegetables.
Some days you leave with garlic and a reminder that spooky season has started.
The Gothic Market was not just another pumpkin-and-skeleton situation. It had more of a handmade horror, folklore, dark art, and supernatural shopping feel, which made it stand apart from the usual October calendar. And it worked especially well inside a building that has been part of Oklahoma City since 1928.
I went looking for garlic.
I found garlic.
I also found witches, vampires, monsters, candles, handmade oddities, and an entire gothic marketplace I had apparently forgotten was happening.
Not a bad Saturday at the farmers market.
