Puff: Hall of Flowers 2022 brought diamonds, slushies, beakers, vibes

Diamonds, diamonds, diamonds! Diamonds seem to be a stoner’s best friend at the Hall of Flowers 2022, held October 5-6 at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa. 

Diamonds are the current concentrate darling populating pre-rolls and other cannabis products. Usually made from concentrated THCA or CBD, “diamonds” are cannabinoids that have such a high degree of purity they form a crystalline solid, like a diamond. I saw so many products that had diamonds in them. It makes sense with infused pre-rolls because, they are lighter and burn a little easier than some of the other concentrates so they won’t settle inside the joint and create the “canoe” effect when burning.

We all know and dread the canoeing joint where half of it burns quickly while the other half does not leaving a huge chunk of unburned flower, paper and concentrate. The best way to deal with that is to cut that part off with scissors and into the bowl of a pipe or your bong for proper recovery and usage.

But I digress. Back to the Hall of Flowers. 

As with every year, I was up early that Tuesday morning and aboard that 101 Golden Gate Transit bus to Santa Rosa. I was on the fairgrounds by 10:30am and headed off to visit my favorite brands. This year, I was there on my press mission, as always, but I was also there on my own mission of spreading the word about all the new cannabis events I was creating. This was going to be a fantastic opportunity to tell the cannabis community what I was up to, win over fans and bring in sponsors!

In my bag, I had posters for my newest show BONG-O BINGO: Drag Cannabis Bingo, which will be on Tuesday, October 25 at 6pm at Moe Greens Dispensary. Hosts Thee Pristine Condition and Brandelicious will call the games, and I will run the show. There will be cannabis prizes for winning rounds, fabulous drag numbers and a big Stoner raffle finale. 

Tickets to both these events are available at EventHi.io. Get yours now!

I traveled from stall to stall proudly wearing my PUFF t-shirt, talking about cannabis brands and promoting my shows. I got fantastic responses, and I learned a lot about what we will see on the shelves in local dispensaries soon. I also saw lots of friends from the industry.

Santa Rosa weather gave us a couple of warm days with temperatures in the upper-mid 80s, so shade and water were more important than ever. Luckily, the fairgrounds have plenty of trees for shade, and we had a nice breeze. This made for lots of fun hang-outs smoking weed and people-watching, while DJs played cool vibes all day.

The bigger booths are usually outside and this year the biggest ones were Gelato’s big candy-store themed tent, C&V Bait Shop-themed store featuring Country Cannabis and Vacation brands, Dime Industries‘ giant shop featuring their new vape cartridges and diamonds concentrate, and Waferz’ ice cream-themed store which actually gave away free ice cream cones.

Inside, the stalls that caught my attention were Kushy Punch’s boxing-themed entry complete with a punching bag machine, Lime’s black and bright neon shop, Timeless Vape’s scary Halloween stall featuring art from Oakland-based artist Skinner, Froot’s game show wheel of fortune booth, and as always Alien Labs and Connected had a cool corner store full of beakers of cannabis.

AVD (Advanced Vapor Devices) provided a tented chillout area outside with lots of vape cartridges to try and an Antidote Bar featuring slurpy CBD drinks and draft mocktails. I sampled the Lemon Kush Mint Iced Tea slushie with the tasty terpene topping. In that heat, the slurpy working in conjunction with 25mg of CBD put a happy smile on my face. 

I saw the longest lines at the Claybourne cannabis shop outside and at Alien Labs inside. Both ran out of product pretty early each day. 

At the end of the day, you take all the coupons they give you at the booths you have visited to the Dispensary building to trade them in for pot products. With my bag full, I took my sun-baked self to my motel for a chill night of getting stoned and wandering around a nearby Safeway with my stoner bud Veronica, looking for snacks. There was supposed to be a big after party which got canceled at the last minute… twice! I was just as happy hanging with my friend, getting stoned, and talking about our fantastic time.

The second day, I was expecting more people because it was open to more people in the industry, so I got there nice and early. I made second and third rounds through the three big halls, meeting new people and making connections.

Then, I went outside to the big bean bag hang-out area on the fairgrounds, found a place to chill, lit up, and enjoyed where I was. I loved being among the cannabis industry people on these beautiful grounds. Everyone was polite and friendly. We were all there to celebrate another successful harvest and all that will bring to the farmers, dispensaries, companies and all those stoners out there. It made me feel good inside, and feel that I am on the right track in life.

As it got warmer and more crowded, I headed out after another wonderful adventure at Hall of Flowers. The concept has been so successful there are even similar Hall of Flowers events in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Toronto, and Palm Springs now. Hopefully, I can report from those as well.

I love spreading the word of cannabis and all it does for our world.

Contented, I got back on that bus and returned to San Francisco with a full bag of cannabis products to sample. I’ll report back to you on my findings. It is a tough job but someone has to do it. 

Now it’s time to light up, a lot!