Cultivating Connections - Hall of Flowers, Rama Mayo

Prepare to be captivated by Rama Mayo, the entrepreneurial spirit behind the revolutionary Hall of Flowers cannabis convention, as he joins us for an enlightening discussion. From its bespoke experiences for retailers to its impressive expansion across North America, Rama unveils the story behind creating a pivotal space where industry professionals can flourish. Beyond his business insights, we get a rare glimpse into Rama's personal evolution from the hectic Los Angeles scene to his serene beachside existence in Oxnard, where collecting sea glass mirrors his journey towards a more balanced life.

Trade shows are more than just displays; they are the pulsating heart of networking in any industry. Rama draws striking parallels between the relentless ambition required in both the music and cannabis sectors, offering a narrative that bridges punk rock band management with the relentless innovation of cannabis commerce. His 'lava effect' analogy paints a vivid picture of the entrepreneurial drive while honoring the resurgence of vinyl records, asserting that passion and perseverance can indeed stand the test of time.

As we wrap up, Rama's dynamic career trajectory serves as an inspiring blueprint for all dreamers out there looking to pivot with purpose. He shares insights into the California cannabis scene's intricate dance with legalities, culture, and politics, drawing from his wealth of experience. Hall of Flowers exemplifies the essence of industry convergence, and Rama's storied career is a living example of the vast horizons open to those who dare to pursue their passions and adapt to the ever-changing landscape.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, main engine start 4, 3, 2, 1. I'm Sean and I'm Charlie and this is Higher Orbit. We got a special edition. We can call it a special edition episode.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Yeah, a little single segment, something unusual for us, but awesome guest nonetheless.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Yeah, I feel like I'm really excited for this guest because it's almost like a poker-oo situation. It's like I was always like who's behind this thing they call the Hall of Flowers? He's the puppet master, your favorite, Kind of like Wizard of Oz or something. He even kind of looks like a wizard, if you ask me.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Another which I love. Let's introduce him. We got Rama Mayo. Rama Mayo yeah, visionary founder of Hall of Flowers, probably our favorite convention that's hosted in Toronto at least one of our favorites. One of our favorite.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Cannabis conventions's hosted in Toronto at least one of our favorite, one of our favorite cannabis conventions, for sure, and something that I always feel like I get something that I got to make time for it on the calendar, you know. So it's really cool to have you on the show, man, and thanks for making time. Yeah, welcome, welcome.

Speaker 3: 1:17

Yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah, that's cool. I love that you guys own the dispensary too, because you have such a unique perspective on Hall of Flowers, because we really build it for you guys, for the retailers. It's different, obviously, up in Canada versus where we started the show down here. You know the laws, basically the structure and stuff. But, yeah, it's cool that you guys even love it. Before we started I was just flattered that you guys were-.

Speaker 1: 1:45

That's a fun little surprise.

Speaker 2: 1:47

Yeah, that's awesome. Are we on year three of the show Like?

Speaker 1: 1:50

is this the third year In Canada, I think formally right. Is it going to be your third year, right, rama?

Speaker 3: 1:55

Yeah, this is the third show up there and we had done it in Santa Rosa and Palm Springs, right, and those did really well, so we decided to bring it up there and try out Toronto as like our first kind of attempt towards the East Coast of you know, the continent essentially Makes sense Growing market.

Speaker 2: 2:17

I imagine it felt like the show was growing itself. My understanding is you get like well over 200 retailers at the show. You always have tons of great brands, lots of new brands itself, um, my understanding is you get like well over 200 retailers at the show. Um, you always have tons of great brands, lots of new brands. From what I remember, um definitely excited to to make it out to the show this year. I think it's uh, june six, seven, is that right?

Speaker 1: 2:37

Yeah, that sounds about right yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:39

Yeah, yeah, there we go, either fifth, sixth or sixth, seventh. But yeah, there we go, I check it, nice.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Yeah, um, so we're going to go, yeah, no, I feel like everybody, all the brands always being their, their biggest stuff, um, which is always exciting, like new products and stuff for all the flowers, or it seems like all the best. I'm really excited to take part this year. You're joining us. Are you based out of Oxnard, california? Is that correct?

Speaker 3: 3:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, oxnard, yeah, Like Ventura County, so just north of LA County, okay, yeah, so I'm basically like I lived in LA for the last 20 years and Los Angeles last 20 years and, um, now that you don't need an office really anymore, um, I was like fuck it, I'm going to move to the beach, you know. So I like moved up here a year ago and I live like right at the beach and I walk on the beach every day and it's like very I feel very fortunate to get to have this thing and the weather here, unlike Toronto where you know it's basically perfect almost every day of the year. So don't rub it in, man, teeny, teeny town.

Speaker 2: 3:52

What's that? I said don't rub it in, man.

Speaker 3: 3:55

Yeah you know, you already know it's still freezing there, I bet. But you know, I live in this little teeny town. There's like not a stoplight in my town or anything, it's just like a little teeny little, like sliver of sand basically, and, um, yeah, it's, it's amazing, it's it helped me, like I needed to kind of move out of la because, um, I have a hard time balancing like work. You know, I'm like I used to even in my instagram I used to say workaholic and I was proud of it, and now I'm like, oh my God, I'm psycho, like that was not a good idea. So I just it was so hard to turn it off still living in the city, so I just kind of had to force myself to move out of out of the city, you know, and, um, that way I could like not work every second of my life, even though I have a whiteboard in my living room now.

Speaker 1: 4:45

It's funny how things change. You kind of value different things as life moves on. I can relate to that too. Man, that makes sense.

Speaker 3: 4:58

Sorry, go ahead. My main priority right now is collecting sea glass. Okay, that's cool. My main priority right now is collecting sea glass, okay, you know. Okay, that's cool, man, that's my main priority. And I have some competition up here. I got some retiree ladies that I can get into some little secret spots they can't get down into. But yeah, it's been kind of like a total 180 kind of the past year, which has been really, really awesome. That sounds very relaxing man.

Speaker 2: 5:27

It's nice You're getting some peace. Man, I bet you. La has definitely got a different buzz to it and I could see it being uh exhausting.

Speaker 1: 5:34

But what kind of uh inspired you to create all the flowers. I was kind of thinking that, um, just to kind of bring it back for a sec here.

Speaker 3: 5:42

Yeah for sure. Yeah, so, as my partner Danny would say, um, who like runs the show technically and does does all the work really? Um, shout out Danny, um, he says like yeah. He says like you know, it was your dream and I made it happen, right, I'm like fucking awesome, you know. So, yeah, essentially like I, I was telling you guys before that we started that like I did a punk rock record label for a long time and at the end of the punk rock record stuff I was working with some fashion trade shows and I was supplying them music.

Speaker 3: 6:17

In exchange. They were giving me some money, but mostly giving me like space, booth, space in the fashion world, and I started working with like some really big trade shows. And then I started working with a trade show called agenda. Uh, and my partner Aaron, who's like the you know it's like three, three groups kind of that came together to do hall flowers. You know my group, which is green street um hall, and you know Danny and this guy, aaron Levant and Aaron um owned a trade show called and Aaron owned a trade show called Agenda. Danny owned a trade show called Liberty and Capsule. My partner Aaron also started ComplexCon. So you know, really like big. These guys are experts, like the best in the world at producing events. I had a label. I started working with them on music and then I ended up starting my own little trade show for fashion, like like just a couple of years later, for fact.

Speaker 3: 7:07

And uh, that was called, that was called you, not yeah, that was called United Cool. That was in Las Vegas and in New York and that was like 2000,. Like six, seven, eight kind of thing, I guess. And um, it was like skull candy and and a bunch of skate brands and you know we had some pretty big companies that were that were exhibiting with us. But it was against the big fashion trade show out there called magic in vegas and it's what we built like what you call a satellite show. So it's just a show that kind of floats around the big one right and um, we did really well with it.

Speaker 3: 7:41

And um, my partner and I, um was three partners. Steve Aoki was a partner before. He was a famous DJ, um and uh, another partner, um, and the three of us kind of kind of split ways. You know, steve became his thing. The other guy went to do music as well and um, I didn't know what to do. So after the that trade show shut down, I ended up starting an ad agency the first time ever with a good friend of mine named John LaCroix, up in San Francisco. We did that for a few years and then I kind of merged. I left that company and came back to Los Angeles, started working with a big mentor of mine named Darren Romanelli. Dr Romanelli amazing, amazing designer, artist, like brilliant thinker, and we signed a G-Pen, the portable vaporizer. You know G-Pen, and that was like our first project. So that was like 13 years ago.

Speaker 3: 8:36

We did G-Pen and then we started working with First cannabis client, so to speak, like would you, yeah, we were doing beats by dre, disney, dreamworks, things like that like big, big corporate stuff, and gpn wanted to be part of it and and we had an incredible run with them. And then I worked with a handful of other brands but the whole time I was like, how come there's not these like good trade shows, and I think champs was around and things like that, but nothing like in LA, nothing part of like the culture, nothing in California. And you know, I had basically had the idea for like years and years and years and years, before we even started Hall of Flowers, for the idea of doing like what I'd call like the agenda for weed or the liberty for weed, like my partners had done. So I literally started going to my partner, aaron, and and was like, dude, we gotta do a trade show for cannabis. For years I was bucking him and he kept blowing me off and no, no, no.

Speaker 3: 9:31

And then they sold agenda. He got out and, um, I ran into him and I said, dude, now it's time, let's do this and cool, you know we'll do it and I'll put it all together. Here's, you know, meet Danny, he'll run it. And yeah, that was I don't know six years ago or seven years ago or something, but it had been like, you know, something that I've been wanting to do for years before that and the timing and everything was perfect when we ended up doing it Sounds about right. Yeah, that's basically what happened, but, yeah, inspired by the fashion trade shows but every industry in the world has a trade show. We're not inventing this, you know.

Speaker 2: 10:08

No, we appreciate it. I mean, it's a great opportunity for us to network out and of course you know huge brands, at least in the Canadian market and of course in the California ones, to get out there and talk to people, because there's really quite a disconnect there. But I certainly you know, just top of my mind, you know it sounds like you have lots of experience and lots of great teammates working together. But how do you get over that hump when you're like trying to make this all happen, when there's so many variables, especially with a weed, when it's like no one has money to market, no one has money to budget, and you're you're like yo give me cash to set up a booth, and you're like, fuck, I don't know, I'm trying to make all this shit happen at once yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 10:50

How do you over the hump? You mean, like personally, how do you get over the hump?

Speaker 3: 10:53

yeah, I guess it's probably just breaking through brick walls, really yeah yeah, every day I kind of use this like this, like analogy, where, like you know, like when you see, like like a volcano erupts and it's like crazy, but when it gets out of the bottom of the hill it's like slow lava and it like slowly crumbs over a car and like, like you know, crushes it, you know, but it's like you can get away from the lava. It's like like, but if you stand there too long, your legs are gone, you know. So that's kind of like the approach. Like every day I wake up and like the lava is either at my tippy toes or 100 yards away, but you just got to kind of keep running from it. You know, you gotta just run. You know something else to do. Like the lava, yeah, the lava effect, you know, like I like this.

Speaker 3: 11:40

It's it's to me like I was talking to a good friend the other day and it's almost impossible to run your own business. You guys know this, it's insanely hard and even if you can run it, it's almost very impossible to turn it off. I wake up in the middle of the night. I have a whiteboard in my living room. I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like, oh, food at Hall of Flowers, and I think of some food thing and I come out and I write it like stepbrother style on the whiteboard and then the next day I'm like why does it say like June, you know whatever, like?

Speaker 2: 12:12

shish kebab or whatever.

Speaker 3: 12:15

Like what the fuck was I thinking? And then I'm like, oh, to me like that's, I've had some good friends that have come into the industry or just into entrepreneurship, and mentally it's just so fucking hard to do it. So for me, why the way I can keep going is literally when I did the punk rock record label, I met these bands that were in basements. At the time, you know, when I was working with a band called Jimmy E World, which is their giant, you know. Now they were literally playing like basement shows and hundred person capacity rooms, you know, and we were like, you know, like begging. I was their booking agent. We were like, you know, it was like very DIY, small, and I worked with dozens of bands that were like as small as they are they were and then became these giant, famous bands, giant famous bands.

Speaker 3: 13:04

And, um, when I started talking to the cannabis you know, men and women, entrepreneurs, meeting them all I got the same exact feeling. I was like, oh, my god, like you know, my excuse me, my industry was like emo, indie, like punk rock, you know so. But this is 30 years ago. It's a 30 year anniversary of my label this year, actually, and uh, which is psycho. And we're re-releasing vinyl, right, thank you. And the kids still care. I got today an email of a kid that wants to be on my label, which is psycho, cause it hasn't existed in a decade. And, um, you know, and we're re-releasing a bunch of vinyl records, which is insane. That kids care. These bands haven't played in 25 years.

Speaker 3: 13:48

Interesting and kids still are into it. So that perspective and that idea and the confidence that I get from doing that back then and knowing I was right and the bands still care, is why I can keep going now, because I have such a clear vision of what's going on with the industry and where we'll be, because I have such a clear vision of, like, what's going on with the industry and where we'll be. And you know, we started this thinking we were going to make two bucks an hour for forever. Yeah, you know, and that's what we did. We just really put the time in and over-delivered for everybody and helped these kind of operators carry their stuff through the mud, if you will like. My partner, josh, would say, and you know, but I did it once before with, with, with um, with the music stuff.

Speaker 3: 14:31

But back then in music right, there's big major labels existed for 100 years, you know, 50 years. So for me coming indie, it was really hard. I didn't see myself becoming that big, major mainstream music thing, even though my bands were doing it all the time. I didn't think that I could be epitaph records or or whatever um, sub pop. I just didn't think I could do it for some reason, because I started it when I was 15. Probably that's why you know, and um, and then now I'm like, okay, now I get it. Now I know that, like how to run a business and how to set up structure and how to find the right partners and all what I don't want to do. I know myself way more, you know. So, having like that experience, plus the the, the vision and the see it in the mirroring of it from what I did before to now, that's why I spring on a bed every day, you know, because I'm just so, I just so confident in what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 15:23

You know, rama what, uh, what do you think gives you guys your secret sauce over there at all flowers? I do think you guys are different than a lot of the other trade shows and yeah, that I just kind of tee up with that one.

Speaker 3: 15:36

Secret sauce. I love it. So, secret sauce, I'm a sauce man for sure. So, um, I'm. I love mimicking, I like Googling. You know what secret sauces exist, out from my my favorite crabby restaurants and and remaking them you know, yeah, um. So so I love it, cause the sauce has such different ingredients. Usually, you know, right, like some of that. Yeah, there's like the, the mayo and ketchup and mustard, but you know, then there's like vinegar, right, and then there's like the pickles or whatever.

Speaker 3: 16:02

Then there's, like I think the secret sauce is probably my partner Danny's ability to like see that sauce and and understand the, the, the main ingredients you know to to for it to like be super unique, you know. But again, he did his fashion trade show for 20 years, or something you know, and it was hugely successful way, way bigger than my stuff, you know, or something you know and it was hugely successful way, way bigger than my stuff you know Cool no, I agree I think you teed it up with before as well Like it's great to kind of hear someone so enthusiastic and it's like you said, you know you kind of go through that crazy moment.

Speaker 2: 16:40

You experience it. It gives you that confidence. It's really cool to just hear that and of course, when you look back you gotta give yourself kudos. I guess the other thing, guys.

Speaker 3: 16:50

The other thing that I do is like, for I like still, you know, green street is the company that started hall flowers, right, which is an ad agency, you know, and um, and thankfully I stopped really taking clients in and just focused on IP, building IP ourselves internally, which is what any real ad agency, that's how they really become successful if they build their own shit, you know. So that's what we essentially did, you know. So I did client work in cannabis for 12 years. You know I still have. We can still have a couple little projects here and there that we do, but you know, for the most part it's like, um, the agency turned into um, the ip house or the house of brands or whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 3: 17:34

And but as part of this, the main kind of client exercise that I do and my specialty, I would say, is is what is like called, or I call like like a brand realization exercise and it's like a legitimately like. It's a. It's a month long process. I've done it with a couple of great companies, but it's like a physical trainer's a. It's a month-long process. I've done it with a couple great companies, but it's like a physical trainer, like, I don't have a six-pack, you know you probably couldn't tell from my sweatshirt, but you know I'm not like that. But it's like, essentially, when you go to the gym, you have physical trainer, you work out every little part of your whole fucking body and like you don't have to eat right in the water and all this stuff, right and and it's like that's essentially what I do for brands, you know, and specialize I've done that forever for brands but now specialized for cannabis for the last 10 years and, yes, I'll make you a logo, but that comes like after the fact that we do these like really deep dive, fundamental exercises, like picture building a house.

Speaker 3: 18:26

I want to build a foundation that you can build a hundred story building on top of, not just and with all the heating on the floor and the whole thing, not just like figuring it out later, right. So that's why I don't take on many clients, because most clients don't want to put this like really like fundamental, foundational work into it, because it's not that fun, you got to go deep.

Speaker 1: 18:44

It's tough, it's like you gotta. You gotta get uncomfortable right and you gotta move through that. You know.

Speaker 3: 18:48

100 I totally agree with you when you you think you're here and you do this exercise with me over the course of a few weeks or a few months, depending on how much time you take, and but it's like 60 pages of like real one day is a page kind of thing. It's like a lot of fucking work, totally wrong, a lot of time, 90 of the time. By the time you get through the exercise you've changed your whole perspective on who you are or who you're going for or what you're there to do, kind of. You know, it really does change. That's the whole point of it. It changes your trajectory.

Speaker 3: 19:19

So we talked about Wizard of Oz earlier. We talked about, like, the confidence and the excitement that I have. Yeah, that's because I did this exercise myself years ago and you know it took through COVID really. I really sat down and like spent months and months and months, hundreds and hundreds of hours, yeah, like figuring out what the hell I wanted to do. And it kind of starts with this thing called leadership positioning. And now when I do it with clients, I show them two slides Do you want to be Wizard of Oz or do you want to be wizard of Oz, or do you want to be Richard Branston or, you know, elon Musk, with, like the gold suit on, or whatever you know.

Speaker 1: 19:54

What kind of leadership style?

Speaker 3: 19:55

are you right. Yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah, when you said wizard of Oz earlier, I was like, okay, I love it, cause that's like what I'm going for is this wizard of Oz thing. And you said, you know the confidence comes from because I feel like I know exactly what we're doing and what I'm out here to do, and it's not driven by money or anything like that. It's driven by, like the next 10 years of looking at the industry, you know. So I just have a long-term perspective on it, you know.

Speaker 1: 20:20

Yeah, what's going on in Cali right now? I feel like I haven't been out there in a long time. What are the challenges that you guys kind of face? Like we face a lot in marketing and and, um, kind of advertising. I'm sure you guys too like what, what's, what's going on with you there and and uh, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 20:38

That's really my main focus is California. My hypothesis was also like be big in California, yeah, that was it. So I I even turned down, for for 10 years we turned down projects from Canada or from other States, because we just didn't know the the world. You know what I mean. Yeah, I could make you a brand for if you're in, if you're in fucking whatever, montreal or whatever, but like it's not, I'm not there. You know, especially like social and speaking to the customer, all that kind of stuff, right? I don't know the slang or whatever, right? So so instead of being greedy and just saying, yes, give me the thing and whatever fucking, we'll figure it out, it was like let's just focus on california only and really, hopefully, los angeles mostly. You know, nice, hello, guys peeking in here uh and uh, you know and um, you know.

Speaker 3: 21:28

So, california, what's happening is we just had our first hall of flowers down here in ventura okay, I'm sure is where I live basically, coincidentally, nothing to do with it at all. I wish I was that smart, um, but I just moved up here and then a few months later they were like we can do show, but the venue is a place that we were going after for years. It's called the Ventura County Fairgrounds and it's right on the ocean, you know, and so you're driving in on the highway. It's an hour plus, you know, just over an hour north of LA, but it's really close to like what they call the valley and then northern, you know, southern mid part of California.

Speaker 3: 22:16

So it is a very convenient really you know what I mean to come in, you know, to this place and it's on the ocean, it's in a cool little town that has like tons of restaurants and bars and cafes and you know nightclub stuff and everything you'd want to do as a, as a attendee, you know. Also within like a mile radius, you know, so it's not spread out, which is like a really big advantage. Everything was better, the parking was better, you know everything that about the spot was better, but it took us years to get the venue and, um, we did our first show there just a month ago. Why?

Speaker 1: 22:41

was. Why was it found in the in the uh the venue, was it? They didn't want to be associated with a cannabis thing?

Speaker 3: 22:47

Yeah, exactly In California the laws are basically the allowed venues for a licensed cannabis event, which is what we are can only be at county fairgrounds and then other private property that is deemed okay by the city and the state. So it's like a crazy process to even get them to approve a non-fairground venue, which is what we do. In Palm Springs we had a non-fairground venue. It took nine months or something to get the city to be okay with it. Because these laws don't exist. We're going into cities that have never done this, ever in the world. That's why all flowers you said what's the special sauce?

Speaker 3: 23:28

My partner, danny, was sitting at the like the, you know the, not the courthouse, but whatever that town hall. You know like till one in the morning, many nights. You know like talking to everybody that's there and sitting waiting for the mayor and all this stuff. And you know he had to like have like lawyers and all these lobbyists, all these people like involved to even explain to the city how this stuff even works. You know, um, because it's it's very technical, it's it? No, I could have never pulled it off like. The one thing I saw really that this past few months with with my partner danny is that I couldn't have had the patience that he would have to go through and do all this like paperwork and stuff.

Speaker 1: 24:09

I throw the red tape. Well, me and Charlie always say that, yeah, the red tape's nuts, yeah, we didn't realize that. You know, we got involved in this industry. We're going to have to be politicians as well, and that's what it sounds like. You're kind of saying you're ready.

Speaker 3: 24:22

Yeah, or you that that's exactly. And that's not my world at all, I'm not interested in that. So that's exactly right. So so California, so you just said like, how's it going right? What's going on there? So so the show was a fucking phenomenal, huge success. So that's like a great thing. But the past year has been tough. You know, past couple of years really, you Um, there's a ton of unlicensed. You know retailers still open. You know there's um tons of tax. You know stuff going on Um a lot like some of the bigger companies. You know a company called herbal went out of business. They were distributing, like you know, a handful of the best brands. That was a big blow. You know.

Speaker 3: 25:05

You know recovering, but it's like, you know it's a, it's a. You know you know recovering, but it's like, you know it's a. So it's a. You know it's it's hard.

Speaker 3: 25:10

Now the thing is we talked about like um earlier. Like you know my approach, this stuff, and like when I sit down with these brands, you know, and it's a, it's a nice analogy, I think as well. It's like um, it's like the walking dead every day, right, like lava style, but it's like you kick the door open and like you could have all the plans in the world, but that shit's gone as soon as the new zombies coming out of this fucking little hole or whatever you know. So it's like every single day you've got to like re, you have to be able to like replant. So for someone that's really structured and stuck in this kind of thing and the projections and the thing and what like, it's almost impossible to do those. Impossible in the real world, to hit all that stuff, nevermind in in this world, right? So I think if you were really really tried and, like you know, raised all the money and had the very structured thing and I think it's, you're getting crushed, you know. But if you can kind of adapt and you know be asset, light or whatever term people want to use to describe it, then I think there's a good opportunity here.

Speaker 3: 26:11

And I'd say, like, the final part of California to me is like there's a lot of brands that have pulled out recently, big brands, wanna brands pulled out, right, so like it, if you need like, if if you don't need California to be part of, like your branding and your marketing and your credibility and stuff like that, then it maybe doesn't make sense to to to try to be here. You know, like that's what you're seeing, right, it's not just making it up. Like that's what you're seeing, right, it's not just making it up, right, that's what we're seeing. But you know, I think California brands the California lifestyle and Emerald Triangle and you know all the farms that are here and all the genesis are here. Like, besides, bc Bud, california cannabis is number one or two in the world as far as where people want their weed from.

Speaker 1: 27:01

It's epicenter for the culture. I was going to say I think so, yeah, and the product too Exciting.

Speaker 3: 27:06

Yeah, the product, yeah, yeah. So you're going to see you know these brands going over state lines very soon, you know, and getting licensing deals or building their own stuff. They already are, but you're going to see them go from you know one or two spots to like shit. We're in 14 states now because that's just like where the way any Coca-Cola or Corona beer or whatever it's how you do it, yeah, you know what I mean. So I think that's what's going on.

Speaker 2: 27:37

Just to tie us in, curious, to kind of get your sense on the Canadian market. Obviously the US is the primary, and I get why. But you have some great brands in the Toronto convention. You've got Collective Projects, scentsy Brands, west Coast Wilds, who I think is out of actually Oregon. Aurora is a big one here in Canada. I'm curious if anyone has caught your attention on the Canadian side, or also if you've ever heard of Sheesh, one of our sponsors that make a great hash soda. You said you like a beverage. You got to try one. Yeah, you got to try one.

Speaker 3: 28:08

I would love to try it. Yeah, I saw Sheesh earlier today on the on one when I was, you know, creeping on your Instagram, nice. So, yeah, that's cool and I liked that it was called hash. Is this cola or silk hash? I like that they use. Yeah, I like that they use the word hash there. Yeah, so Canada, like I'm not super familiar with it, to be honest. You know I'm not up there enough, you know.

Speaker 1: 28:32

I love it and I love the honesty man, next time you come we got to get you out of here and we'll come to the shop man come, we gotta get you out of here and we'll uh come to the shop. Man, you know, yeah, yeah, we'll come educate. You'd be happy to consume some products and enjoy it with you.

Speaker 3: 28:45

For sure that I get that yeah, I would love, I would love to easy places we eat so much, you know, so it's like we share that you call it. He was like yeah, I love the cannabis.

Speaker 1: 28:55

It's like yeah you're such a good guy. Man like um, I really I really gotta say I didn't know much about you or kind of jumped into this kind of knowing. Like I said, boca Roo, but to go from managing or signing some of the bigger bands of that early 2000 era and then doing the fashion thing and then now you're transitioning to cannabis, it's pretty cool. I think it's cool. It's cool. I think everybody makes your career transitions at different points in your life. Those are some cool jumping points.

Speaker 3: 29:21

In general, it's like I want people to come up from all over the country, right, but even if people are in Chicago or they're in New York or whatever, like pop up and come to Hall of Flowers. I think I check it out in Toronto.

Speaker 1: 29:37

It's a really good show and anybody that's listening that hasn't been any retailers that do listen to our show'm just gonna say get incredible value every time I go and always make sure to go every year, so, uh, it was a pleasure getting to chat with irama and get to. Uh, nobody's behind the brand of all of ours yeah, yeah, hell yeah, wizard of oz that beard, it's just, I love it, man. Pleasure to meet you, brother. Oh yeah, thank you guys.

Speaker 2: 30:03

Appreciate it Okay, bye.

Speaker 3: 30:05

Bye.

Speaker 2: 30:15

Diagnostic complete All systems functioning normally.