Psychedelic Wellness Expo Debuts in Denver Later This Month

The Open Minds Expo is heading to Denver next week for people who are psyched about getting the most out of their mushrooms.

Held at the Jonas Bros. Building at 1037 Broadway on Saturday, November 23, and Sunday, November 24, the expo has been in the works for over a year, according to Open Minds CEO Jon Kamin. Following an expo in Toronto in June, Kamin expects a turnout of more than 1,000 participants in Denver, the first city to decriminalize psilocybin.

Since Colorado voters legalized the therapeutic use of magic mushrooms in 2022, psilocybin facilitator training programs on psychedelic therapy treatments have sprouted up across the state, including Elemental Psychedelics, Naropa University, the Changa Institute and InnerTrek, all of which aim to provide in-depth education about psychedelic-assisted therapies (PAT), trauma-informed care and spiritual integration.

The Natural Medicine Division held a final rulemaking meeting for license application fees last month for parties interested in operating natural medicine facilities, with the state application window opening on December 31, so Colorado may see its first healing centers start to pop up in spring of 2025.

The Open Minds Expo aims to capitalize on Colorado’s new psychedelic laws and will provide resources from around the globe to anyone curious about psychedelic wellness therapies. Some of those new laws allow for adults to share or gift certain natural psychedelics, but as a strictly no-shroom show, the Open Minds Expo won’t sell actual psychedelic products to consumers, instead focusing on the education surrounding the importance of practitioner techniques.

“If you can make people more comfortable with it, they're much more likely to be open to the suggestion of participating. And with that participation, I'm quite comfortable saying a lot of people can get healing that they can't otherwise get,” Kamin says. “That's amazing for the community and for humanity.”

Headline speakers at the convention include licensed psychotherapists, treatment coaches and founders of psychedelic treatment retreats, all of whom will offer unique perspectives on psychedelic treatments. Conversation topics range from issues like psychedelic integration therapy to picking the right retreat and ketamine clinics, but they all hold a shared message of destigmatizing psychedelics so they can be utilized on a personal level, according to Kamin.

Kamin is personally looking forward to hearing from Tracey Tee, founder of Moms on Mushrooms (MOM), an online community and microdosing platform that caters to women undergoing midlife and hormonal changes that could be alleviated through the use of psychedelic treatments. Organizations like MOM are essential for the projected demographic of the expo, according to Kamin. Based on the turnout for the Open Minds event in Toronto, he expects that around 65 percent of attendees will be women, and a majority of them will be 45 or older.

“These are really the people that are driving us,” he says. “It's not for everybody all the time, but we know that a lot of people who are experiencing mental health issues of all different kinds or rooted in trauma have seen so much transformation in their lives from psychedelic therapy.”

The Open Minds Expo also seeks to address the “completely broken” dialogue between practitioners and consumers, says Kamin. He argues that because of the influx of information on psychedelic treatments online, consumers now more than ever must have access to a more personalized and professional education that comes from psychedelic practitioners.

Kamin is excited for the “science, spirituality and self-dosing” exhibition, among the many others, because of how it will cater to the consumer who’s been bombarded with options on how to go about psychedelic wellness treatments. He hopes events like this will lead attendees to pick a licensed practitioner instead of self-medicating with ketamine or psilocybin edibles found on the street.

Other informational sessions will cover breathwork and how psychedelics impact sexuality, and there will be a reenactment of an Indigenous plant medicine ceremony, which Kamin says will be properly represented in order to communicate this lived experience to the wider public.

A single-day ticket to the Open Minds Expo is $70.51 and a two-day ticket is $116.95 until November 21, when prices go up. Purchase tickets and learn more about the schedule on the Open Minds website.