We asked cannabis industry experts up and down California: What’s the one event you won’t miss in 2017?
Here are the conferences, festivals and parties they recommend making plans to attend.
“There are many great cannabis events that take place every year. From a business prospective, I always attend the MJ Biz conference. There are two a year and I always attend.” — David Dinenberg, CEO of Los Angeles-based KIND Financial, which develops financial software for the industry
Details: Spring conference is May 16-19 in Washington, D.C.; MJBizconference.com
“The Emerald Cup! Since we are judges, you know we’ll be there to announce the awards again.” — Swami Chaitanya and Nikki Lastreto, who grow the Swami Select cannabis line in the hills of Mendocino County
“The Emerald Cup is Northern California’s premier destination for medicinal marijuana, while advancing the concept of sustainable, outdoor farming. Its reputation is firmly solidified as the largest, most respected, organic, outdoor, medicinal cannabis competition in the world. As a group, The Emerald Cup prides itself in bringing together experts and educators in the cannabis field to our fellow farmers, patients, and patrons each year. It is a community celebration that has grown to become a global movement honoring the year’s finest, organic, sun-grown, medicinal cannabis harvest.” — Anthony Wagner, executive director of the Southern California Responsible Growers Council
Details aren’t yet available on the 2017 festival, but stay up to date here: TheEmeraldCup.com
Learn more about the 2016 festival: thecannifornian.com/cannabis-business/emerald-cups-weed-fest-celebrates-things-cannabis
“This year, we can look forward to many cannabis conferences aimed at the business market,” said Kandice Hawes, executive director of the Orange County chapter of NORML. Her top picks: The Own, Operate Invest conference put on by Lake Forest-based MJIC and the High Times Business Summit.
Details: MJIC’s conference is Jan. 21 in Irvine and High Times magazine’s summit is Jan. 19-20 in Los Angeles
“One of our favorite events is the New West Summit which happens in the fall. It’s a great confluence of attendees from all corners of the industry, informative sessions and great networking.” — Jim Patterson, CEO of Eaze, a Bay Area company that makes technology for delivery services
Details: Slated for Oct. 12-14 in Oakland; NewWestSummit.com
“Seeing the smiles on the faces of my organic, in-the-sun, small-grower neighbors as they survive another year.” — Robert Sutherland, cofounder of the Humboldt-Mendocino Marijuana Advocacy Project
“We’ve doubled the number of employees here in the past year. We’ve got a great team of smart, creative, diverse and hard-working people. I like being around them. So I am already looking forward to our 2017 employee holiday party. It’s going to be hard to beat what we did last week . . . but trust me, it’s going to be a great time.” — Doug Francis, CEO of Irvine-based Weedmaps, which connects consumers with dispensaries and delivery services
Details: You gotta join their teams to get in on these ones
Staff writers Lisa M. Krieger and Will Houston contributed to this report.
