High Times magazine’s SoCal Cannabis Cup, which kicked off Friday at the National Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino, is offering guests a unique kind of DIY experience.

Guests can enter a tent with marijuana flowers in hand and walk out with organic, concentrated hash oil — better known as rosin — that they’ve pressed themselves. Or they can just stay inside and smoke it.

The “Live Solventless Experience” is one of hundreds of booths at the three-day festival, which also features concerts, a grow room, carnival rides, food trucks, educational seminars and more.

The tent is the creation of Sho Productions out of Los Angeles, which makes the gear that presses cannabis flowers into rosin.

Cannabis enthusiasts started the method at home with hair straighteners, heating pressed flowers between wax paper until they extracted its thick, THC-rich oils.

Today, Sho Productions cofounder Vinny Daccotti said customers are increasingly turning to rosin as a way to consume their cannabis, since it doesn’t involve any of the chemicals typically used in hash oil extraction — which makes headlines far too often when a home-run lab catches explodes.

“Rosin is becoming more sought-after at the connoisseur level,” Daccotti said, with today’s savvy cannabis consumers increasingly concerned about what they’re putting in their bodies.

  • A Rosin representative shows a new solvent-free press which turns flower into hash oil at High Times SoCal Cannabis Cup in San Bernardino on Friday, April 21, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register, SCNG)

That’s a particularly important distinction in California right now, Daccotti said, since the state hasn’t yet rolled out regulations for manufacturing and testing. That means backyard manufacturers can cut corners and use whatever chemicals they want, he said, with the consumer none the wiser.

Daccotti can talk about the science behind what they’re doing for hours, as he shows off the latest double-roll cannabis press technology and an ice water hash extraction process that looks a bit like a miniature high school science lab. But when it comes down to it, he said, it’s a simple process that offers both recreational consumers and serious medical patients another option for accessing the benefits of cannabis.

Check back at TheCannifornian.com for more coverage of the festival throughout the weekend.

If you go

• Who: Anyone 18 and older, though you’ll need to have (or get at the event) a doctor’s recommendation for medical marijuana to enter the main festival grounds
• What: High Times SoCal Cannabis Cup, with a competition for the best cannabis products, concerts, career fair, seminars, cooking competition, food trucks and more.
• When: 1 p.m. to late April 22 and 23
• Where: National Orange Show Events Center at 689 S E St., San Bernardino
• How much: One-day passes start at $55 or $25 after 5 p.m. with the codeword “SUNSET” online
• More information and tickets: At the gate or at cannabiscup.com/socal#tickets-