Key Takeaways
- MJBizCon 2026 returns to Las Vegas on December 1, providing a space for cannabis media and industry professionals to connect.
- Media Day allows approved journalists to arrive early for setup and networking before the event opens to a larger audience.
- The inaugural Media Day in 2025 facilitated numerous interviews, content creation, and relationship building among attendees.
- Participants included over 37 brands and attracted an estimated 250 to 350 attendees during the four-hour activation.
- Applications for Media Day 2026 are open, encouraging a diverse mix of legitimate media to apply for participation.
Every December, thousands of cannabis professionals descend on Las Vegas for MJBizCon. Brands arrive with new products, operators come looking for partners, investors come looking for opportunities, journalists come looking for stories, and everyone somehow arrives with approximately three working phone chargers shared across the entire cannabis industry.
Before calendars become impossible and everyone starts sprinting between meetings, booths, panels, dinners, parties, and whatever somebody just texted you that you “absolutely have to come see,” there is an opportunity to do something a little different.
MJBizCon x Beard Bros Media Day is returning in 2026, and we’re heading back to NuWu Cannabis Marketplace in Las Vegas.
Following the success of the inaugural event in 2025, Beard Bros Media and MJBiz are bringing Media Day back to create an early gathering point for journalists, creators, brands, operators, executives, exhibitors, and the people whose conversations ultimately shape a lot of what gets talked about during MJBizCon Week.
This year, approved media will be able to arrive beginning at 3 PM, with Media Day opening to the broader group from 4 to 7 PM. That gives journalists and creators some time to get situated, identify stories, line up conversations, and begin working before the room fills up.
For media professionals, the value is access to people and stories before schedules become overwhelming. Brands and operators get something equally useful: time with the people telling those stories in an environment that isn’t built around trying to pull someone into a booth as they walk past.
That was the idea behind Media Day from the beginning, and last year gave us a pretty good indication that it works.
Media Day Was Built Around a Simple Idea
The cannabis industry doesn’t have a shortage of things worth talking about. What it sometimes lacks are places where the people doing interesting work and the people documenting it have enough time to actually talk to each other.
Trade shows are incredible for bringing an industry together, but anyone who has covered or exhibited at a major conference knows what those days eventually become. A journalist might have 15 interviews scattered across a convention center. A founder can spend three days hoping the right reporter happens to walk past the booth. Creators are filming while networking, answering messages, looking for their next meeting, trying to remember where the panel is, and figuring out when they last ate something. Media Day changes the environment.
Put media, creators, operators, brands, executives, and other industry leaders together before the week reaches full speed, give them enough room to talk, and see what comes from it. Some conversations turn into articles or interviews. Others surface ideas that become podcasts, videos, collaborations, or stories months later. Plenty simply result in two people realizing they should know each other, which is often how the most interesting things in this industry begin anyway. That’s what we saw in 2025.
What Happened at the First Media Day
Last year’s inaugural Media Day at NuWu Cannabis Marketplace gave us an early look at what happens when media, operators, brands, exhibitors, and cannabis culture have a little room to interact outside the usual conference-floor rhythm.
Over the course of the activation, journalists, podcasters, creators, operators, executives, exhibitors, and other members of the MJBizCon community moved through NuWu for interviews, podcasts, content creation, product discovery, programming, introductions, and plenty of conversations nobody had put on a calendar.
The numbers tell part of the story. The 2025 activation generated:
- 133 media applications
- More than 100 organizations represented through the application process
- 37 exhibiting brands in attendance
- An estimated 250 to 350-plus attendees during the four-plus-hour activation
- 16 additional MJBizCon passes sold onsite at the special $99 Media Day rate
- At least 15 verified original post-event content assets
- More than 20 verified promotional and post-event content touchpoints
Participating exhibitors included LuvBuds, CCELL, Cheech & Chong, Huber, FOHSE, Surfside, and PreRoll-er, among many others. The attendance figure is an estimate rather than an official check-in count, but it reflects the broader flow of media, operators, brands, exhibitors, speakers, partners, and MJBizCon attendees through NuWu that afternoon. The 16 additional MJBizCon passes sold onsite are worth highlighting for another reason. Media Day wasn’t operating separately from the conference ecosystem. It was bringing additional people into it.
What happened afterward may be even more important. Interviews became articles and podcasts, panels became clips, introductions developed into relationships, and participants continued publishing and sharing material well after everyone left Las Vegas. A few hours together created content and conversations that lived for months.
You can get a better feel for the inaugural event in our recap, Inside MJBizCon Media Day at NuWu: Where Connection Meets Cannabis Culture. Looking back at it now, the biggest takeaway isn’t that we put on a successful event. It’s that Media Day gave a lot of different people a useful place to begin their MJBizCon week.
Back to NuWu, With More to Build On
We aren’t interested in making Media Day bigger simply so we can say it was bigger. The more interesting question after last year was how to make it more useful. Returning to NuWu gives us the chance to build on a setting that already worked. Approved media will have access beginning at 3 PM, an hour before the broader Media Day activation begins at 4 PM. That extra time matters when you’re trying to set up equipment, find the people you’ve already arranged to interview, discover the people you didn’t know you needed to interview, and get some work done before several hundred other people enter the equation.
From 4 to 7 PM, Media Day becomes something broader. Media and creators have concentrated access to executives, operators, exhibitors, products, sources, and one another. Brands get an environment where an actual conversation with a journalist or creator is possible. People who may spend the next several days passing each other inside the Las Vegas Convention Center have a chance to meet before everything accelerates.
We’re also applying what we learned last year to the programming, content opportunities, media mix, brand and exhibitor participation, and the way Media Day connects to the rest of MJBizCon Week. Some of those details will be announced as we get closer to December, but the objective is straightforward: preserve what made the first event work while creating more opportunities for useful things to happen.
What Media Professionals Should Expect
Media Day is intended for working journalists, publications, podcasters, photographers, videographers, creators, and other professionals actively covering cannabis. We’re much more interested in assembling an interesting mix of people who actually tell stories than seeing how many people we can fit onto a credential list.
Approved media can arrive at NuWu beginning at 3 PM. Use the extra hour however you work best. Set up equipment, meet other journalists, find sources, schedule interviews, walk the space, or start figuring out which story you didn’t know you were going to cover until you got there.
Once Media Day opens at 4 PM, there will be operators and executives to meet, brands and exhibitors to discover, industry experts to talk with, other media to collaborate with, and plenty of opportunities for interviews, video, photography, podcasts, and future stories. The best use of that access will probably be different for every person in the room, which is part of the point. There will also almost certainly be somebody explaining how they’re “disrupting the industry” while a journalist slowly looks for an escape route. Some parts of the conference experience are beyond our ability to fix.
Media professionals and creators can apply now for MJBizCon x Beard Bros Media Day 2026. Applications will be reviewed to maintain a strong mix of legitimate media organizations, independent journalists, podcasters, creators, and other industry storytellers.
What Brands and Operators Should Understand
Showing up at Media Day doesn’t guarantee coverage, nor should it. Earned media gets considerably less useful when access is confused with an obligation to write something. The companies that get the most from an environment like this tend to understand that distinction. If you’re doing something genuinely interesting, solving an actual problem, building something people should know about, or bringing a useful perspective to an industry conversation, come prepared to explain it. Know why it matters and who it matters to. Bring useful information, good people, and products when they’re relevant.
You do not need to turn every introduction into a pitch. In fact, we’d strongly recommend against it. And please resist the temptation to begin with a six-minute explanation of your proprietary ecosystem. Journalists have families. Some of the strongest media relationships we’ve watched develop over the years didn’t start with a press release or a massive marketing budget. They started because two people had an interesting conversation and realized there was something worth exploring further.
That’s the opportunity Media Day creates. Brands, exhibitors, sponsors, and strategic partners interested in participating can contact Beard Bros Media for more information about 2026 opportunities.
Why We’re Doing This Again
Beard Bros has always occupied an interesting space between cannabis media and the industry we cover. We publish stories and interview operators, but we also work with brands, collaborate with other publications, participate in events, make introductions, and spend a lot of time connecting people who probably should have already known each other.
Over the years, that has changed how we think about the role of a media company. Pageviews matter. Good journalism matters enormously. So does creating an environment where a founder can understand why their story isn’t connecting, a journalist can discover an operator nobody has covered yet, or two media organizations can find a reason to work together rather than behave as if they’re competing for the final remaining cannabis reader on Earth.
Media Day grew out of that thinking. We want more worthwhile cannabis stories being told and more legitimate voices getting heard. We want media professionals to have better access to the people actually building the industry, and we’d like companies to get better at understanding what meaningful media relationships look like.
There’s plenty in that for Beard Bros and MJBiz, obviously, but the larger benefit is an industry with better conversations and a healthier information ecosystem. Cannabis could use more of both.
The Story Starts Before the Conference Does
Anyone who has been to MJBizCon knows the conference has never been limited to what happens on the expo floor. The week spills into hotel lobbies, dinners, panels, parties, rideshares, restaurants, chance encounters, and those moments when somebody grabs your arm in a hallway because, apparently, there’s someone you absolutely need to meet right now.
For a few days, a sizable portion of the cannabis industry occupies the same patch of Las Vegas. That concentration is what makes MJBizCon valuable, but it also means the week moves very quickly once it gets going.
Media Day gives the people documenting that industry, and the people hoping to meet them, somewhere to start before the pace takes over. Last year, NuWu became a place to find sources, discover companies, conduct interviews, reconnect with people, meet somebody new, and begin conversations that carried into the conference and continued after everyone went home. On December 1, we’re doing it again.
How to Join MJBizCon x Beard Bros Media Day 2026
MJBizCon x Beard Bros Media Day returns to NuWu Cannabis Marketplace in Las Vegas on December 1, 2026. Approved media may arrive beginning at 3 PM, with Media Day running from 4 to 7 PM.
Media professionals and creators can apply for Media Day 2026 here. Brands, exhibitors, sponsors, and strategic partners interested in participating can contact Beard Bros Media to discuss available opportunities.
If you’re coming to Las Vegas for the larger conference, registration for MJBizCon 2026 is open now. We’ll announce additional Media Day programming, participating organizations, and opportunities as December approaches.
If you’re coming with a story worth telling, we’d like to hear it. If you’re coming to find those stories, we want you there. And if you’re coming to “revolutionize cannabis through a proprietary AI-powered blockchain ecosystem,” you’re welcome too. We just might recommend opening with something else.
Media Day isn’t intended to replace what happens at MJBizCon. It’s there to help get some of the conversations, relationships, and stories that make the week worthwhile moving before the crowd does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Media Day takes place December 1, 2026, at NuWu Cannabis Marketplace in Las Vegas. Approved media may arrive beginning at 3 PM, and the broader Media Day activation runs from 4 to 7 PM.
MJBizCon 2026 takes place December 1 through 4, 2026, at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration for MJBizCon 2026 is currently open.
Media Day is a focused media and cannabis industry gathering built around interviews, content creation, product discovery, business conversations, and relationship building. It connects journalists and creators with brands, exhibitors, operators, executives, and other industry leaders as MJBizCon Week gets underway.
Cannabis journalists, editors, photographers, podcasters, video producers, independent creators, and other qualified media professionals should consider applying. The official 2026 media application is available here.
Yes. Media Day creates opportunities for brands, operators, and exhibitors to meet media professionals and creators, conduct interviews, introduce products, develop relationships, and participate in the broader activation. Brands, exhibitors, sponsors, and strategic partners interested in participating should contact Beard Bros Media for current opportunities and requirements.
Participation and access can vary by category. Media participation requires approval through the official Media Day application, while details for brands, exhibitors, sponsors, strategic partners, and other attendees will be communicated as the event approaches. Anyone planning to participate should review the current event information and applicable MJBizCon registration requirements before making plans.
The early-access hour gives approved media additional time to set up equipment, connect with sources and other journalists, identify interview opportunities, and begin content capture before Media Day opens more broadly at 4 PM.
The 2025 event received 133 media applications, represented more than 100 organizations, included 37 exhibiting brands, and drew an estimated 250 to 350-plus attendees during the four-plus-hour activation. Sixteen additional MJBizCon passes were sold onsite at the special Media Day rate, while at least 15 original post-event content assets and more than 20 promotional and post-event content touchpoints have been verified.
