Cannabis Industry Pandemic Health Risk Study Identifies Necessary Considerations For Events To Resume In 2021

The cannabis industry is measurably dependent on in-person gatherings. Limited marketing channels and tight advertising restrictions make cannabis in-person brand promotion a business necessity. 

With scattered and few major cannabis content networks and publishers, conferences and business gatherings are other industry essentials. The pandemic has each of those fundamental communication mechanisms on hold.

Leafwire, (leafwire.com) the cannabis industry’s largest business social network, recently conducted a Cannabis Industry Pandemic Health Risk Study to better understand how industry professionals prioritize in-person event risk preferences in the face of the pandemic.

The company conducted the same two surveys in July and October, 2020. The July survey generated 367 responses from 2,000 average daily users, from a network of 30,000 cannabis professionals and 15,000 businesses. The October survey yielded 278 responses.

Unlike LinkedIn, its nearest mainstream counterpart, Leafwire maintains a physical, geographically distributed industry presence. The company is widely known for its cannabis investor pitch contest roadshow highlighting some of the industry’s most promising innovations and offerings. 

Because of this tight community connection and the industry’s relatively small size, Leafwire’s survey findings can be considered a fairly accurate pulse of the industry’s core preferences and attitudes. 

Sixty-seven percent of respondents were male, 31% female, fairly proportional to the industry as a whole. 

Key findings include:

• In-person participation is high for a small industry with 57% of respondents having planned to attend 1-3 conferences and events in 2020, and 23% to participate in 4-7. 

• Event networking runs high on the reasons cannabis professionals get together, with 68% of those surveyed ranking it “very” to “extremely” important.

• Needing to take a flight topped the list of highest riskiest aspects of event participation at 50% reporting “5” on a 1-5 Likert scale, followed by event size at 46%, and event location at 38%.

• The cannabis industry appears willing to adhere to recommended health protocols with 79% reporting an eagerness for mask-wearing at events.

• Seventy-one percent of those surveyed agreed to support social distancing at least some of the time. 

Most notable replies to the open-ended question, “What mitigation would an event need to have in place for you to attend it?”:

Answers from pandemic believers:

• Outdoors only (three replies); ozone air/filtration systems (two replies)

• Since we do not have a national policy to bring down the # of positive cases within the entire country, I will not be going to any in-person conferences. 

• Unless you applied all of the above mitigations from the moment I arrived at the airport, to the moment I returned home, I see no need to participate in events in person at this point.

• I think it is selfish to hold any event that might compel people to ignore the advice given to them by our medical professionals. We are a medical state in Oklahoma. How can we say this is about medicine, and then invite people to smoke together and possibly die?

• Would not attend any business event in-person until CDC unequivocally says there is zero COVID in the U.S. 

• Too many mask haters. Won't attend anything until wearing masks is mandatory or a viable vaccination has been found.

Answers from pandemic deniers:

• Scientific objective truths on COVID handed out in pamphlets; the science, i.e. not who preach its fears. 

• None. An event wouldn't need to mitigate at all, in my opinion. I believe COVID is a top-down political movement against liberty -- wrapped up in a wimpy virus that's no worse than ordinary influenza.

• I firmly believe in herd immunity. If you have a strong immune system you will be fine. 

The most entertaining answer: Free Medical Cannabis distribution to help attendees boost immunity. 

A Hard Hit December

The cannabis industry tends to host a large portion of its in-person events in spring through summer, breaking for early fall for harvest, then working up to a crescendo in December. 

Two very large, very different events stake claim to the celebratory month of December with dozens of co-joining and after parties hosted around them. 

Celebrating the year’s fall harvest, artisan grows, and select brands, the annual Emerald Cup takes place in Sonoma County, California each December. An almost mandatory festival for fun-loving cannabis enthusiasts who enjoy new tastes, music, and people drew around 30,000 attendees in 2019. While the event’s cannabis cup activities have been virtual during the pandemic, the actual in-person event was canceled for 2020. 

Hosted at the Las Vegas Convention Center in December, MJBizCon is the world’s largest gathering of cannabis business people in the world. The globally-recognized conference and expo has grown from a few hundred to 35,000 attendees (2019) in just eight years. 

With a collective 65,000 attendees between them, these large are in-person events are the ones that will require exceptional progress on the distribution of vaccines this year before industry attendees feel comfortable returning. 

Resurgence 

More than other, more mature consumer markets, the cannabis community needs engagement to grow and even sustain the industry. As vaccines are introduced in 2021 and the country slowly emerges from the pandemic, the cannabis industry needs to get back on its feet as quickly as possible. 

Knowing how to do this incrementally, from smaller to large event rollouts, and understanding what’s quantitatively important to attendees is invaluable for a company eager to return to IRL (in real life) with a carefully calculated plan. 

“Leafwire’s Cannabis Industry Pandemic Health Risk Study data can serve as an authoritative collection of valuable information for event planners around timing, logistics, and proper health considerations to be made in planning in-person events as the cannabis industry navigates through and out of the COVID-19 pandemic,” noted Leafwire CEO, Peter Vogel.

Leafwire plans to expand its cannabis industry health risk preference studies in 2021 with continued surveys, industry updates, and individual sampling. To fund further platform capability development and scale presence Leafwire has launched a crowdfunding campaign on SeedInvest, which can be found at https://www.seedinvest.com/leafwire/seed. Leafwire has already raised more than 60% of the funds needed to complete the raise.

Benzinga's Related Links: 

• Why Cannabis Has Been Deemed An Essential Business Amid COVID-19 Pandemic
• Democratic Senators Confirm Plans To Advance Cannabis Legalization Measures

Photo Via Unsplash