A couple hours into the first day of MJBizCon 2025 in Las Vegas, Quinn Heyrich began to wonder where his customers are hiding. The few people who stopped by Surfside Solution’s modest exhibit booth paused just long enough to dig into a bowl of Lifesaver mints.
“Everyone wants to get weed off their breath,” says Heyrich, systems automation manager for the New York City e-commerce advertising technology company.
And it doesn’t take a drug dog to pick up the scent of marijuana in the Central and North halls of the recently renovated Las Vegas Convention Center. Of all the conventions that roll through Las Vegas, and they run the gamut, MJBizCon might be viewed as the most unconventional.
It’s the cannabis event of the year, a deep connection with Mary Jane, the demonized weed, legalized for recreational use in 24 states. It’s a show of faith in a budding industry.
Founded in 2011 by Marijuana Business Daily, the conference was seeded by 400 community-rooted people meeting in a Denver hotel and has blossomed into the world’s largest cannabis marketplace, moving to Las Vegas in 2012, first at the Rio hotel and then at the convention center as the show became the Super Bowl of the industry.
MJBizCon 2025, held Dec. 2-5, brought in more than 1,000 exhibitors and 20,000 attendees, according to show organizers.
“MJBizCon has earned its place as the most important annual gathering in the cannabis industry,” Emilie Lewis, senior vice president of marketing, audience and event content strategy, tells Exhibit City News.
“It’s the one week each year when the entire ecosystem – operators, investors, innovators, policymakers, and solution providers – comes together to move the industry forward.”
FROM SEED TO SALE
MJBizCon’s show floor is sectioned into four areas of interest: cultivation products and services; processing, packaging and lab services; retail and dispensary; and business services and technology.
California grower Phinest exhibited its famous Sundae Driver, Fatso and Lava Cake strains. Full Scale of Golden, Colo., specializes in flexible packaging ranging from glass jars and pouches to tubes, tins and boxes. CropSalt sells nutrients that lead to bigger yields, higher quality and more profit.
NuWu, the Paiute tribe’s dispensary and lounge in downtown Las Vegas, became the first exhibitor at MJBizCon to take online orders from its booth on the show floor. The marijuana crowd congregated for “flower hour” at NuWu after the show to sesh with the cannabis elite.
Chris Isley, vice president of sales at Temeka Group, worked on the design and engineering of NuWu’s booth, pointing out cable installation so as not having to rely on the convention center’s Wi-Fi.
“If someone places an order and it’s not there when they go to pick it up, wouldn’t they be upset?” Isley asks.
Temeka has done millwork and backdrop graphics for 70 stores selling STIIIZY cannabis products in California, as well as the official NFL store at Caesar Palace’s Forum Shops. It’s the company’s ninth year of building display cabinets at MJBizCon.
Isley, sweeping his arms toward an empty area beyond the show walls, has seen exhibit space decrease over the years.
“It was a new industry, lots of venture capitalists, but then money was plentiful,” he explains. “But as we’ve seen issues come up, it’s costing people more money, and money is not flowing like it used to.”
CHALLENGING ISSUES
Marijuana business has evolved from underground dealers and garage growers into a dynamic, multibillion economic sector. According to MJBizDaily, the total economic impact of regulated marijuana sales could top $123.6 billion in 2025, a 9 percent increase from the previous year. Every $1 spent at a dispensary adds $2.50 to the local economy.
While the expansion of recreational and medical marijuana has boosted sales to an estimated $38 billion to $45 billion a year, investors must be careful not to be avaricious. Retail prices have dropped due to product oversupply. Forbes magazine reports that only 27 percent of cannabis business were profitable in 2024, and 40 percent broke even.
Industry experts at MJBizCon spoke about issues such as bank restrictions on cash transactions that continue to strangle growth; lobbying the FDA to reclassify marijuana from Schedule 1 controlled substance (equivalent to heroin and other opiates) to Schedule 3 drugs; and proposed revision of the “farm bill” that would ban the sale of hemp-derived products such as THC-infused drinks and low-content Delta-9 THC products, referred to as “gas station weed,” starting in November 2026.
George Bachtell, chief executive officer of Cresco Labs, encouraged industry leaders to present a “united message” and lay out a plan for legislators on Capital Hill who are besieged with a thousand matters to be opined upon, most of which they have no knowledge.
“If we’re not united on how to solve it, they won’t,” Bachtell says of hemp regulation. “We have not gone beyond the point of no return. If we can allow them to go backward, they will. We’re on the 1-yard line. We must have a combined approach to get to the finish line.”
NATIONAL EXPOS
MJBizCon is not unique. Other cannabis events include the Suny Cannabis Conference in Niagara Falls, N.Y.; Lucky Leaf Expo in Minneapolis, Minn., and Albuquerque, N.M.; CannaCon West and CannaCon Midwest.
Las Vegas stood out when it was time to make the move from Denver, MJBizCon SVP Lewis says. It’s friendly to cannabis with regulated adult use and supports an environment for industry education, innovation and commerce. The city’s infrastructure, hotel accommodations and convention center accessibility make it the ideal platform to serve as the global meeting place for the cannabis industry.
“Despite the headwinds, this community continues to show incredible resilience and ingenuity,” Lewis says. “That’s why MJBizCon remains the largest, most professional, and most influential event in the cannabis sector, it’s where the future of the industry is built, deal by deal and relationship by relationship.”
Kayla Kuzer, vice president of sales for Alpine IQ loyalty software, attended MJBizCon in the past, hosting company events, but wanted a larger presence and “flagship operation” to meet with customers.
“I think Las Vegas works,” she says. “It’s recreational for cannabis and Vegas is known for conferences. There’s a lot of potential. It’s going to be interesting to see the next few years with states putting it (recreational marijuana) on the ballot.”
