For the second year in a row, George Jage is bringing his signature cannabis trade show, MJ Unpacked, to St. Louis. Designed as a way for industry leaders to connect and discover the latest happenings in the world of cannabis, Jage sees MJ Unpacked as not merely a trade event but also as a bellwether for those who want to understand the space’s current moment. In the runup to this year’s MJ Unpacked, September 3-5 at Union Station Hotel St. Louis, Jage talked to SLM about what to expect and what he feels are the most exciting things happening in the world of cannabis.
This is your second year hosting the fall MJ Unpacked in St. Louis. What brought you back? When we first came to St. Louis last year, we had done analysis the prior year on where a good place to hold our fall event might be, and Missouri, Michigan, and Oregon were all good options. Missouri has great operators around the state that would allow us to build attendance and had been operating for a bit as a marketplace, so we decided upon here. We looked at both Kansas City and St. Louis, and I just loved Union Station. I am not Michelangelo, but I understood how he might have felt when he was shown the Sistine Chapel. It’s such a cool space to design an event around and turned out to be a great property to work with. We feel that St. Louis being by Illinois gives us more access to connected states that also have legal and functional use. People in Missouri have a Midwestern value set. They are hardworking, friendly, and they support their community, but there is also a sense of distrust of outsiders. People needed to “trust by verify,” so we wanted to do a show that turned a lot of heads—and we did that.
Is there anything new this year that you are especially excited about? This year, we made some fundamental changes to the event design; instead of front-loading the information sessions, we have a half-day of conference content across all three days. And we have really good content. We are also inviting local budtenders for the last day. They have a lot of influence, and we want them to interact with brands and suppliers, so they can understand that when they see flower in their dispensary, they know the guy whose product it is and why it’s a better product. This brings fresh energy onto the show floor. Also, if there is a word people will use about this event, it is ‘curated.’ We curated our audience, and participants have to be licensed operators, managers, or higher. There will be fewer conversations, but the ones that happen will be with the right people. We are also doing a pitch stage on the show floor where we are giving people three minutes to pitch ideas. St. Louis is the first show we will be doing this at, and we don’t know how it will go. But it will be fun…