Crowds flock to downtown Oklahoma City for CannaCon

Oklahoma’s medical marijuana industry is diversifying at a rapid pace, and this week’s CannaCon shows just how far it has come.

Nearly 200 exhibitors set up booths and displays for the thousands of Oklahomans anticipated to attend the conference at the Cox Convention Center on Thursday and Friday. Growers, distributors, suppliers, secondary service providers and more were in attendance for the event.

Some exhibits are for local companies, some are from out of state, but they are all intent on serving those in the marijuana industry.

“Man, it’s crazy,” Cannabest Labs employee Daniel Sellers said. “This is something else.”

Cannabest Labs is an Oklahoma-based company that provides testing services for marijuana products — the kind of testing soon to be required by the state of Oklahoma of all medical marijuana products, Sellers said.

The emerging marijuana industry has companies like Cannabest Labs working to gain clients, promote its brand, and fight for market share, all reasons to participate in the CannaCon.

Other companies came from out-of-state to attract business in Oklahoma. Danielle Marzella, of Seven Point Interiors, came from Canada to talk with Oklahomans about custom-designed retail spaces for their medical marijuana businesses.

Caron Cooper and Reagan Hatch, of Cannasite, build custom websites for marijuana businesses. Both live out of state, but have been to other CannaCon stops and are excited about the opportunity to work with Oklahoma businesses.

“We like CannaCon and we are looking at new markets, always,” Cooper said.

The conference is organized and operated in a standard business professional manner. Other than large prints of marijuana pictures used for booth backdrops, high-tech production equipment set up for display or grow supplies, it could pass as a trade show for most any other industry.

Some booths attracted more traffic than others. Companies specializing in producing seeds with specific genetics garnered lines with 30 or more early on in the day.

Artist and former Oklahoma State and NBA basketball player Desmond Mason worked Thursday on a painting for Oklahoma City-based Kola Organics in the middle of the convention floor, with plans to finish the painting Friday.

The line for the event started early, and up to an hour after the doors opened there was still a line for registration leading to the outside doors of the convention center.

CannaCon Marketing Director Angela Grelle expected up to 5,000 visitors throughout the event.

Tickets for the conference ranged from $40 to $150, depending on number of days and seminars an individual planned on attending.

Seminars cover subjects such as laboratory testing, complying with regulations, payroll and human resources issues, THC extraction, grow strategies and more.

CannaCon will return to Oklahoma City in September after stops in Detroit and Springfield, Massachusetts, later this year.