The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: A Hall of Flowers Santa Rosa 2024 Recap
I attended Hall of Flowers 2024 in Santa Rosa on September 20th, but not the 21st. That is to say, I witnessed the industry day but not the historical market and festival day which saw over 10,000 attendees. I heard the party was epic and while I had plenty of epic smoking experiences myself at Hall of Flowers, that’s really nothing special to report. I want to lay out the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from Hall of Flowers 2024. Thanks to Rama, Chris, David, and the whole team at Hall of Flowers for such a consistently mind blowing event that anyone can enter – even for half the event like me – and have a telling experience about the cannabis industry.
The Good Good:
I saw one breeder with flower samples that gave me faith. He showed me something that had a nose that was unfamiliar, which is the first time I’ve had that experience at Hall of Flowers. That cut was the Afghan White Gold by Float Genetics.
Maybe it’s because I’m finally paying attention, but this year I saw some Zeta being run – including by the Float Genetics crew.
Zeta is Sage x OG Kush and all I want to say is that whoever brings it to market as dry sift first will benefit. I love the profile of Zeta, but when mjgas50 asked me which one I wanted to sample, I knew I had to choose the White Afghan Gold instead of the Zeta. That’s how different it was.
I was so happy to stumble across that corner of the show. Another corner of the show that I was happy to see was The Farm and the Feminine live highlighting the women in the cannabis industry. Many familiar faces that deserve to be recognized.
I sat down for some interesting speaker panels including this one with Seth, Angela, and Jocelyn which prompted me to post again on linkedin. The Highest Critic has a Linkedin – follow and tag it when you share this post :).
I’ll say the real highlight of the day was in the evening. That evening, I saw cannabis and food melding together in ways I had only dreamed of before at the CCELL, Sonoma Hills Farm, and Budist event. While I wasn’t one of the formally scheduled Budists working that night (Alex and Christina were on deck), I was graciously allowed to tag along, do some taste testing, and blab about my findings.
Pairing vapes and food might not seem like the most natural way to do a cannabis and food pairing but something about it is honestly super high tech and future looking. This is the type of food event that can be done indoors or outdoors in many jurisdictions. It can be done with people of all experience levels. I cringe at the amount of lithium being disposed of for this type of event but those are often the bad and ugly costs of pushing the needle forward.
I went to some of the HoF afterparties, which are also taking up the cannabis and food pairing not infusion battlecry. Team Elite Genetic had a delicious event featuring their tasty cultivars and tasty food. Shoutout to Brady for the invite. Surprise, I found some Budists at that event, too.
The “Good”: The twice yearly search for the longest flowering cultivars on the market
To me, this counts as bad; however, others may see it as good. Every time I’m at a cannabis industry event, I go to all of the booths and ask them what their longest flowering cultivar is.
Gramlin is still the winner by several days with their 90 day flowering cultivar that is used in their “sativa” vapes. I’m going to throw this sentence out there that is meant to be picked up by anyone – but will make academics’ toes curl. Generally speaking, your “sativa” plant is going to have a more “sativa” high if you let it flower for longer. That being said, almost everyone who is reading this that thinks they have a “sativa” plant is actually growing an “indica dominant” plant. Hard stop.
To all the people I’ve talked to that turn around and tell me that they don’t take anything to 80 days or longer because they want to avoid giving their customers anxiety attacks… that’s a valid ass point that deserves a lot of future research.
Everyone with Sour Diesel at their booth at Hall of Flowers that I talked to thinks that Sour Diesel finishes before 77 days, while most forum posts surrounding that mythical cut from the days it was being run commonly put the flowering time at 84 days. What difference can a week make in the end flower? Take my word when I say: A LOT.
There are cannabis cultivars, I’ve given up hope of ever seeing at Hall of Flowers. I’ve also had to make a new list of cannabis cultivars that I’ve given up hope seeing in their proper mature form on the legal market. This is one clear bifurcation between the cannabis industry and the cannabis culture but certainly not the only one.
The Bad: A supposed record for “Most joints lit at one time”
While Hall of Flowers made a big point of saying this was the first open to the public day of Hall of Flowers – I distinctly recall an open-to-the-public day a few years ago. I had to leave so I missed out on the second day and public smoking record attempt to secure the record for “most joints lit at one time.” Based on the videos I saw, Hall of Flowers really put together a great outdoor sesh featuring Wiz Khalifa and hopefully not just KK only. To call it the largest synchronized 4:20 lightup in history though is just unnecessary hyperbole and frankly disrespectful to the legacy events that actually serve as the largest gathering points of cannabis culture – the ones that people don’t have to pay to attend. I’m talking about the Hippie Hills, the Washington Square Parks, the type of events that some of these suits might benefit from attending.
When it comes to cannabis brands and cannabis adjacent brands making ridiculous claims that the cannabis culture immediately susses out as false, this is just par for the course. Hall of Flowers claiming that their gathering of industry joint smokers had larger numbers than 4:20PM at 4/20 at any of the truly historical actual cannabis culture events is a laughable claim. With a claim like that, you’d expect the Guinness World Book of Records to be there; instead, the brands involved tooted their horn on PRNewsWire with blatant disregard for the seshes that came before.
It’ll be awesome to see another giant outdoor sesh at Hall of Flowers 2025 but to even want to claim that it’s the largest highlights the disconnect between industry and culture which I see over and over again at these events which are 99% about the cannabis industry, and the 1% of the cannabis culture that is present is walking around as attendees not standing behind a booth.
The Ugly: I found nonMETRC cannabinoids at Hall of Flowers
I want to call out an experience that I had at a well known edible company’s booth which was proudly advertising single source “strain specific” edibles which were also infused with minor cannabinoids. When I asked which cultivar they extracted the minor cannabinoids from… I learned that they were coming from the offMETRC, hemp side of things.
A few weeks later, I learned from some industry insiders that synthetically derived minor cannabinoids from CBD distillate made from real hemp flowers is actually what I should be hoping for in this case…. In reality, some companies have taken to using synthetic CBD straight from China, running the reaction in the lab to create whatever target minor cannabinoid, and adding it. While I’d like to think that licensed companies in California are not doing that, I’m not holding my breath and this absolutely warrants further investigation.
The Ugly: The POS’s holding up compliant cannabis sales
Walking through Hall of Flowers on Day 1 and finding booth after booth not yet set up to sell samples was frankly disappointing. I had to walk away without being able to buy samples of several cultivars I really wanted to try. On the other hand, I finally got my hands on some coveted buyers boxes and what a rigmarole that was which highlights the absolute bullshit “rules for thee not rule for me” way that the whole B2B event model clashes with DCC’s inconsistent interpretations of rules. Sometimes, the brand hadn’t figured out the logistics of getting all of their samples to the event on the right day. Many told me specifically that the cultivar that I wanted wouldn’t be available until Day 2. Frankly speaking, that is to be expected and many brands were actually pivoted to trying to make money doing sales on Day 2. Good for them, bad for me.
What wasn’t expected though was the horrible experience I had trying to make California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) compliant purchases through the variety of cannabis point of sale and marketplace systems. That is a future article that very much extends to the dispo but I am acutely aware that the issue extends to these one off events. I want to take a moment to tip the hat to every single person behind a booth staring at a non CCPA compliant POS system who decided to make it work within the legal framework instead of following bullshit rules which are more restrictive than they need to be for no good reason.
Being able to buy samples in a streamlined fashion is always a plus – and Hall of Flowers has ebbed and flowed in how well they provide that experience. From what I can tell, they do their best every time and while the process has changed nearly every time, business still gets done. The POS partners aren’t always ready or capable, and what’s really changed over the last several years is how the DCC interprets and enforces their rules.
I just want to point out that the DCC rules say explicitly that ID just needs to be checked, not given up and stored for datamining. So whether you think the pieces of shits in this logistical nightmare are the POS’s, the DCC, clueless employees, clueless managers, clueless founders, or the depressing economic forecast… it doesn’t matter because efficiency is most certainly not being had. The ugliness of the beast behind the cannabis industry is showing its indifferent, cut-early, false-claim making, highperbole accepting form and I’m going to go ahead and call it out. There are real harms from POS’s ignoring privacy laws and synthetically derived cannabinoids and to see them both at a hallmark industry event turns me into an ugly person.
/endrant.
Founder of The Highest Critic
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