Alive! Expo at 20 : Still Nurturing Wellness and Wisdom in Atlanta
May 01, 2025 06:00AM ● By Diane Eaton
Patrycja Towns
Disclosure: Natural Awakenings is and has been a sponsor of Alive! Expo for several years.
In 2005, Patrycja Towns felt that the Atlanta community was being kept in the dark.
The founder of Alive! Expo, a weekend-long consumer health and wellness show now in its 20th year, had seven years’ experience in the natural products industry, working for natural supplements and body care shops and serving as director of retail sales for Better Nutrition magazine. She had been absorbing a lot of valuable information about health and wellness at trade shows, symposiums and educational lectures—information that most consumers weren’t exposed to. Those insights had transformed her thinking about what she was consuming every day.
At the time, Whole Foods was not a household name, Sprouts Market had yet to open its first brick-and-mortar shop, and big chain grocery stores wouldn’t even think of labeling dedicated sections of their stores “Organic.” There were only a few independent health food stores throughout metro Atlanta. “There wasn’t even the Vitamin Shoppe,” says Towns. The only people buying natural products were, in her words, “the hippies and the crunchy people … the people that had already been living the lifestyle for years.”
She saw a valuable need and decided to fill it. “That is why I launched the show. I was so passionate about the industry, and I was learning so much, and I wanted to help pass that education to consumers” so they could make more informed choices, says Towns.
Matthew Hill
Towns launched Alive! Expo that year with the help of a business partner, who she bought out a year later. The first event drew an impressive attendance of 1,500 people. Still, it seemed to Towns that Atlanta wasn’t quite ready for it at the time. The industry was so new to the general public. “They didn’t know what it was. There was no awareness … They didn’t [recognize] the value of healthy living yet.”
But, thanks to Town’s marketing savvy and tireless efforts, the public soon caught on. She steadily built the event, year after year, eventually attracting more than 20,000 attendees during the show’s peak in 2015 and 2016. Its growth was bolstered significantly by partnerships with major TV outlets, including NBC, CBS, Publix and Spectrum Organics, which Towns had forged.
But then, corporate sponsors started backing out. The reason? According to Towns, corporate restructuring pressured stations to prioritize pharmaceutical advertising dollars instead of local partnerships with the wellness industry or health-and-wellness events. As a result, attendance dropped by nearly 50 percent the following year and fell further in subsequent years. Attendance in 2025’s Alive! Expo is expected to be similar to last year’s—around 3,000.
The Industry Evolves
In two decades, the natural products industry has changed a lot—and mostly in ways that don’t support independent wellness entrepreneurs. “The majority of the companies in the natural products industry that have always participated with us … are no longer owned independently.” They’ve been bought out by multinationals like Proctor and Gamble, Colgate and Clorox. As a rule, corporations that size simply don’t participate in small health and wellness events; they only sponsor events that draw huge crowds, like marathons, sporting events and music concerts.
Still, the wellness market has grown significantly. These days, almost 20 percent of Americans buy natural food products, whether from dedicated health food stores or from big box stores and national grocery store chains. That’s up from 9 percent 15 years ago. Towns says the biggest growth in the industry has been in the food segment “because everybody has to eat.” The highest percentage of converts were made up of new moms, according to Natural Foods Merchandiser magazine. More people are getting diagnosed with celiac disease or are gluten-intolerant, so they often pivot to a healthier lifestyle. Another large group choosing natural foods and wellness products are people who discover they have cancer and they’re willing to do more to improve their chances of beating the disease. Millennials and Gen Zers are more likely to prioritize health and wellness than previous generations as well, according to studies by the Food Information Council.
Then COVID Happened
Towns acknowledges that Alive! Expo is facing headwinds—not just from shifting industry alliances but from economic pressures and changes in consumer behavior post-COVID. The COVID pandemic “almost put a nail in the coffin” of consumer attendance, says Towns. Ever since then, the entire industry of indoor events has shriveled, she says, since more people are hesitant to attend public events held indoors.
And the threat of fallout from today’s volatile global economy hurts the industry as well since countless ingredients of natural products are imported from overseas, and tariffs could impede or prevent access to them. Towns also points out that, typically, when companies are feeling the financial squeeze of a down economy, marketing and events are the first expenses to be cut. And that can further shrink the pond of companies that can bring their wellness products and services to events.
Vendors Thrive
Dr. Gez Agolli
(Photo: Forced Media)
Still, vendors and participants alike continue to thrive at the Alive! Expo. Progressive Medical Center, an integrative functional medicine wellness center in Dunwoody, has been an avid sponsor of Alive! Expo almost every year since its launch in 2005. “We like it because it gives us an opportunity to educate up-and-coming health enthusiasts who want to learn about natural, functional and integrative medicine,” says Dr. Gez Agolli, the company’s co-founder and managing director. “It’s always rewarding to have a conversation with someone who’s suffering … to give them some hope and to help them,” he says.
“I think people need some kind of community to come together to share and inspire each other and hopefully galvanize a movement into natural health,” says Agolli. “We’re helping Atlantans rethink their health.”
“Alive! gives people a way to grab the reins themselves and really drill deep into the reality of how easy it is to control their own health … A lot of the processed foods in grocery stores that are marketed as healthy are just terrible,” he says, “and people just watch a commercial and go, ‘Well, it must be healthy.’ … We need shows like this to remove the blinders.”
Hill says Virtual Imaging gets to talk to 30 to 40 percent of Alive Expo’s attendees. “It gives people who haven’t pulled the trigger yet an opportunity to talk one-on-one and get in-depth information.” Many of them ultimately schedule a screening with the company, he says.
Expanding the Mission
These days, it seems that when the going gets tough, the tough adapt. For the previous 19 years Alive! Expo was strictly aimed at bringing information, products and services pertaining to natural and “green” products and eco-friendly services. But for the 2025 event, Towns has expanded the mission to embrace all things related to health, wellness and wholesome lifestyle in order to broaden its reach and impact. As a result, a wider circle of health and wellness professionals—from functional doctors to holistic lifestyle brands—will be on hand to teach and inform.
The changes extend to ticketing. For the first time, the show is offering free general admission with a downloaded advance ticket. At the door, tickets cost $10 per adult per day.
The Future Has Yet to Be Written
Towns is uncertain about the future of Alive! Expo. “I would love to continue this event for the next 20 years,” she says. “But I honestly truly have no idea what our survival rate is with the change in the economy and industry.” The expo has focused on “mom and pop” vendors, she says, but they, too, face uncertainty these days.
Still, the need is clear, and Towns is dedicated to getting information out to the public. She worries about a future where natural products only come from a few conglomerates—and most buyers aren’t aware of the changes made to products behind the scenes. “I would never ever buy a [popular lip balm brand] now,” she said. “Even though… it still lists the same ingredients… They are just not the same quality ingredients.”
“Do your due diligence,” she says. “Read the labels. Do your research,” she implores.
For participants, the Alive! Expo isn’t just a shopping trip—it’s a rare opportunity to learn, connect and expand your options in a space designed for exploration and empowerment. “It’s a fantastic community of like-minded, positive, proactive, healthy people, with just a myriad of products and opportunities to really take control of your health and be the person that your future self would be proud of,” says Hill. ❧
Alive! Expo 2025 will take place May 31 and June 1 at Gas South Convention Center, located at 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway in Duluth. General admission tickets are free if downloaded from the website in advance. For tickets and more information, visit AliveExpo.com.
