7 Tips for Post-Pandemic Event Planning for Cannabis and Wellness Brands

You know we always enjoy a good get-together at Grasslands. “Over-the-top hospitality” is one of our core values, and it’s just what we do at events from our signature Nightcaps and Supperclubs to The Grasslands Party we host each year during MJBizCon week. But even for an agency that knows the value of bringing people together, this year we’ve been getting even more intentional about building community. That’s the primary driver behind our collective craving for post-pandemic events.

Some of the things we’ve been up to so far in 2024: We participated in individual Freedom Walks for Juneteenth and shared our thoughts and feelings over lunch with our team. Ricardo feted the journalism career of our friend and colleague Doug Brown (currently New Hope's Senior Retail Reporter) with members of the wellness CPG and natural products community in a pair of lively backyard dinner parties. We also hosted over 100 journalists for a timely panel discussion on the state of Colorado media in an important election year. We won’t lie—the value we’ve already seen is incredible. 

Journalist Ben Markus of Colorado Public Radio said of the Colorado Journalist Meetup, “That was one of the most impressive journalism get-togethers I’ve ever seen. So often we meet over beers at the press club to lament another round of layoffs. To see so many of my colleagues—AP, Denver Post, Denver7, Colorado Sun, Boulder Daily Camera, Axios, KOA—just having fun together, talking shop and learning from the panel was a supreme highlight.”

What Markus said about the usual tenor of press gatherings gets to the very heart of why Grasslands has been so event-focused this year—and why we aren’t alone. (We’ll tell you more about that later.) First, here a few of our proven tips for post-pandemic event planning:

Seven Tips for Post-Pandemic Event Planning

1. Niche is nice. As marketing experts, we always advise our clients that you can’t and shouldn’t be everything to everyone. The same is true when planning post-pandemic events. Consciously or unconsciously, many of us feel safer in smaller crowds and at more intimate get-togethers—which also facilitate the deeper, more focused conversations people seek out both personally and professionally these days. Don’t be afraid to build an event around a niche focus and to keep the guest list curated.

2. Go ahead and nudge. Although many people are craving the kind of warmth and engagement in-person events can provide, many of us have fallen out of the habit of congregating. They might need a reminder or an added incentive. Even with great panels locked in for events this summer, we always add something of extra value or novelty, like sushi or Fable Libations THC cocktails.

3. Get by with a little help from friends. Riding a wave might not boost all fortunes, but it can certainly float a few boats working together. Try blending networks to keep conversations fresh and industry events from feeling stale. Whether it’s part of a full-on brand activation, a collaborative PR campaign or marketing for a single event, inviting like-minded brands to co-sponsor events can elevate the whole affair—not to mention share costs. 

4. Make it something to remember. Even before the pandemic, immersive experiences were becoming the thing—from the Van Gogh 3D art rooms to interactive art exhibits like Meow Wolf to escape rooms and Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, to the viral, Fyre Festival-level failure of the Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow. Our appetite for novelty (and, let’s face it, social media content) only increased with pandemic-era isolation and anxiety. Today, brands that can turn ordinary networking events into a memorable experience will increase both value and brand recognition for attendees. That doesn't have to be an expensive or complicated endeavor—an activation as simple as the Zoltar fortune-telling machine or cannabis-infused hand massages at the 2023 Grasslands Party made positive impressions.

5. Take it outside. We mean that literally and figuratively. Many people are still more comfortable within well-ventilated third places, and are eager to get more active. And, speaking of novelty, it can’t hurt to think outside the box. Trendy sports like pickleball have become popular social activities to pair with business networking the way people have long done business over a round of golf or a schvitz—and it’s an egalitarian development, at that. Both lines of reasoning influence our way of hosting post-pandemic events that flow between indoor and outdoor spaces or take place in attractive natural settings.

6. Offer non-alcoholic drinks that feel special. One way that post-pandemic event planning has changed is that people simply got burnt out on booze since 2020. Consumer tastes first turned away from beer towards hard seltzers, and then again toward fully alcohol-free options. Chances are a rising percentage of prospective event attendees would appreciate an NA drink option that doesn’t leave them feeling like they’re stuck at the kiddie table, whether it’s a signature mocktail, a bottled offering like the Phony Negroni or NA beers like those crafted by Athletic Brewing Co or Untitled Art. That’s especially true in wellness-minded industries like natural products or cannabis—the latter of which might appreciate a low-dose THC beverage on offer, or powdered THC supplements like Ripple to season a non-alcoholic drink with their intoxicant of choice.

7. Give people a third space. Online communities and niche social networks have been a lifeline for many people before, during and well after the pandemic. But people increasingly want to bring their online interests to real-world settings. Anyone following culture beats and women’s media in 2024 will have noticed a flurry of articles exploring the newfound interest in book clubs, which let people share the solitary hobbies they cleaved to during the height of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and which surged in popularity online over the last few years. Brands that want to make the most of post-pandemic event marketing, whether B2B networking or B2C marketing activations, should leverage the interests that saw us through lockdown. Take the Housing Works Cannabis Co. Run Club, for example, which brought runners together and used group workouts as an opportunity for B2C consumer education. 

Why Post-Pandemic Event Planning Is All About “Third Spaces”

So, what’s this about third space? It’s a key piece of the post-pandemic event planning puzzle. The notion of a distinct “third place” was introduced to the cultural lexicon by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in 1989. He coined the term to describe community gathering places that were neither home (the first place) nor work (the second place), but (as the internet likes to say) a secret, third thing.

When Grasslands founder and CEO Ricardo Baca purchased a former dive bar in Denver’s Santa Fe Arts District and renovated it into our headquarters during the pandemic, he made both an office (the second place) and a valuable third place that went beyond the workday. 

Oldenburg’s concept arrived in the cultural zeitgeist just when second-wave coffee shop hangouts were taking off thanks to brands like Peet’s Coffee and Starbucks during a period of massive changes for the natural products and grocery industries. Today, however, 70% of Starbucks sales are mobile app and drive-thru orders. It’s not just the Seattle coffee giant, either. As UNESCO noted in 2023, “Some 80% of chain coffee house businesses are now offering drive-through and mobile orders.”

Post-Pandemic Event Planning Is All About Community

There are some practical reasons for the rise of drive-through culture, like the decline of walkable communities and social distancing that became entrenched with the pandemic. But when we stopped lingering for hours over a convivial cappuccino and started sucking down iced lattes on solitary Target runs, it was also a symptom of a gradual decline in face-to-face interactions that the U.S. Surgeon General declared in 2023 to be a full-on “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.”

Indeed, studies show that American adults do 30% less socializing face-to-face than two decades ago. The decrease in face time is even sharper for Gen Z. It’s not as if that 30% decline has been replaced with total isolation, of course. 

A lot of socialization for people of all ages has moved online, from FaceTiming with family to texting friends to meeting colleagues and industry peers for Zoom networking events. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, either—especially for members of marginalized groups like LGBTQIA+ and people with disabilities, who historically haven’t always had access to safe, accepting communities. 

Still, other trends make it clear that people are really craving communities of care, intimate friendships and more companionship, period. Like Ben Markus said of Grasslands’ Colorado Journalists Meetup, we’ve collectively and individually been through a lot these past few years. 

From the pandemic to national reckonings with systemic racism and police injustice to inflation, climate change, international conflicts and industry bubbles bursting, we’ve had no shortage of reasons to commiserate. But that’s always why we increasingly seek out reasons to come together to bond over commonalities and look to the future.

At Grasslands, we specialize in digital marketing and public relations tactics and take advantage of the latest technologies, like the judicious use of artificial intelligence and strategic marketing automation tactics. But as a Journalism-Minded Agency™, our work is also rooted in some of the fundamentals we learned in J-school, like picking up the phone and making calls—and bringing people together to share a moment. 

Keep an eye on our events page to see what we’ll be hosting next not only at our Denver HQ but also in cities coast to coast. Perhaps we’ll see you at this year’s cannabis conferences and trade shows or natural products and wellness expos—or even your brand’s own post-pandemic event.

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