Green Street Festival, A Cannabis-Infused SXSW, Kicks off in L.A. May 13-14

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, scrap your plans for next weekend. That is, unless you’re already planning on hitting up the Green Street Festival.

The inaugural event is going down on May 13 and 14 in iconic downtown L.A., with organizers aiming to make it “the largest gathering of the cannabis community on the planet, with a vision of eventually hosting hundreds of thousands of guests directly in the heart of the city.”

Think: a cannabis-infused South by Southwest.

Green Street Festival was announced in January, and is being put on by the entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk and Green Street, the cannabis business he acquired in 2017. It will “feature the city’s top restaurants, the state’s leading Cannabis brands, and the world’s top entertainers all brought together to celebrate the Cannabis community,” the announcement said.

“People want to either be educated or entertained. We are going to do both,” Vaynerchuk said in the announcement at the time.

Organizers said that the festival “will be anchored by the 8 story, 70,000 sqft, cannabis event and business epicenter located at 718 S. Hill Street featuring vendors, educational speakers, games, hotels & food activations from our awesome neighbors.”

The artist Cody Hudson was tasked with creating “the visual identity of Green Street Festival.”

“It’s been a wonderful project! Being able to have my vision for the festival’s graphics and aesthetics help to transform the space and everything inside of it, I’m just really looking forward to the ways we’ll be bringing cannabis, food and music together in one space and tying them all together visually,” Hudson said in January.

The event is only available to individuals 21 and older. And while cannabis will not be sold on site, the organizers said that they “have partnered with some of California’s best Dispensaries and Delivery providers in order to accommodate compliant consumption including: MMD, Buddha Co., HYPERWOLF, People’s, Alpaca Club, Originals Los Angeles, Compassionate Caregivers, Downtown Patient Group, Haven, Jungle Boys.”

“We have worked with our friends and neighbors to create multiple consumption areas around the festival,” the organizers said in the announcement. “There is a large smoking area right next to the registration area for the event, another on the 2nd floor balcony, and another area outside the Majestic Downtown Theater during the concert.”

In addition, there will be more than 50 of some of the best known cannabis brands showcased at the festival: Asterisk, BLOOM, Boveda, Brothers Broadleaf, Canna+Rise, Cannabistry, Absolute Xtracts, Farmer and the Felon, Hi-Fi Sessions, Loud + Clear, Claybourne Co., Clone Goddess, Country Crypto Cannabis Club, Dabwoods, Dispense App, Dutchie, Emerald Road, Fable, Headset, Hemper, Hempire, High Rise, Highsman, Ispire, Jungle Boys, Just Chocolate, Kalya Extracts, Kan+Ade, KYLE, Leaflink, Legal Pothead, Lithouse, Mills Nutrients, MJ Arsenal, Mohave Cannabis Co., Originals, Puffco, Raw Garden, Rove, Select, Sessions Goods, SHO, Source Cannabis, Sputnik Cannabis, STIIIZY, SUBSTANCE, SUPHERB, Surfside, The Cure Company, The Kind Pen, Vacation Cannabis Co., Waxnax, and Zanna.

“Weed is the headliner of this festival. We’ve been to countless Cannabis events across the country and we as attendees want to smoke weed with our friends and check in with the community, eat delicious food, and then be entertained… in that order” Rama Mayo, Green Street President, said in the event’s announcement back in January.

Here’s a rundown of the festival itinerary, per the event’s website: the first night, May 14, “is a private, VIP event that includes Dinner from 6pm to 10pm and is hosted by Gary Vee & Harry Mack,” while the second night, May 15, “is the main day and features our full lineup of brands, food, and more awesome stuff to do at Green Street plus the full concert lineup at The Majestic Downtown Theater located at 650 S. Springs Street LA CA 90014.”

Educators and entertainers who will be appearing at the festival include: Gary Vaynerchuk, Juicy J, Harry Mack, DāM-Funk, DJ Nu-Mark, Full Crate, Monalisa, Thinkspace Projects, and Mike Glazer.