Rama Mayo: Hall of Flowers, The Big Reveal - Disney World of Cannabis Experiences

Rama Mayo: Hall of Flowers, The Big Reveal - Disney World of Cannabis Experiences

Rama Mayo: You can sell weed directly from your booth to your fans, you know, and then you'll get the direct ROI right there. So that's like the big change. Bryan Fields: What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of The Dime. I'm Bryan Fields, with me as always is Kellan Finney, and this week we've got a very special guest, Rama Mayo, co-founder of Hall of Flowers. Rama, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today? Rama Mayo: I'm excellent, man. How are you guys? Bryan Fields: I'm doing great. Kellan, how are you doing? Kellan Finney: I'm doing really well, really excited to talk to Rama, really excited to dive into a really heavy West Coast event with Hall of Flowers and learn all there is to learn about it. How are you doing, Bryan? Bryan Fields: Yeah, I'm stoked to learn about the behind-the-scenes of Hall of Flowers. I think Hall of Flowers is commonly known as one of the best premier events in the industry, but I think there are some secrets behind the scenes that Rama's going to spill and let us know how things work. But before we get started, let's put East Coast versus West Coast aside — if the entire United States had beautiful weather, the same weather everywhere, would you have a preference where you'd want to live? If the weather was perfect, where would you live? Rama Mayo: It's a trick question. I mean, for the majority of my life I would have answered what you're going to want to hear — East Coast. But it's such a broad thing, right? I love Cape Cod, we go all the time, we do the beach in New Hampshire, we do the Hamptons a little bit. So if the weather's perfect, sure, I guess we'll say East Coast. But right now I'm living up in Ventura, California — northwest of Boston based, now northwest of LA — and the beach out here is so phenomenal, better than the East Coast beaches: the sand, the water, everything about it. I love Boston, where I'm from, but I don't miss it. What I don't like is the freezing cold or the boiling, drippy hot. So I love it out here. Bryan Fields: Just to be clear, between the three of us, we're going to cut that second part out, so it's only East Coast and everyone knows the truth — we're good with that. So keep it going. Let's talk about Hall of Flowers. For those unfamiliar with it, can you give us a 360 overview of what the event is, and then take us through the origin — what sparked the idea? Rama Mayo: Okay, so up until the show we have coming in September, Hall of Flowers has been a B2B trade show for cannabis — brands and buyers coming together, brands showcasing product, buyers shopping and placing wholesale orders for product to be delivered later. Trade shows exist in every industry on the planet. I used to do a little fashion trade show in New York and Las Vegas called United, and I had friends from that industry who did much bigger shows that I attended and eventually partnered with for Hall of Flowers. My partner is Aaron Levant — Aaron did a trade show called Agenda, which was the number one streetwear and skateboarding show in the world, and now Aaron runs Complexcon and owns Complex Media. His old partner and friend, Danny Diamond, did Liberty Fairs, Capsule, and Project trade shows. So essentially it's me, who did a mini fashion trade show, but I do all the weed stuff, partnered with two big trade show pioneers. I was begging Aaron for years to start the show, and he brought in Danny — that was about six years ago. It's the best of the best trade show operators, plus myself, who speaks weed, if you will. Bryan Fields: In those early days when you were begging them to start it, had you already spoken to brands to let them know this would be helpful? Take us through that first ask — telling someone, 'Trust me with your time and money, come to this show,' the first time ever. Rama Mayo: Candidly, I was laughed out of the room by a lot of people. I went to some big companies in the space and they literally thought I was an idiot — they said no one's ever going to go to a trade show to buy weed. We're not inventing anything; this exists in every industry, bananas have a trade show or whatever. It was very clear to me because I was working — we started Green Street 13 years ago, doing G Pen, the vaporizer brand, back then, and then a bunch of other brands. I've really been doing brand work for cannabis companies for the last 13 years, and halfway through that I thought, we need a show like the ones fashion, art, and music have — these gigantic shows you go to, network at, and so on. It was super clear to me, but a lot of people thought I was crazy and that it would never work. Bryan Fields: As the first year approached, what were your expectations, and how did it actually perform? Rama Mayo: The first year was incredible. My partner Danny is such a phenomenal trade show producer — I could never do what he does. He talks about the flow of the show constantly; we change and edit the floor maps over and over because with thousands of people, the entire show has to flow together across multiple buildings. For the first show we swung for the fences — we invested ridiculous amounts of money, bought all the furniture and displays, owned all the equipment. We brought in amazing investors to help with that. Danny and Aaron have done trade shows for 20 years, so they knew exactly how to make it run perfectly. I remember walking into the show for the first time after working on it for a year and just being shocked — it was stunning. If you build it, they will come, and we actually overdelivered. At the end of the first show, on the last day, we heard applause from the booths — people clapping, this collective feeling in the room. That's what it's all about. All I personally care about is: will you come back again? Whether that's a consumer, a buyer, a brand, press, or an investor — I just care whether they'll want to come back. So we have to make the experience unbelievable every single time, and we keep upping it — even the September show has a whole new component. Bryan Fields: That balance has to be so difficult, because every individual attending has a different success marker — Kellan and I would look for different things at that show. Having something that fits for individuals and companies is complex, because if it doesn't work for one group, they might decide it's not worth their money. But you've clearly delivered and overachieved on expectations — that's an incredible feat. Rama Mayo: Thank you. That's exactly it — every brand has a different sense of whether it was worth it, and every exhibitor, retailer, or press person has a different opinion. One or two or five new accounts could be priceless for someone new; one big chain store could change your life. I keep an internal document I made for when people ask, 'I've got everything ready for Hall of Flowers, how do I do the show?' I want people to win, so I help them — sometimes I find brands don't even have order forms or line sheets yet, because a lot of these founders never went to business school. I didn't either — I started a punk rock record label and just did it because I loved it. We have a lot of that in this industry, alongside more corporate people who've done trade shows before and know how to show up. My partner Danny says something interesting: some brands are already in every door in the market and think they don't need Hall of Flowers, but where else could you meet 300 of your retail accounts in one place? Where else could a CEO or CFO or CMO sit down with buyers they've never had a one-on-one with? We've had brands book 10-to-15-minute meetings all day with their top accounts, and sales went up afterward because it built real relationships on both sides — not just sell-in, but sell-through. Retailers are in a hard spot right now, and there's no better place to work that out. I started Hall of Flowers because I needed it myself, working with these companies. Bryan Fields: That's the nuance that makes it so difficult — that CEO cultivating trust with buyers solidifies relationships that might otherwise go elsewhere. Sticking with your 'secret sheet,' when you look at exhibitors and attendees, do you try to matchmake people, or spot what's missing? Rama Mayo: Yeah, we even have a free platform called Engage that we provide and pay for, for exhibitors — a lot of them don't even know it exists even though we've had it for years. You create an account, upload your products, and it's curated for buyers, who can log in and say, 'I want pre-rolls,' and it filters everyone who has them. It's a matchmaking platform, and the brands that have really used it say it's a game-changer. Then, on the marketing side, I'm constantly connecting people — say a lifestyle brand wants to be involved but doesn't know how, so I'll partner them with a cannabis brand for a capsule collection. Bryan Fields: Are the majority of exhibitors California-based brands, or are brands from other states trying to break into California? And how do they handle sampling? Rama Mayo: Everyone at the show is licensed — there are also accessory and apparel companies participating, which we haven't had until now. It's a fully licensed show; everyone has to submit their licenses. The amount of paperwork Danny handles behind this show is crazy — that's part of why other people don't do these shows, or they do unlicensed, essentially unofficial party-style events instead. We have whole lawyer teams helping with compliance. I've produced events legitimately since I was 15 or 16 — my first big festival was a punk festival in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1993, with 3,000 kids, that my mom dropped me off at. I've booked thousands of shows and tours as a booking agent. This is by far the hardest event I've ever been part of to pull off. Bryan Fields: I can only imagine — that's probably why others avoid it. Going back to the brands, it sounds like a lot of everyone's favorite brands attend. Rama Mayo: Exactly — we have CBX, Backpack Boys, DOA, Wonderbrands, Seven Leaves, and around 150 brands total. We put out a flyer a few weeks ago with the lineup, and it was just the most important brands in the industry. There are still two we don't have confirmed that I'm demon-dialing every day trying to get them to come. Bryan Fields: Have you seen brands absolutely explode, and do you have a feeling about which brand might explode over the next year? Rama Mayo: Yeah — I have a dear friend, Jamie Ferr, one of the founders of Eaze, the delivery platform, who now runs a company called Country Cannabis that I helped spin up. Jamie and I walk the show together and give our own unofficial 'best booth' award. There's a book, 'Where Good Ideas Come From' by Steven Johnson, that talks about how hunches come together to form real opinions — a lot of these brands just have hunches, so we tell them, 'keep going, your booth is sick.' We've seen brands absolutely take off after that. As for predicting the next big one, I actually get that feeling more from visiting retailers and looking at sales data and what's selling on the street — like music, you go find the new band by seeing what the kids are singing along to. Bryan Fields: That's exactly why I asked — those instincts must be innate for you. Rama Mayo: It's the entire reason I started Green Street with my partner Josh. I put out the first records from Jimmy Eat World, At the Drive-In, and The Hives, worked with bands like The Bronx — I saw those bands go from zero to number one, playing shows to 50 people. I got the exact same feeling meeting entrepreneurs in cannabis, like Brandy from Mastermind — I'd think, 'this is Jimmy Eat World, dude,' and see the same trajectory. My hunch is cannabis will go mainstream and won't be illegal forever — I saw the same thing happen with skateboarding, once illegal, now in the Olympics. I have a mentor, Shep Gordon, who explained that cultivators and innovators like DNA Genetics would become the faces of the industry, similar to how celebrity chefs became faces of food. I think the biggest cannabis companies haven't been started yet — an intern today could be CEO of a major company two or three years from now, that's how fast this is moving. My friend Dom, who founded a gigantic brand, was working in a dispensary; Berner was checking IDs at a dispensary. There's no playbook — we're creating the industry right now. Bryan Fields: Why do you think a lot of the early celebrity cannabis brands didn't succeed the way people expected? Rama Mayo: I've done a lot of those celebrity deals. I'd say the main reason is brands didn't know how to use the celebrity yet — they thought one post would create a huge company. My partner Josh always uses the Nike/LeBron example: signing LeBron isn't just the endorsement, it's hiring six full-time people around him, sponsoring the jerseys of every teammate, sending shoes to his friends, buying the commercial that airs after he dunks. It's not just the celebrity, it's all the marketing built around them. A lot of companies would sign a celebrity for their whole marketing budget and give it to one person. Also, people don't want to wear the T-shirt with a rapper's face on it — they want to wear the clothes he's wearing in the video, drive the car, smoke the weed he's smoking — not necessarily buy something just because his face is on it. As Shep Gordon put it, what does this person actually know about growing weed? Would you buy Martha Stewart's weed if she didn't grow her own? It's like a race car driver making spaghetti. But brands also have very limited advertising options in cannabis — my friend Adam Mill told me he's had 29 Instagram accounts shut down. You can't buy YouTube ads, you can barely keep an Instagram account, so a celebrity with an existing large following becomes rocket fuel because platforms won't shut down someone with millions of followers. With G Pen, Chris and Anthony signed Snoop Dogg, and my partner Josh worked with Snoop's team and Conan O'Brien's team for weeks to set up a moment where Snoop gifted Conan a G Pen on air — Conan joked about it, and the next day e-commerce went crazy. Chris took advantage of that relationship well — it wasn't just one contractual post, it was ongoing. But brands can't rely on just one person the way Nike doesn't rely only on LeBron. Bryan Fields: That's such an important point — the access the celebrity buys you is only valuable if you build a real strategy around it. Rama Mayo: Right, my partner Josh will spend seven hours at an event just to get twelve minutes of usable content with a celebrity — hours of security and prep for a ten-minute meet-and-greet. And you shouldn't tie any brand to one person unless they personally own it. There's also authenticity and permission — some brands, like 710 Labs' collaborations, get away with things other brands couldn't, because they've earned that permission. Bryan Fields: Let's talk about the September event — what's new, and what's the headline? Rama Mayo: The headline is: weed is the headliner. That's what we're doing — trying to sell as much weed as legally possible to super fans. We've run the trade show for six years; it's always been two days, with day one being this sought-after, worshipped day and day two feeling like an afterthought, even though everything's basically the same both days. We asked brands what they wanted, and we started exploring a consumer side — I call them 'fans,' not 'consumers,' since I did superfan-focused work my whole life; the corporate world calls them 'prosumers.' The idea: day one is still the amazing B2B show — place your orders, meet retailers — and then, if you're licensed and bring in a retail partner (which we help facilitate), you can sell weed directly from your booth to fans on day two and get direct ROI. We didn't book a big major music headliner on purpose, because we don't want this to feel like a concert — we want people there to buy weed, though of course there will be great music, DJs, hosts, and special guests. Day two is going nuts — we've got carnival games we're custom-building with Exploding Kittens, the makers of the top-performing Kickstarter game of all time with a new Netflix show; we're working with Joking Hazard's spin-off, Toking Hazard, my buddy John's company, on the tabletop gaming side. We partnered with Sonoma Hills Farms — a guy named Aron who worked at French Laundry, the number-one restaurant in America, celebrating its 30th anniversary — for a Michelin-star, buffet-style fine dining experience, with James Beard-winning chefs and hot chefs from Portland and New Orleans, alongside food trucks. We have amazing speakers — cultivators from brands like Alien Labs and Connected, and Cam and Anna, so fans can meet the people who grow their favorite strains. Task, from Highly Educated, who invented 710, the carb cap, and popularized the nail, is bringing the first-ever e-nail as an artifact to display. We'll also have DJs, a host, some special moments, and I'd like to attempt a world record or two. It's been trade show B2B forever, and now it's direct-to-fan, so it needs to be fun and only slightly educational. Bryan Fields: So to recap — day one is brands meeting retailers and building relationships, and day two lets brands sell directly to fans for a positive ROI, while fans get to meet the same people. Rama Mayo: Exactly right. We're not trying to be a flea market — we don't want brands discounting, we want full-price sales, so in theory they can make their cash back that day plus their wholesale orders — win-win. And it's priceless to talk directly to thousands of consumers and get real feedback on packaging and product. My partner Aaron told a story from Complexcon: Levi's had a booth selling women's jeans, but guys loved the pattern, so they ended up making a men's version — that's the kind of 'aha moment' we're hoping brands get here. Everybody who matters in the industry comes to Hall of Flowers. Bryan Fields: Is there anything else new this year, like the apparel exhibitors? Rama Mayo: Since it's consumer-based now, we have lifestyle brands like Market, Carrots, Rip N Dip, and Talking Turps coming, making exclusive products with us, very much in a Complexcon style. I'm also bringing in around ten incredible makers — a leather artisan, a live metal engraver, maybe someone doing DIY bracelets or iron-on hats — interactive, crafty stuff people can watch or do. We want it to work for a whole group, not just the stoner friend, but their family too — one person can be the super stoner and the others just take a small edible and still have plenty to do. Bryan Fields: It sounds like Disney World — hopefully you're making a map. Rama Mayo: Hopefully. We just started using the word 'Festival' this past week — before that we called it an 'experience.' It's becoming a true market-and-festival hybrid. We want people to buy things, like a farmers market, but stick around all day with rides, food, and friends, not just for twenty minutes. Bryan Fields: Let's do a quick rapid-fire round. True or false: we'll eventually have a Hall of Flowers in New York. Rama Mayo: I can't say true or false, but I'll say my partner did insanely big trade shows in New York City for years. Bryan Fields: Dream smoking session, three people, dead or alive. Rama Mayo: Picasso, Bill Murray, and — who else do I worship — Larry Bird. Bryan Fields: You're a big idea guy — can you throw out a few concepts, cannabis or non-cannabis, that no one is executing on yet? Rama Mayo: There's a big opportunity for a real media company in cannabis — High Times obviously isn't that anymore, hasn't been for years, aside from John Capetta maybe being the one good thing over there. Home delivery also feels like something that could get figured out soon — Batch is doing an incredible job, I worship them. I also think about the art world a lot — I had a gallery for years and managed artists — the art world is changing for the first time in a hundred years because of technology, and there's room for a new kind of gallery and art-management model. Bryan Fields: If you could put anything on a billboard to reach billions of people — an image, a quote, a word — what's the first thing that comes to mind? Rama Mayo: I'm a marketing guy, so I'd need a whiteboard session for a few hours before answering that properly — but maybe just a big smiley face. Bryan Fields: What question do you wish more people asked you? Rama Mayo: Maybe something like, 'Do you want a sandwich?' Something gluttonous like that. Bryan Fields: Prediction time — what specific trend do you predict will dominate the cannabis industry over the next five to eight years? Rama Mayo: I'd say the most important conversation in cannabis is social equity, though I wouldn't call it a 'trend' since that would be disrespectful — I hope that keeps getting figured out. As for an actual trend, I think technology coming into the industry is going to be huge, in both good and bad ways — that's probably the final frontier; there are some great products out there, but no clear category winners yet. Bryan Fields: Kellan, your thoughts? Kellan Finney: I think one common trend will be everyone still asking when it'll finally be federally legal for the next eight years. But on the product side, I think you'll see a huge push toward other form factors for mass consumption, like beverages, since consumers have decided that lighting things on fire and inhaling them isn't the best way to enjoy their favorite product. Bryan Fields: I think experiences — for too long cannabis has been treated as something done behind the scenes or only at home, and I think what you're building with Hall of Flowers is exactly what's needed to remove the stigma and show that cannabis can enhance everyday life in so many small ways. I think experiences will be a game changer and become far more commonplace. Rama Mayo: I completely agree with both of you. I'm bullish on beverage — I think it's going to be gigantic, the same way people have moved away from alcohol and cigarettes. And on experience — we're seeing big festivals and tours struggle or get cancelled, but the younger demo wants experience above everything else, so that's naturally where branding and marketing is heading, along with more micro-niche stuff. Bryan Fields: Rama, for our listeners who want to get in touch or attend Hall of Flowers, where can they find you? Rama Mayo: HallofFlowers.com — spelled normally — has tickets, which are super affordable right now because we want people to have their money to spend on weed. For me personally, I'm at RamaMayo.com, and my Instagram is my full name, Thomas David Mayo — I have two middle names — since I can't get the handle @Rama back from someone else who has it. And Green Street is @GreenStreet, spelled out normally, which is the company we started a long time ago and where Hall of Flowers and a bunch of our other projects came from. Bryan Fields: Awesome — thanks for taking the time, this was a lot of fun. Rama Mayo: Yeah, thank you, guys.