Three northern Michigan friends and cannabis connoisseurs are working together to create a festival experience like none other at what they say is the first event of its kind in the state.
Tickets are on sale for the 20th annual Hoxeyville Music Festival, this August, which for the first time, will offer legalized, on-site marijuana sales and consumption.
“This is a really unique (event) because every other event up to now has been based around a consumption event,” said Tom Beller, co-owner of Real Leaf Solutions. “This is the first time we’re really bringing (cannabis) to an established festival as a normalization of cannabis use and open cannabis use sales.”
Tom, the state’s first licensed Cannabis Event Organizer, has worked with Eric and Nick Piedmonte, owners and operators of Dunegrass Co., for decades. They are partnering with Hoxeyville Enterprises, who runs the festival, to bring licensed cannabis sales and consumption to the event.
The festival, from August 19-21, will be on 150-acres of farmland surrounded by the Manistee National Forest.
Hoxeyville Music Festival to be first established event in MI to offer licensed cannabis sales, consumption
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“We wanted to bring a unique experience to not just have a space that you can buy and consume cannabis,” Tom said. “It also has to bring a different experience for the concert-goer, too.”
According to Hoxeyville’s website, two stages will feature performances from artists including Trampled by Turtles, Railroad Earth, The Infamous Stringdust, Yonder Mountain String Band, Melvin Seals and JGB, the Larry Keel Experience and a dozen more.
The “intimate capacity of 4,000” fosters a supportive and safe community.
Four types of tickets were available but one – the Early Bird Adult Weekend ticket – is sold out. The Adult Weekend ticket is on sale to adults 16 and older for $190. The Kids Weekend ticket for ages five to 15 years is $75 and the RV Pass, for all RVs and towable vehicles, is $250.
Unlike in years prior, the family-friendly event will have a reserved area for attendees 21 and older to purchase and use cannabis.
"We are very excited to provide this option for our attendees and look forward to growing both this experience within the event as well as our partnership with Dunegrass,” Jake Robinson of Hoxeyville Productions said in a May 6 press release.
The designated consumption area will be invisible from the public, but Eric said it will have a great line of sight of the stage.
Dunegrass will sell “representations of… every product category.”
“We approached this from the perspective of ‘Hoxeyville’s been an onsite marijuana consumption event for all 20 years that it’s been in operation – this is just the first year we’re doing it with a license’.”
Eric said he and his brother were originally trying to plan their own event but after discussing the idea with Tom, they decided to join forces and capitalize on an already established festival.
“We were initially talking about doing the event organizer license ourselves and then I mean, why go reinvent the wheel,” Eric said. “As we got talking to Tom a little bit, we came to realize that he is so far out of our league in terms of what we were kind of plotting and planning that the marriage at that point just really kind of made sense.”
Eric said working with a Northern Michigan distributor, like Tom from Real Leaf Solutions in Kalkaska, further aligned with their theme.
As long-time Hoxeyville attendees, Eric, Nick and Tom felt it was only right to implement their idea at this year’s event.
“It’s just a natural progression of things and normalization of cannabis use,” Tom said.
With three Dunegrass stores located within 30 miles of the Wellston event site, Eric said it parallels their appreciation for the area they call home.
“Really the biggest hurdle was just allowing for the legislative side of things to sort of catch up with what we all really had in the back of our minds, right, which was, ‘how cool would it be one day to be able to do this?’” Nick said.
He said other consumption events often prioritize cannabis over entertainment because it is an easier legal process.
“This is very onerous to get through these (processes)… which is precisely why so many of these – all – of the other events are really cannabis-focused,” he said. “Entertainment is kind of a byproduct of that just because the process to get to this point is so long. Just kind of having an established music festival that was willing to kind of be a part of the ride was really kind of a differentiation for us.”
Ironically, the application was approved by the South Branch Township on April 20. Nick said the board was incredibly receptive and excited about their idea.
“They obviously love the music festival,” he said. “They wanted to do what they could to sort of nurture the next phase for the event itself… One of them made this funny comment about ‘Well, I came to the festival last summer and I was wondering what that funny smelling stuff was’.”
“If you were to walk up to the festival, you'd generally get the feel that you're at a dispensary in terms of the amount of options that you're going to have,” Eric said. “Just you're not going to have 10 different… brands of gummies at the same price point.”
Dunegrass has been named the Founding Cannabis Sponsor for the festival in 2022 and 2023.
Eric, Nick and Tom emphasized that this year’s Hoxeyville festival will be different than all other cannabis consumption events because entertainment is at the forefront.
“Unbelievable” food, according to the Hoxeyville website, will be available for purchase from trucks and vendors at the event.
Tom, Nick and Eric’s efforts are all a part of a goal to normalize marijuana use in public. The men have been close for years. It was their long-standing relationship, and tradition of using cannabis at festivals that really brought their idea to life.
“We go to festivals and shows, and we’ve all been there, we’ve all smoked cannabis at these festivals,” Tom said.
“We approached this from the perspective of ‘Hoxeyville’s been an onsite marijuana consumption event for all 20 years that it’s been in operation – this is just the first year we’re doing it with a license’.”
Eric said he and his brother were originally trying to plan their own event but after discussing the idea with Tom, they decided to join forces and capitalize on an already established festival.
“We were initially talking about doing the event organizer license ourselves and then I mean, why go reinvent the wheel,” Eric said. “As we got talking to Tom a little bit, we came to realize that he is so far out of our league in terms of what we were kind of plotting and planning that the marriage at that point just really kind of made sense.”
Eric said working with a Northern Michigan distributor, like Tom from Real Leaf Solutions in Kalkaska, further aligned with their theme.
As long-time Hoxeyville attendees, Eric, Nick and Tom felt it was only right to implement their idea at this year’s event.
“It’s just a natural progression of things and normalization of cannabis use,” Tom said.
With three Dunegrass stores located within 30 miles of the Wellston event site, Eric said it parallels their appreciation for the area they call home.
“Integrating ourselves with kind of a northern Michigan staple music festival like Hoxeyville was really a natural fit for us,” he said. “We established a pretty great relationship with Hoxeyville, really starting last spring,” he said.
Nonetheless, it took Eric, Nick and Tom a lot of hard work, over the span of a year-and-a-half, to bring their idea to life.
“There’s a lot of moving pieces here,” Eric said. “It definitely took an enormous amount of time and sweat to get all the dominoes lined up to make this happen.”
Eric said the biggest obstacle was created by the legislative process.
They said they hope to see more events like this that spread the message that cannabis use can be a normal part of life.
“We're all – I think – have the same sort of spirit animal here, which is, we want to see this sort of side of the industry take root and we saw a real opportunity to do so with some really great guys at Hoxeyville,” Nick said.
Tom said marijuana is not only important to people individually, but also on a state level because the industry has significantly improved the economy.
“It’s a big deal,” he said. “Some people joke around that weed’s been at festivals this whole time… but beer trucks and all of those things have been normalized and all the things that come along with that – there’s definitely a different standard too.”
“The whole thing… it just feels like it was sort of meant to be,” Nick said.
“To me, it's a dream come true,” Tom said. “Really more than anything, it's the culmination of things that just need to happen… It's great to have awesome partners that… see it.”
Eric said taking new steps in the cannabis industry and breaking barriers, like they are doing with the festival, is what it will take to create a more cannabis-friendly world.
“These are very real things that are put on… the cannabis industry,” Eric said. “And these are the exact type of stigmas and things like that, that we're willing to burden to try to kind of normalize this process.”
With most of the difficult, technical process complete, Eric, Nick and Tom are working with Jake from Hoxeyville Productions to make sure everything is ready for a “unique” experience at this first-of-its-kind festival.
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