CURATING AN INCLUSIVE CANNABIS INDUSTRY

Conference Preview: Revelry 14

In about two weeks on February 25, between 550750 people will gather in downtown Brooklyn at NYC City Tech College for the 14th Revelry – described as a cannabis conference for the people. The conference is the flagship of curated events produced by On The Revel, an organization that highlights the diverse people who have been and are currently building the cannabis industry.

On The Revel was founded in New York City in 2016 by two cannabis entrepreneurs, Lulu Tsui (pronounced SWAY) and Jacobi Holland. Both had experience in tech and cannabis from western states (Lulu from Washington and California; Jacobi from Colorado). But as residents of New York City they felt that local events lacked the quality and access to operators that are actually on the ground in other regions.

The two also shared the opinion that other national/ regional events did a very poor job representing the diverse backgrounds and faces that are building the industry. And they wanted to create a business event that captured the good energy and positive vibes of consumer events.

Cannabis Inc Magazine caught up recently with both Jacobi and Lulu in advance of the event.

Diversity, inclusion, transparency

“We both came from existing legal cannabis markets; I came from the Washington market and

Jacobi came from the Colorado market,” Lulu recalled. “But we were very much bi-coastal and in 2015 we met at a 420 party hosted by Women Grow, and at that time in New York, there were many meetups and conversations around advocacy and investing in cannabis.” green rush, blah, blah, blah. And for some, that was true, but for a lot of the people that we met, that was not the case.”

She noted, however, that there was also a lot of false information and misconceptions about what was really happening on the ground in existing legal markets.

She added: “We also wanted to highlight the folks that look like us that we met along the way through our business dealings in other markets.” great about seeding new types of ideas, new types of culture, but it really isn't until New York adopts it, that it becomes a worldwide movement.”

So New York became the epicenter—the cultural influencer with the help of On The Revel— beginning in 2016.

The mission was to focus on creating a community and a diverse network of industry professionals. “It makes for a better industry when it's inclusive and diverse,” Lulu emphasized.

“That’s because you have a collective intelligence that's

“For our first event we knew we wanted it to be a little more elevated than a traditional meetup group that just kind of had pizza and a couple of beers,” Jacobi laughed. “We wanted to take a new approach; So we kind of redesigned what we thought it