Arts, Beats & Eats' new cannabis lounge is sign of things to come for Michigan events

In Royal Oak, cannabis executive Michael DiLaura and his House of Dank team are gearing up for what he calls “our Super Bowl” — a milestone weekend that may help open the floodgates for legal weed at Michigan live events.

At Arts, Beats & Eats, the state’s biggest Labor Day weekend festival, DiLaura and company will unveil a space where attendees can buy and consume marijuana, a feature that experts say will eventually be par for the course at concerts, festivals and other public gatherings.

It makes AB&E the first major festival in Michigan, and one of the first in the U.S., to include an area dedicated to the legal sale and consumption of cannabis. The move was approved by the Royal Oak Commission in February and subsequently licensed by the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA).

In a normally nondescript Royal Oak alley, the scene was buzzing Thursday afternoon as crews built the tented space that will become the colorful DankWay, which will offer cannabis products for sale and a lounge with high-top tables.

Arts, Beats & Eats, which draws up to 400,000 people annually, will run Friday through Monday in downtown Royal Oak, with 200-plus music acts that include national headliners Joan Jett, Halestorm and Bell Biv DeVoe.

While Michigan has previously granted sales and consumption licenses to smaller, cannabis-centric events — Ypsilanti’s Spark in the Park and Reggae on the River among them — AB&E is the first mainstream fest to secure the authorization.

In a prediction echoed by cannabis and events professionals in Detroit and beyond, DiLaura calls the legal integration of weed into public gatherings “100% inevitable.”

“We’re going to turn heads in the industry about what’s possible,” said DiLaura, who envisions a future where cannabis sections are commonplace at stadiums, sports events and concerts. “That is where we’re headed long term, but we’re taking baby steps right now.”

In 2019, San Francisco’s long-running Outside Lands festival grabbed headlines as the first major music fest in the U.S. with a legal marijuana marketplace. News coming out of the event was positive, with reports of strong sales and no incidents.

AB&E producer Jon Witz said he has heard from other Michigan event promoters and municipal officials — including some still skeptical about cannabis — who will be keeping tabs this weekend.

“All eyes are on us, for sure. And that’s a place where Arts, Beats & Eats has always been comfortable,” said Witz. “I think we’re a safe space for expanding freedoms, showcasing diversity and taking care of all lifestyles.”

The topic of cannabis remains sensitive, and many metro Detroit venue operators and event promoters contacted by the Free Press declined to be quoted for this article.

But privately they say they’ll be watching AB&E this weekend with much interest. And they agree the integration of cannabis into live events is likely to accelerate, even if there remain logistical hurdles for now: Michigan law requires municipal approval for cannabis spaces such as the one at AB&E, for instance. And there’s the matter of steep insurance costs, particularly for events that also sell alcohol.

Indeed, the presence of alcohol at AB&E is a big reason the Royal Oak Commission, acting on the police department’s advice, rejected the festival’s request last year for a cannabis space.

But police and the seven-person commission came around in February, and the request was unanimously approved.

“This is a momentous weekend,” said House of Dank’s DiLaura. “But I think one day we’ll look back and say, ‘What was the big deal?’ ”

Cannabis zone will be hidden from view

DankWay will be housed in a tented alley near Sixth and Center streets in Royal Oak — an isolated island within AB&E, “well away from family activities,” as Witz has been quick to emphasize.

The rules of the state license are strict: Only those 21 and up may enter, and alcohol is banned inside. The area must be hidden from public view — hence the scrims that workers were busy installing Thursday.

The alley space, which has a maximum capacity of 362 people, is equipped with a truss system including fans and purifiers intended to circulate air and keep smoke away from the main festival site. Servers dubbed “budtenders” will be on hand along with joint-rolling specialists from the Adrian dispensary North Coast, while a nearby stage will host DJs and other performers.

The site's $400,000 cost includes a wired internal network to relay each cannabis sales transaction to the CRA, as required by Michigan's dispensary regulations.

DiLaura described DankWay as a “festival within the festival,” and it has its own security staff and insurance coverage separate from Arts, Beats & Eats.

The move into cannabis isn’t just a social trend. It’s a financial one. Like other events reliant on sponsorship dollars, Arts, Beats & Eats has increasingly looked elsewhere for funding as traditional support from automakers has dried up. AB&E’s annual operating budget is about $3 million.

Following Michigan’s legalization of recreational marijuana in 2018, the burgeoning, cash-flush cannabis industry became an enticing option for Witz and others, including Pine Knob Music Theatre, which took on the dispensary chain Lume as a sponsor in 2021.

“For Arts, Beats & Eats, it really started with medical-marijuana (informational) booths in 2019,” said Witz. “I would never have thought that was coming. Then House of Dank came on as a sponsor (in 2021) to replace the major auto partners we’d had from the beginning. Events like ours really need this money to invest and maintain quality.”

Mark Kazinec, the vice president of events with Los Angeles-based High Times magazine, noted the phenomenon is growing nationwide, at least in the 38 states with some form of marijuana legalization. His own projects include the multistate Cannabis Cup, held in Michigan since 2015.

“Cannabis is becoming more mainstream, and events are looking to cash in on it any way they can,” he said. “They’re seeing declines in alcohol and other sales, and that consumer data is starting to trickle into the metrics of these companies.”

Michigan voters legalized recreational marijuana use in 2018, and the state is one of 23 in the U.S. where that’s now the case.

Five years ago, AB&E may have seemed an unlikely candidate to wind up on the leading edge of the cannabis revolution. The family-friendly fest, founded in Pontiac in 1998 and moved to Royal Oak in 2010, is perhaps best known for its array of food vendors, local bands, carnival rides and charitable donations.

But for Witz, who cofounded AB&E with the late Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, it’s a matter of philosophical consistency.

“I do believe it’s the right thing to do from a lifestyle perspective. I think there’s a lot of hypocrisy if you’re going to have 22 stands selling alcohol and not one selling cannabis,” Witz said.

Witz touts DankWay as an “understated” approach.

“It’s our responsibility not to transform Arts, Beats & Eats into a 1960s cannabis event,” he said. “And I think we’re being very careful about that.”

In a sense, said Witz and DiLaura, formally embracing pot is simply recognizing the existing reality of live music experiences.

“Have you ever gone to a concert and not smoked weed or smelled it?” said DiLaura. “I’m not introducing anything new here. This is just the first time you’re going to be able to do those things in that regulated environment.”

A sense of inevitability was certainly the consensus of event executives at a 2022 panel hosted by Pollstar, the leading concert trade magazine.

“Every event will be a cannabis event,” predicted Colorado concert producer Jim Lewi, who foresees a day when even NFL stadiums offer cannabis edibles and beverages on game days.

“We’re really on the precipice of destigmatizing cannabis at scale,” said Lauren Carpenter of Embarc Events, which oversaw the Outside Lands installation in 2021.

The same sense of momentum is palpable on the cannabis side.

“At High Times, we see everybody clamoring for events. They want to be with like-minded cannabis consumers, smoking in peace and having fun,” said Kazinec. “We’re excited to see all of this coming up.”

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

Soaring Eagle Arts, Beats & Eats 2023

Downtown Royal Oak

Friday: 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Admission free before 5 p.m., $12 after.

Saturday and Sunday: 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Admission $10 before 3 p.m., $12 after.

Monday: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Admission $10 before 3 p.m., $12 after.

The full Arts, Beats & Eats music schedule is at freep.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Arts, Beats & Eats weed lounge signals coming trend at Michigan events