North Canna Cup & Music Festival set to make history in Jefferson County

Tomorrow, North will host one of the largest cannabis-centric music and consumption friendly events the eastern side of Missouri has ever seen.

The North Canna Cup & Music Festival takes place August 30 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, running from 12 p.m. until 11 p.m., with a full day of music, community, and cannabis culture.

The event, headlined by The Floozies and featuring Josh Heinrichs, Aaron Kamm and The One Drops, Guerrilla Theory, and more marks the a milestone step in North’s community activations and events.

Building a new kind of festival

For Neil and Leonard Volner, co-founders of North, and their team, the festival is the culmination of years of smaller activations. What began as community gatherings with food trucks and music has grown into a large-scale production supported by city leaders, law enforcement, local officials, and industry partners.

“It’s been a big effort getting all that worked out. We got approval to use the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. Which was huge.”

“(It took meeting) with the fire department, the police chief, the mayor, and EMS to got everybody on board. It was an uphill battle,” Leonard said.

Neil added, “We had to go to the board and show again, like we have done many times throughout the last six or seven years in this industry, prove that we’re not the boogeyman. We’ve had zero altercations at events, and we do them every single month. That’s not in the stoner culture.”

Originally, the team feared they might have to build the festival from scratch. “In the time that we weren’t going to be able to use those facilities, we were literally looking at the field next to our Hillsboro location. We were like, man, we’re going to have to build this entire event from a bare field,” Neil explained.

Now secured at the fairgrounds, the event can accommodate up to 11,000 people. “We’re expecting about three to four thousand to come to this,” Leonard said. “If you want this to be Weedstock 2025, we’ll make it that.”

The Volners noted the festival is rooted in their long-standing community-first approach.

“This is our community. This is where we grew up. These are our people, and we are probably one of the only hyperlocal dispensaries there is. The people that, in my years in the legacy market, bought cannabis from me are buying cannabis from me right now,” Neil said.

Leonard explained how the company has kept its community focus front and center. “Alcohol is already everywhere. It’s well accepted, but we didn’t have that for the cannabis community. So we were just trying to put on events that if they were free and we could put enough cool stuff there, people would show up.”

“Every month we choose a charity partner for one of those events. We’ve done food drives, raised money for animal shelters, done adoption events, bought school supplies for kids, and toy drives,” Leonard continued.

Neil emphasized that none of their events were designed for profit. “We have never made any money off of any of the events we’ve done. We’ve solely done them for the purpose of creating community.”

“Like I said, it’s an experience. What are we offering that you can’t get somewhere else? We offer lots of experiences,” Leonard said.

Festival Schedule

The festival will run all day, with music spanning reggae, funk, hip-hop, and jam-band grooves.

• 12 p.m. – Gates open

• 12:30 – 2 p.m. – Crude Boys Sound System

• 2 – 3:30 p.m. – Guerrilla Theory

• 3:30 – 4 p.m. – DJ set

• 4 – 5:45 p.m. – Aaron Kamm and The One Drops

     

• 6 – 6:45 p.m. – Canna Cup Awards Ceremony

• 7 – 8:30 p.m. – Josh Heinrichs

• 9 – 10:30 p.m. – The Floozies

The event will also feature a bustling vendor village, artisan marketplace, and food truck court. Attendees can enjoy everything from local baked goods to Hawaiian barbecue.

Food trucks include: Dat Coffee, The Brunch Box, Hogz in Da Hood, Jessicole’s Cakes, Kanoa’s Hawaiian Grill, Lemon Pop, Pop Fusion, Cosmic Donut Company, Under the Sun Sno Shack, and Villa Antonio Winery.

Vendors range from crafters and custom makers to cannabis-adjacent retailers, including Bill & Co Exotics, Billionaire Bucket Hats, Grateful Headz, Main Street Grow Supply, Sacred Earth Recycling, and Smokin’ Resin Epoxy Designs.

VIP ticket holders will gain access to an exclusive lounge, swag bags, a cannabis concierge, and a dab bar.

“The Dab bar’s an actual dab bar,” Neil explained. “You just walk up, they give you a rundown of what they got, and then you just bang out a dab and go about your way. If you’ve never done a dab, it’s a good place to learn.”

Leonard added, “There’s no charge to any of that stuff. It’s not legal for us to sell anything in a public setting. It’s just there. It’s a place to experience things.”

The Canna Cup

At the center of the festival is North’s first Canna Cup, one of the largest cannabis competitions Missouri has seen.

“One of the things we did with this Canna Cup is a People’s Choice part where we created boxes with a variety of different submissions. People had a chance to try them, reflect on them, and then vote,” Neil said. “It’s a chance to have a multi-day experience, and then you also have a stake in the outcome.”

Entries spanned categories such as flower, prerolls, concentrates, vapes and cartridges, drinkables, and edibles. Products were grouped into “elevations” — sets of items at specific price points that allowed voters to sample fairly.

“We tried to keep everything within a reasonable price point. Otherwise, we could pile every vape into a box and nobody’s going to come in and spend $600 to try 12 vapes,” Neil explained.

Leonard noted the importance of fair comparison. “You don’t necessarily want to evaluate a rosin vape that’s top tier, premium quality product compared to just a run-of-the-mill distillate vape. But you can compare distillate vapes across the category with other peers and then decide who’s got the best one.”

The Volners explained that with more than 30 categories, entries had to be divided into digestible groups. “I think it was 30 total,” Neil said. “They were based off submissions to compete. And so from there we had to dissect that, and Karin (Chester) put a lot of effort into making those all digestible. She really did a lot of the legwork.”

Voting for People’s Choice boxes closed on August 1, with the top three in each category advancing to the blind Judges’ Box. Celebrity judges will help crown the winners during the Canna Cup Awards Ceremony at 6 p.m.

As the Volner brothers and the team at NORTH prepare to welcome thousands of attendees, they see the festival as a milestone for both their business and the wider cannabis community.

“This is about bringing people together, showing who we are, and celebrating what cannabis culture can be,” Neil said.