People from all over the U.S. showed up for the Cannifest Humboldt 2023 held last Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 9-10, and there were lots of legal smiles on the 21-or-older attendees  at the fenced-in Cannabis Festival and Trade Gathering at Eureka’s Halvorsen Park. A long line-up of live and DJ music on two stages provided the afternoon/evening soundtrack. See the slideshow below for highlights.

Attendees could sample cannabis for free or at bargain prices at many vendors, unlike Cannifest here in 2017, when a medical card was needed to partake. The breezes off Humboldt Bay reduced the chances of contact highs at the open-air event, and the few beer venders and Seed Swap Circus areas were fenced off from the cannabis-consumption area.

In addition to the music, the event featured a mix of on-site events and activities, including the Cannifest Bowl Headstash Championship, the Cannabis Marketplace and Lounge, the Makers Market, an Immaculate Seed Swap Circus tent, the Humboldt Grow Games (though no participants showed up on Saturday), the popular Ganja Games, lots of local food vendors and an educators speaker schedule at the amphitheater. Headstash Championship judges worked their way through assigned Top Flower samples from 20-plus competitors.

Lots of vendors from all over California and elsewhere, including legacy farmers to more recent growers and distributors, were there to eagerly talk about and promote everything cannabis-related from dirt to fertilizer to seeds to cannabis products of all types to joint-rolling-made-easy equipment to a weed-map app. The “Humboldt” label could be found attached to many products or included in company names with the goal of marketing cannabis “where it all began.”

Sunday morning’s Yes We Cann & Hullabaloo parade from the Wharfinger Building to the party underneath the Samoa Bridge had a "No on Measure A" theme by opponents of the recently renamed-for-the-ballot Humboldt Cannabis Reform Initiative. HCRI’s purported goal is to amend the Humboldt County General Plan to protect residents, landowners and the environment from harm allegedly caused by large-scale industrial cannabis cultivation. (Read more about Measure A here. 

For the last 10 years, the Cannifest 2023 Festival & Trade Gathering has been held in various locations from coast-to-coast. “We are heading back to where the fun all began,” said lead Cannifest 2023 event organizer Stephen Gieder in an advance news release. “The City of Eureka has worked closely with our team on planning, and we are thrilled to offer a fully licensed consumption opportunity as well as networking events and connection around this beautiful plant all weekend long.”