LAS VEGAS- An HCN guide to better connections, good parties and making the trip pay off long after Vegas

Every year, sensible cannabis professionals travel to Las Vegas carrying three business objectives, two phone chargers and a touching belief that they will get enough sleep. Within 48 hours they are standing under a chandelier, eating something the size of a postage stamp and explaining their distribution strategy to a man whose name they have already forgotten.

Welcome to MJBizCon, December 1–4, 2026, at the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Central Hall. The expo runs December 2–4. The challenge is turning all that opportunity into something you can use. HCN’s approach is to build a place where conversations happen, put companies in front of an audience and capture the stories so they keep reaching people after everyone flies home. This is helpful, because “We should definitely grab coffee” is a surprisingly difficult business to monetize.

1. Have a plan. Your lanyard cannot do everything.

Before you go, write down three things that would make the trip worthwhile. Actual things: meet a buyer, find a manufacturing partner, book a demonstration. “Get out there” is what you tell a Labrador. Your business deserves a more specific instruction.

Request meetings now. Use the MJBizCon app to do so. Suggest a time, a precise location and a reason to talk. Leave gaps between appointments. If your calendar requires you to cross Las Vegas in seven minutes, you have created a work of speculative fiction. Better still, build time around a gathering point: HCN’s planned interviews, podcast recordings around the innovation stage give people a reason to come together, making room for introductions that never appeared on your calendar.

Use the official floor plan to group your visits. The expo’s five neighborhoods are Cultivation, Processing + Packaging, Retail + Brand, Business Services and Culture+. Identify your priorities and leave time to explore. Otherwise, you may spend an hour examining packaging equipment despite operating a law firm.

Download the app before your feet start complaining.

Get the official MJBizCon 2026 app before you travel. Complete your profile, request meetings, build your schedule and use the floor maps to find exhibitors. Enable notifications for show updates. Log in with your registration email and Registration ID from your confirmation email—preferably before you are standing in a lobby searching your inbox with 4% battery.

Official app download and help

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2. Your hotel is a business decision with pillows.

Your hotel must perform several important functions: provide sleep, charge electronics and briefly shelter you from people who want to discuss synergies. Choose it around your meetings. The options below are planning suggestions; we have not conducted surveillance of anyone’s reservation.

Resorts World is MJBizCon’s featured hotel for 2026, with Hilton, Conrad and Crockfords accommodation choices on one property. It offers a Strip resort base with dining and meeting options. Decide which room suits your budget before your optimism starts selecting upgrades.

Westgate Las Vegas is adjacent to the convention center and has an on-site Monorail station. If your morning priority is reaching the show rather than conducting a transportation experiment, give it a look.

If most of your confirmed dinners and receptions are elsewhere on the Strip, consider staying near them. First ask your contacts where you will actually meet. “Everyone will be there” is not an address, even when delivered with tremendous confidence.

Start with the official hotel block through EvolveCon powered by HotelMap. Compare the complete bill, including applicable fees, transport and cancellation terms. Check the route to Central Hall. A hotel described as “near” something may be using the astronomical definition.

DJs keep the mood high at the Patio: an outdoor music area.

3. The parties: an advanced course in calendar denial.

Choose one anchor event each night and a few people you hope to meet. You can add a second gathering if the logistics work. Booking six overlapping parties is how you become an unusually well-dressed passenger in a rideshare.

Rachelle Gordon, the Editor at GreenState, has done the homework. Thank her.

The party selections below come from Rachelle Gordon’s MJBizCon 2026 Happenings spreadsheet. Full credit and a very sincere thank-you to Rachelle for compiling the list. Some people build infrastructure. Some people rescue the rest of us from 19 browser tabs and a text message that says only “Tiki??”

Tuesday, December 1: Blunt Brunch Nationals: Women on Fire is listed at IPEC, 6–9 p.m. Cure8’s MJBiz Kickoff runs 7–10 p.m. at The Golden Tiki, with invitations through Munir Haque. PufCreativ’s Light Up Las Vegas runs 8 p.m.–midnight at Fremont Country Club. These overlap because time remains stubbornly unwilling to accommodate the cannabis industry.

Wednesday, December 2: WEiC Women’s Happy Hour is listed at Society Elevated Lounge, 3–6 p.m. The Aroma Hour with True Terpenes is at the Cosmopolitan’s Vesper Bar, 3–5 p.m.; the Cannabis Chamber of Commerce’s Celebrating Female Leadership Mixer is at the Cosmopolitan’s Chandelier Bar, 4–6 p.m. Two events at one property give your transport budget a rare moment of emotional stability.

Wednesday after dark: Rachelle lists the Grasslands Party, 7–10 p.m., with applications required and the venue TBA. CannaLuxe Underground Coloring Club is also 7–10 p.m.; Ignition Sequence, from Active, Small Circle and True Terpenes, is 8 p.m.–midnight. Both venues are TBA in the list. TBA is not a secret nightclub. Wait for the location and your entry confirmation.

Thursday, December 3: Jews in Weed Bagel Bash starts at Planet 13, 8–11 a.m.—a welcome opportunity to establish that breakfast still exists. CannaLuxe Trivia Night is listed at Society Lounge, 6–9 p.m. The Emjays Awards and After Party runs at StarBase, 7 p.m.–midnight. Consult Friday’s calendar before Thursday’s enthusiasm makes binding commitments.

Friday, December 4: Rachelle’s list includes ?arty for the People, presented by Weedaker and NECANN, 2–6 p.m., venue TBA. Leave time for luggage and the airport. The airline is unlikely to accept “one last strategic introduction” as a boarding credential.

Bookmark the spreadsheet. Stop trusting your screenshots.

Read the full MJBizCon 2026 Happenings spreadsheet by Rachelle Gordon: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fo49IDMiPLSyNIoGvp2YEdMfqX4z3aGb9ZCOI6vMjc0/htmlview

Rachelle’s live list also covers daytime meetups, sports, media gatherings and wellness events, with access instructions. Pick by date, neighborhood and business purpose. Register through the host and save the confirmation. Being on a spreadsheet is not the same as being on the guest list, a distinction sometimes explained by a large person at a door.

These times reflect the spreadsheet as reviewed October 28, 2026. Some differ from organizer pages, including Blunt Brunch’s end time. Confirm final times, addresses and admission with each host. Your calendar can be aspirational; your transport arrangements should be factual.

4. Your body has declined the meeting invitation.

Bring comfortable shoes, a portable charger, water, lip balm and a light layer. Eat an actual meal before the evening events. Three olives on a cocktail stick are an ingredient, not dinner. Keep a digital contact card ready so nobody has to decipher your email address over a DJ.

Protect your sleep and check the next morning’s first appointment before accepting the next invitation. Save exact meeting points: entrance, lobby, booth number. “I’m by the big sign” is a challenging navigation system in a city constructed almost entirely from big signs.

Take ten minutes between the show and the evening to charge your phone, capture notes and sit down. Sitting is an underrated business technology. It requires no subscription and usually works on the first attempt.

Remember to pace yourself: the Las Vegas Convention Center is a 4.6 million-square-foot facility featuring 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space, 225 meeting rooms, and an underground Tesla transit system.

5. Find a place where the right people come to you.

There is a particular kind of trade-show exhaustion that comes from chasing people who are themselves chasing other people. HCN is building a different experience around its MJBizCon presence: a planned pitch stage, roughly 100 interviews and several podcast recordings. That creates reasons for founders, executives and other industry VIPs to stop by—and reasons for participating clients to stay in the conversation.

For companies working with HCN, the value starts in the room. They get to experience the event while being part of a setting designed for introductions, interviews and the unexpected “You two should meet.” With guests coming through for recordings and the pitch stage adding visibility, the aim is to put clients close to people they might otherwise spend the week trying to find. You can still walk the floor. You just have a better home base than “somewhere near the escalator.”

Make time for HCN LIVE! CannaPitch

Wednesday, December 2, 2026, 2–5 p.m. • Innovations Stage at MJBizCon • Presented by HCN Media

HCN LIVE! CannaPitch brings a live Cannabis pitch tank to MJBizCon: founders making their case, a panel putting the ideas through their paces and an audience with plenty to talk about afterward. Put it in your calendar before another “quick coffee” occupies the entire afternoon.

For HCN, CannaPitch gives the week a public focal point alongside the planned interview and podcast recordings. For participating clients, that combination creates visibility and opportunities to meet the people coming through. The stage starts conversations; HCN’s post-event publishing helps give them a second life.

Save the date! HCN LIVE! CannaPitch takes place Wednesday, December 2, 2–5 p.m.

Then comes the part that makes the week last longer than the hotel bill. After the event, HCN will publish the videos its clients record, with editing, approvals and release schedules arranged as part of their programs. Interviews and podcast recordings become material that can reach prospective clients and partners who never made it to Las Vegas. Supported by clips, articles, LinkedIn posts and newsletter distribution as agreed, the story keeps moving while everyone else is still looking for the charger they left in the room.

6. LinkedIn can cope with more than your badge photograph.

The LinkedIn event information behind this guide makes a useful point: event marketing starts before arrival and continues after departure. Your badge photo may establish that you have a torso and attended something. Your ideas give people a reason to care.

Before: explain what you will discuss, whom you want to meet and how to book time. Help employees share their own useful perspectives. Twelve identical posts beginning “Thrilled to announce” can make a company look as though its staff share one nervous system.

During: capture useful observations, short interviews and clear explanations of the problems you solve. Ask permission before recording or publishing people, and tag them accurately. Give readers enough context to understand the story without having to identify a distant booth logo behind your left ear.

After: publish a planned sequence of clips, articles and follow-up posts. Track relevant reach, engagement, inquiries, meetings, qualified opportunities and resulting revenue. A hundred likes are pleasant. Your accountant may still ask a follow-up question.

That is the HCN advantage running through the week: meet people in person, tell your story on camera or through the pitch opportunity, then keep that story in circulation. The event creates the moment; publication gives you something useful to send when a prospect says, “Remind me what you do?”

7. Follow up before everyone becomes “that person.”

Before leaving Las Vegas, sort contacts by next step and send personal follow-ups within two business days. Mention what you discussed, deliver what you promised and suggest a specific action. Do it while “the person with the excellent retail idea” still has a name.

Over the following weeks, put those published interviews and videos into your follow-up. Send the conversation that answers a prospect’s question. Share the clip that explains your company clearly. HCN’s post-event publishing gives clients material to reopen a conversation with something more useful than “Just bumping this.” Track the meetings and opportunities it supports. A stack of business cards is stationery until somebody does something.

The best version of MJBizCon sends you home with relationships worth developing and a story people can still discover. HCN brings those two things together: the interviews, podcast recordings and pitch-stage presence draw people into the conversation; the publishing afterward gives that conversation a longer life. To discuss taking part, connect with Mark Collins and HCN through HighlyCapitalized.com. And pack comfortable shoes. Even with a good home base, this is still Las Vegas.

Planning links & photo credits

MJBizCon dates and schedule: https://mjbizconference.com/show-overview/

Expo and floor-plan access: https://mjbizconference.com/expo-overview/

Official evening events: https://mjbizconference.com/affiliated-events/

Hotel and travel planning: https://mjbizconference.com/las-vegas-travel-info/

Official hotel block: https://hotelmap.com/enquiry/M4KJT

Grasslands invitation information: https://www.mygrasslands.com/the-grasslands-party

Party listings source: Rachelle Gordon, MJBizCon 2026 Happenings: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Fo49IDMiPLSyNIoGvp2YEdMfqX4z3aGb9ZCOI6vMjc0/htmlview

Resorts World: https://www.rwlasvegas.com/

Westgate: https://www.westgateresorts.com/hotels/nevada/las-vegas/westgate-las-vegas-resort-casino/

HCN: https://www.highlycapitalized.com/

Planning details checked October 28, 2026. Schedules, admission and hotel availability may change. By HCN | Highly Capitalized Network • Planning edition: October 28, 2026