PHOTO: The High Times Cannabis Cup, a pro-marijuana event, has been held 25 times previously, but this year's event is dwarfing all previous attendance records. (image courtesy of High Times)
This week culminating Sunday, April 20, Denver is hosting a trio of pro-marijuana or 420 lifestyle events: the High Times Cannabis Cup, Big Industry Show and The Galleria Glass Exhibition, altogether comprising a five-day event that commemorates the 420 lifestyle around April 20 every year.
Denver has been a rising star in the events industry over the last 10 years, attracting 266,000 delegates in 2012 compared to 92,000 a decade earlier. The spending by delegates to events in Denver in 2012 reached $530 million, a huge gain for the city's economy.
The combined 420 events were originally expected to draw 15,000 attendees to Denver April 16-20. At that rate, the events would have accounted for about 5 percent of the city's convention and event traffic for the entire year. Now the attendance figures have dwarfed previous events and estimates.
The High Times Cannabis Cup set attendance records in 2013 with an estimated 10,000-15,000 attendees at Denver's Exdo Event Center. In February, event organizers announced that the rising attendance figures had forced a change in venue, to the Denver Mart, as the projected number of attendees rose to 30,000. On April 15, organizers announced that the event had sold out the new venue, with more than double previous records and the estimated attendance number up to 37,000.
The first two days of the combined show are dedicated to the business of the marijuana industry, wholesalers, manufacturers and smoke shop owners. On the third day, the event will open to the public for the High Times/Galleria Glass Exhibition. And days four and five will be the 26th annual High Times Cannabis Cup, a cannabis expo that will feature seminars on cultivation and activism with editors from High Times magazine and other figures involved in the marijuana legalization movement.
And it is a private event, so smoking marijuana will be legal at the event, apparently a big drawing card. In 25 Cannabis Cup events, it is the first in the post-legalization environment.
The legalization of recreational marijuana is throwing a powerful extra ingredient into the events industry and to the tourism industry at large. In early March a partnership agreement was announced between The BIG Industry Show and Dunkxchange, a trade exhibition for the sneaker industry. The agreement will bring the footwear expo into the mix with the three other events.
Dunkxchange, representing the $48 million footwear industry, had an expected draw of 30,000 delegates itself. The combined economic clout of these events representing their respective industries is reaching staggering levels.
And the legalization of marijuana has even been tied lately to increased applications to Colorado colleges and universities…
As the American ambivalence to the dreaded (or adored, depending on which sector we are referring to) weed surfaces in the new legalization environment, no one can predict entirely where events are headed or how legalization will play out. New questions are generated faster than the longstanding questions are answered.
One thing is very clear. The revenue potential of legalized marijuana is far greater than predictions. For pot sellers, business in booming, and the economic ramifications are radiating in waves throughout Colorado and beyond.
USA Today reported that Colorado brought in $3.5 million in taxes and fees on marijuana in January, $2 million for recreational pot and $1.5 for medical marijuana. All sales include a 15 percent excise tax to be used for school construction and a 10 percent sales tax.
In his budget, Colorado's Governor John Hickenlooper estimated that revenue from pot sales next year will be $610 million.
The overall effect on tourism can only be speculated on at this point, but pot shops are reporting that half of their customers are from out of state. This week's event could provide substantial further evidence to fuel that speculation. Sunday, April 20, is Easter Sunday, normally a slow day for downtown Denver hotels. If hotels are sold out, it will provide powerful evidence of the drawing power of pot.
Meanwhile, the University of Colorado is reporting a 20-30 percent spike in applications.
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