Mover: Josh Hlavka
Motion:
I move to authorize the expenditure of $500 from the State Fund to purchase a vendor space at the 2023 Florida Cannabis Festival, AKA Cannafest, November 5th & 6th, 2023 at Renninger's Twin Markets in Mt. Dora, FL.
Discussion:
Cannafest is a yearly cannabis festival held the first weekend in November at Renninger's Twin Market in Mt. Dora, FL. They bill themselves as “Florida's Premier Cannabis Festival” event with “Hundreds of Vendors, dozens of unique food vendors, all with a cannacentric focus”. This event generally draws thousands of attendees from in and outside of the state of Florida, with access to leaders in the nonprofit and business sectors of the cannabis industry.
This $500 expense would secure the LPF a 20'x20' outdoor vendor space in the event field, two (2) vendor passes, and one (1) parking pass for the vendor lot. Tables and a canopy for the event would need to be furnished by the LPF, and the vendor table requires a professional sign/banner in the vendor space by the event host. The LPF would be taking this event over from the Lake County Affiliate, who has been sponsored or supported by the LPF the last two iterations.
The expectation is that the LPF would have volunteers use this space to engage in public outreach on the LPF's stance on cannabis, network with leaders and business owners in the cannabis industry, collect petition signatures on cannabis legislation, register Florida voters as Libertarians, solicit for donations to the LPF and it's candidates, and recruit attendees to join the LPF/LP as members. There is also the opportunity to potentially sell LPF branded merchandise at the table to recoup the costs associated with the event. We will be looking for approximately eight (
volunteers from the local LPF affiliate, as well as the LPF general membership already planning on attending, to man the table for the duration of the event.
This motion solely encompasses the cost of acquiring a vendor table for this event, and does not preclude the presentation of another motion for future expenses associated with this event. Most likely, there will be a separate motion submitted closer to the event to provide a budget in support of the LPF's event efforts and volunteers staffing the space.
