If you’re attending the Ever After Music Festival in Ontario this year, don’t waste any brain power devising crafty ways to smuggle in weed. On Sunday (May 5), organizers of the annual three-day EDM concert announced attendees will be allowed to bring herb into the event—and consume it.
Ticket holders will still get frisked at the gate, but single-day attendees will be allowed to tote up to 10 grams of dried flower, and campers are permitted up to 28 grams to be kept their designated sites. The only catch is the cannabis needs to be pre-rolled. Organizers emphasized a no-tolerance policy for bongs, pipes, or other consumption accessories.
Gabriel Mattacchione, president of the Ever After production company, Beyond Oz, told CTV News the event is treating weed like cigarettes in that there will be a designated smoking zone. The festival’s sesh spot will be tobacco- and alcohol-free and the sale of cannabis product is not permitted.
The website also states: “The use or possession of any illegal drugs will not be tolerated anywhere inside or outside the venue. Narcotics officers will be working both areas and enforcing all drug-related laws…If you are found intoxicated at entry, security will not allow you to enter the venue.”
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Ever After is being held in at Kitchener at the Bingemans grounds from June 7 to 9.
In March, organizers of the Toronto Craft Beer Festival announced a similar concept also slated for June. The three-day event is set to feature a “potio”—a designated cannabis consumption zone separate from the suds guzzling and dart hacking zones.
Whereas the concert is a private event, the beer festival will make history as the first provincially-backed and age-gated consumption lounge open to the Canadian public.
The zone will be designed by Detonate, a cannabis branding agency, and hosted by Abi Roach—founder of the Kensington Market weed hub, the HotBox Café.
‘We want to offer people a place to come down from the beer. You don’t have to consume cannabis to experience our creative, chill, and vibrant potio,’ says Roach in a release.
Organizers bill the alcohol- and tobacco-free patio as “a comfortable break from the beer and noise during the festival”. To reduce the risk of cross-fading—a term used to describe nausea, dizziness, and disorientation that can result from consuming excessive amounts of both alcohol and cannabis—Roach and her team will be on deck to answer questions and guide the experience.
Both federal and provincial governments have yet to announce plans to license permanent consumption lounges. These types of facilities are illegal under Health Canada’s new framework. Currently, the areas in which Canadians can consume are strictly regulated.
