On Being a Vendor at Be Well Philly

A note from Dr. Ash · June 2026 Every year, Philadelphia Magazine puts on Be Well Philly - a festival of wellness brands, fitness studios, food makers, nutritionists, and health practices, all sharing one floor for the people who actually keep this city well. Fishtown Medicine was a vendor in 2025 and again in 2026. A few honest impressions from being there.

A proving ground for new Philadelphia wellness brands

Be Well Philly is half "established Philly wellness brands you already know" and half "new founders trying their first community-facing day." Standing among them, vendor to vendor, you can feel it. It is a real launchpad. Plenty of practices and brands in this city had their first crowd-facing day at Be Well Philly. Some of them are now household names. That mix - new alongside veteran - is what makes the floor feel alive. For us, being a vendor means showing up the same way we show up in the office. We talk to people. We answer questions about Direct Primary Care, longevity medicine, hormones, ApoB, sleep, the things people came in already wondering about. No pitch, no hard sell. Just being a neighborhood doctor in a different setting for a day.

A community, not a market

The thing the festival captures that a magazine article cannot: who is actually doing this work in Philly. The yoga teacher two booths down. The herbalist who has been at it for fifteen years. The new founder whose first product is in tester boxes on the table. We were all there for the same reason - because we believe in what we do and we wanted the community to see it up close. There is a particular pleasure in spending a day next to other Philadelphians who are also trying to help people feel better. You compare notes between waves of attendees. You learn what is working for the studio across the aisle. You meet the people you have been hearing about for years from your own patients. It is a working day for all of us, but it is also a kind of city-wide reunion.

What it tells you about wellness in Philly

The Be Well Philly crowd is health-curious, mostly skeptical, and genuinely interested. They will ask questions. They will compare what you say to what they read online. They will push back, in the best possible way. For a practice like ours - one that treats every visit as a real conversation - that is the right audience. The people who care enough to ask are the people who get the most out of preventive medicine. We came home from both years with new patient relationships, but more than that, with a better sense of the broader ecosystem of people working on health in this city. The festival is more than a marketing event. It is the community taking stock of itself. If you came by the Fishtown Medicine table in 2025 or 2026 and we talked - thank you. We would love to keep that conversation going.

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About Be Well Philly: an annual wellness festival produced by Philadelphia Magazine's Be Well Philly editorial team. More at phillymag.com/be-well-philly.