First-ever Cannabis Sales and Marketplace in San Francisco’s Outside Countries
The mainstreaming of cannabis reached new heights over a recent August weekend in San Francisco when legal sales and consumption were allowed at a major public music festival for the first time ever — a development that will have far-reaching influence on other large-scale events.
BLAZE, an enterprise resource planning platform for the legal cannabis industry, made everything operate smoothly and without major complications thanks to its sophisticated sales and compliance software suite. During the August 9-11, 2019 music festival’s Grass Lands cannabis experience, BLAZE operated 40 registers, facilitated cash and credit card sales, and powered the entire supply chain for the event, from distribution to point-of-sale including retail inventory control.
With attendance of well over 200,000, Outside Lands is so far the largest public event ever to host a legal cannabis marketplace, with 24 major brands including Cresco, Cookies, Flow Kana, and DomPen participating. Grass Lands allowed attendees 21 and over to legally purchase and consume cannabis within the festival grounds.
“Pacific Stone’s best-value offerings on premium cannabis became so popular at Outside Lands that lines began to back up. BLAZE saved the day and set us up with our own register enabling us to easily serve all our fans, even at the peak hours of demand!” says Michael Palmer, Owner of cannabis brand Pacific Stone.
Facilitating something of this size required state-of-the-art software that could not only process many transactions quickly but also stay in compliance with California’s strict laws governing the sale of cannabis, with the state Bureau of Cannabis Control watching over and approving the entire process. The team at BLAZE was more than ready for the task.
“As much as we prepared for Grass Lands there was a lot of last-minute coordination required. The permits did not get official approval from the City of San Francisco until only a few hours before the festival started, so we were rushing to connect all the brands with our equipment and software and get the manifests in place. But we were ready when the gates opened. This was a never-been-done-before thing, and we had exceptional partners to pull it all off,” says Chris Violas, Co-Founder and CEO of BLAZE.
While Grass Lands was operating smoothly in San Francisco, BLAZE’s ERP platform was hard at work serving its many other clients nationwide. During the Aug. 9-11 weekend, BLAZE software processed 40,000 transactions worth $4.7 million in gross retail sales.