Revelry Buyers Club: The Complete Guide to New York’s Biggest Cannabis Buyer Events

If you work in New York cannabis, you’ve probably heard people talk about “Revelry” like it’s a can’t-miss reunion. There’s a reason for that. Revelry Buyers Club is On The Revel’s flagship event platform. In 2026 it marked ten years of running cannabis community events. It celebrated by hosting two of them: one in Hudson each spring, one in Manhattan each fall. Both are built around the same idea. It’s a trade show where the people walking the floor are vetted buyers with real purchasing authority, not badge-scanners collecting swag. Still, the two events have a genuinely different feel. This is the full picture: what Revelry is, how it started, and how the Hudson and Manhattan editions differ. It also covers what a day there actually looks like and what to do once you’re in the room.

Revelry Buyers Club at a Glance

• What it is: A curated, buyer-vetted cannabis trade show run by On The Revel. It’s built around real procurement conversations, not booth-and-swag mechanics.
• Who runs it: On The Revel, founded by Lulu Tsui (Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer) and Jacobi Holland (Co-Founder), with Jason Starr as Chief Impact Officer. The company has run cannabis community events since 2016.
• How many events: Two annual New York editions. A spring event in Hudson, and a fall event in Manhattan at Pier 36.
• 2026 dates: Hudson ran Wednesday, May 13, 2026, at Basilica Hudson. Manhattan ran Friday, September 18, 2026, at Pier 36. Registration for future editions opens on Revelry’s own site, revelryny.com; check there for the current year’s exact dates before you plan around this article.
• Who can attend as a buyer: NY-licensed retailers, microbusinesses, ROD (Retail Operator on Demand) licensees, and delivery licensees. Buyer passes are vetted and free, and registration closes ahead of the event.

How Revelry Started

Most cannabis trade shows sell booth space to anyone who’ll pay for it, which is exactly what Revelry Buyers Club was built to avoid. They let foot traffic sort itself out. Revelry does the opposite. On The Revel vets both sides of the room. Buyers with real procurement authority sit on one side; licensed brands and cultivators actively looking for retail placement sit on the other. The team designs the day around conversations built to turn into business, not just booth visits.

That format traces back to how the company started. On The Revel began about a decade ago with grassroots gatherings that actually predated New York’s legal cannabis market. The team has organized 16 New York cannabis-focused events since 2016, alongside an online membership community, a podcast, and educational programming. For a decade, the focus has been helping legacy operators, particularly equity businesses, transition into the legal space.

The Buyers’ Club Format’s Origin

The Buyers’ Club format specifically traces to June 2023. On The Revel ran a private, invitation-only event at Basilica Hudson exclusively for New York’s newly licensed CAURD (Cannabis and Adult-Use Retail Dispensary) operators. Roughly 150 retail buyers and 80 producers attended, timed to the state’s second cannabis cultivation cycle right after adult-use legalization. That original, narrowly-scoped event is the direct ancestor of both the Hudson and Manhattan shows running today. Smaller and newer operators get put in front of the retail buyers actually looking for what they grow. That beats getting lost in badge-scan traffic on a generic convention floor.

Lulu Tsui has described the approach as built around “the art of gathering.” The founding team draws on years of UX and hospitality experience, and it shows in the details, from check-in to the after-party. Jason Starr, the company’s Chief Impact Officer, put it directly: the environment is intentional, and the community is thoughtfully curated, not left to chance. That’s part of why people describe Revelry events as feeling more like a well-run party than a convention floor. Distribution deals, investor introductions, and partnerships that started over a product sample table are part of the event’s own lore at this point.

Revelry Hudson: The Spring Edition

Held each May, Revelry Hudson takes place at Basilica Hudson, a nonprofit multidisciplinary art center at 110 Front Street in Hudson, New York. It’s a deliberate choice of venue: exposed brick and natural light, not standard convention-center fluorescent lighting and carpet. The founders treat the setting as part of the experience, not an afterthought. The show runs as a single, roughly six-hour day, with both indoor showroom space and outdoor areas in use.

The May 2026 edition, the event’s tenth year running, turned out to be Revelry’s biggest yet. The show drew roughly 2,800 attendees and 562 licensed New York retailers. That’s approximately 85 percent of the state’s 663 active retail licenses at the time. Around 250-plus brands and 180 exhibitor booths and sponsorships took part too. On a single day in Hudson, most of New York’s licensed retail footprint was in the room. No other single event in the state concentrates that much of the buy side in one place. That’s the core reason Revelry Hudson is worth planning around, even if you’ve never been.

Coverage of the 2026 show described the energy as more centralized and more polished than prior years. Brands were writing orders on the spot rather than just collecting leads. At least one attendee account noted that six hours wasn’t really enough time to get through everything on the floor.

New for 2026, Revelry introduced a Micro Business Program at Hudson to give smaller, craft cannabis operators more visibility. The cannabis market tends to favor the loudest, best-funded brands. The program is a structural attempt to fix that. It puts craft operators in front of the buyers looking for exactly what they grow, on the same floor as established names.

Revelry NY Buyers’ Club: The Fall Edition at Pier 36

The Manhattan edition, held each September, moves the event into New York City proper: Pier 36 at 299 South Street, on the Lower East Side. Hudson runs as a full-day event in an art-center setting upstate. The Manhattan show is built for New York’s density instead. For 2026 it ran as a single-day format, a deliberate change from the two-day format the fall event used in past years.

The format inverts what a lot of people expect from a trade show floor. Booths belong to the brands, and licensed retailers move through the event as attendees, not the other way around. That keeps the day organized around what buyers are actually there to do. Buyer pass eligibility follows the same rule as Hudson: NY-licensed retailers, microbusinesses, ROD licensees, and delivery licensees. Registration is vetted and closes ahead of the event, so it isn’t a walk-up show for buyers.

Sponsors and Exhibitors

The Manhattan edition also carries the Micro Business Showcase forward into its second year. It again puts some of New York’s smallest licensed operators on the same floor as national brands. Micro Business Showcase co-founder Peter Mercado-Reyes has described that corner of the floor as “real recognizes real.” It’s a space where buyers meet the actual founders behind a product instead of just discovering it on a shelf.

For 2026, national names sharing that floor included Cookies, STIIIZY, and Wyld. The sponsor roster included NY Farm Co. and Wizard Trees as title sponsors, plus National Brands and Boukét at the platinum tier. More than a dozen gold-tier sponsors joined too, including PlugPlay, Ghost, and Dank. Media partners included High Times, The Other Magazine, and Beard Bros Media. Lulu Tsui summed up what the fall event means for the industry: “Every year, Revelry Buyers’ Club reminds us what makes New York cannabis so special. It’s one of the few days where the entire industry comes together.”

Hudson vs. Manhattan: How the Two Editions Actually Differ

Both editions of Revelry Buyers Club share a format and a mission, but they’re not interchangeable. Which one makes sense for you depends on what you’re trying to get out of the day.

Hudson is the bigger buyer-turnout event by the numbers. It’s an upstate, art-center setting, with a full day built around slower, deeper conversations and indoor and outdoor space to spread out in. If your priority is meeting the largest possible concentration of New York retail buyers in one sitting, Hudson in May is where that happens. Manhattan trades some of that scale for proximity and density. It’s in the city, and it’s a single, tightly run day. Its sponsor and exhibitor roster leans toward bigger national brands alongside the Micro Business Showcase operators. Maybe your operation is based in or does most of its business in the five boroughs. Or a spring trip upstate just isn’t realistic. Either way, build your calendar around the fall Pier 36 event instead.

Attending both isn’t redundant. The events sit five months apart, so they double as two check-ins on how the New York market is moving. Operators who make it to both tend to say that context, seeing what’s changed between May and September, is itself valuable.

A Day on the Floor: What Revelry Actually Feels Like

The format description only tells you so much. What it’s actually like to walk the floor is a better guide to whether this is worth your day. Coverage from the 2026 Hudson show describes buyers moving continuously between brand tables and lounge activations. They’re doing real business as they go, rather than just collecting cards. Brands that came prepared were writing orders on the spot. A buyer would stop at a table and ask questions. The brand rep would pull out an order sheet and lock in a deal right there, not “we’ll follow up next week.” That’s the practical difference between Revelry and a standard expo. Floor time is built to end in signed business, not just a stack of contacts you sort through later.

Notable Moments From 2026

Some of what stood out at the 2026 Hudson show gives a sense of the texture. The Ayrloom Lounge activation drew attention for its comfortable seating and relaxed atmosphere in the middle of an otherwise fast-moving day. Brand reps from companies like All That Chocolate, Alibi Cannabis, High 5, and Golden State Banana were doing live interviews and demos. A few specific products stood out too, including Rosie’s lipstick-shaped cannabis vape and Loosie’s chocolate-covered cherry gummies. People were still talking about them after the fact.

Go in expecting the day to move fast. More than one attendee account from the 2026 show noted that a six-hour window wasn’t quite enough to get through everything. Indoor space also got genuinely crowded at peak hours. If you want to see everything on the floor, plan to arrive close to when doors open rather than mid-afternoon.

Why These Events Matter for New York Cannabis Right Now

Revelry’s timing isn’t incidental. New York’s cannabis market has been in a genuinely transitional moment through 2026. New leadership took over at the Office of Cannabis Management. M&A activity has been steady. Operators face ongoing operational friction around track-and-trace compliance and real signs of market saturation in some categories. Federal-level uncertainty around hemp regulation and rescheduling touches every operator’s planning horizon too.

At the same time, the state’s cannabis workforce is growing fast. New York is now the third-largest cannabis employment state in the country, at roughly 28,660 cannabis jobs according to Vangst‘s 2026 Cannabis Jobs Report. The workforce is up about 129 percent year over year. That’s a market working through real structural change while employment keeps climbing. It’s exactly the environment where an event built for procurement conversations earns its place on the calendar. Retail licensing decisions from the OCM land on a near-weekly basis, so the buyer landscape itself keeps shifting between one Revelry event and the next.

Who Should Go, and How to Prepare

If You’re a Buyer

Licensed NY retailers, microbusinesses, ROD licensees, and delivery licensees can get a vetted Revelry Buyers Club pass at either event. The pass itself is free, with licensed groups getting two per group. Registration is still the door in, and it closes ahead of the event, so don’t leave it until the week of. Go in with a clear sense of what you actually want to stock or replace. The buyers who get the most out of the day treat it like a real sourcing trip, not a browse.

If You’re a Brand, Cultivator, or Processor

Exhibitor and sponsorship tiers are how you get on the floor. They run from broad, high-visibility title and platinum sponsorships down to gold-tier participation. Alongside those sits the Micro Business Program and Showcase, built for smaller, craft-scale operators who aren’t competing at national-brand budget. Tabling spots go to brands, processors, cultivators, and ancillary businesses looking for direct retailer access. Book early: floor placement fills up, and booking ahead is how you avoid getting pushed to the edges of the room. If you’re newer or smaller, ask about the Micro Business track specifically rather than assuming standard exhibitor pricing is your only way in.

Once You’re There

The event runs less like a convention and more like a hosted gathering with business built into it, which changes how you should show up. Bring more business cards than you think you need. Don’t rush a good conversation just to hit every booth on the floor, and don’t assume six hours is more time than it is. Some of the most-cited outcomes from past Revelry events, distribution deals, investor introductions, new partnerships, started the same way. An unhurried conversation over a product sample, not a scripted pitch.

The single most common mistake happens after the event, not at it. Every real connection made at Revelry needs a follow-up within about 48 hours; after that, the momentum fades fast. If you’re planning to attend, block calendar time right afterward specifically for follow-ups, rather than letting it compete with the rest of your week.

Zen Den at Revelry

Zen Den has attended Revelry Buyers Club events alongside our payroll and HR partner. We keep showing up for the same reason a lot of operators do. It’s one of the only rooms in New York cannabis where the real decision-makers, on both the buy and sell side, are in one place for a day. If you’re there and want to talk through onboarding, compliance, handbooks, management structure, or anything HR-related, that conversation is easy to have in person. No need to schedule it separately. No pitch required. For more on how New York’s cannabis workforce is shifting, see our Revelry NY prep roundup and our recap of the fall event weekend.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Revelry Buyers Club?

A curated, buyer-vetted cannabis trade show run by On The Revel. It’s built around real procurement conversations between licensed retail buyers and cannabis brands, cultivators, and processors, not a standard booth-and-badge trade show format.

Is Revelry Buyers Club one event or two?

Two separate annual New York editions: a spring event in Hudson at Basilica Hudson, and a fall event in Manhattan at Pier 36. The same organizer runs both with the same buyer-vetting model, but they’re distinct events with their own dates, venues, and format details.

Who can attend Revelry as a buyer?

NY-licensed retailers, microbusinesses, ROD (Retail Operator on Demand) licensees, and delivery licensees can get a vetted buyer pass. Registration closes ahead of each event, so it isn’t a walk-up option.

How big is Revelry Hudson?

The May 2026 edition drew roughly 2,800 attendees and 562 licensed New York retailers, about 85 percent of the state’s active retail licenses at the time. It also drew 250-plus participating brands and 180 exhibitor booths and sponsorships. That makes it the largest concentration of New York’s retail buy side at a single event.

What is the Micro Business Program?

A dedicated track, introduced in 2026, that gives smaller, craft New York cannabis operators visibility alongside established national brands on the same show floor. It ran at Hudson in the spring and returned as the Micro Business Showcase at the Manhattan event in the fall.

How do I register for Revelry Buyers Club?

Registration for both the Hudson and Manhattan editions runs through Revelry’s own site, revelryny.com. Buyer passes are vetted against licensing status, and exhibitor and sponsorship inquiries are handled separately from buyer registration.

Do I need to attend both events?

No, they’re independent. Attending Hudson doesn’t require attending the fall Manhattan event, or vice versa. Some operators attend both. The two dates sit roughly five months apart, offering two separate snapshots of how the New York market is moving over the year.

Does it cost anything to attend as a buyer?

No. Buyer passes for licensed retail, microbusiness, ROD, and delivery license holders are free, with two passes provided per licensed group. Exhibitor and sponsorship tiers for brands are priced separately and are not free.

How long has Revelry Buyers Club been running?

The Buyers’ Club format traces back to June 2023. On The Revel ran a private, invitation-only event at Basilica Hudson exclusively for New York’s newly licensed CAURD retailers. On The Revel itself has organized 16 New York cannabis-focused events since 2016, and 2026 marked its tenth year running cannabis community events overall.