By Benjie Cooper
IG: @nuglifenews
YouTube: Lucid’s Vlog
HempCon rolled into San Bernadino with their SoCal Smoke Fest event during the Memorial Day weekend, taking over the Damus venue at the NOS Events Center with plenty of vendors, live music, games, product deals, and giveaways.
And while recreational marijuana is legal for adults 21 years and older in California, HempCon is a medicinal cannabis event and requires attendees to have a doctor’s recommendation for entry. But for those who came without one, a booth was set up near the entrance where people could obtain the certification needed for admission to the event.
Once inside the gates, HempCon guests were greeted by a dune buggy bearing the Centurion Extracts logo, a variety of food booths, and an outside stage for music performances and freebies.
Inside the Damus building, a grid of vendor booths blanketed the entire venue’s concrete floor, offering up their latest and greatest products in the form of cannabis flowers, seeds, edibles, tinctures, concentrates, artwork, clothing, and accessories.
Some vendors had arcade skill games like Stacker and claw machines set up at their booths which were stocked with prizes like vape cartridges and bags of cannabis instead of stuffed animals.
Claw machine at the G-17 booth
From the main stage, longtime HempCon host, Medicinal Mike entertained the crowds with jokes, games, and an abundance of free cannabis. With a box of vendor-donated prizes on-hand, Mike quizzed the audience for their cannabis knowledge and played participation games like a smoking-buddy version of the Dating Game.
Some participants earned prizes for dancing or singing a few seconds of a favorite tune.
Kid Gotti and a variety of other hip-hop acts entertained guests throughout the weekend from the outside stage and tossed out more freebies into the audience.
A competition where vendor products are judged and trophies are handed out is usually part of the HempCon weekend, but that element was absent from the event this time.
The next HempCon event is the Marketing and Business Expo and is scheduled for June 15-17 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Arizona.
