NORTHAMPTON — In years past, any controversy that may have surrounded the annual Extravaganja cannabis legalization fair was tied to the public consumption of marijuana, and how the police would deal with it.
This year, it’s money that’s causing a stir.
In the first year after Massachusetts legalized recreational weed, the student organizers of Extravaganja are struggling to find a delicate balance between keeping down the cost of vendor fees — one of the festival’s only sources of income — and paying increasing operation costs as the free event continues to grow in popularity.
That balancing act has worried some local artists and businesses, who were left bewildered earlier this week when the University of Massachusetts Amherst Cannabis Reform Coalition initially raised the cost for vendors renting space to $1,000, up from fees as low as $250 in 2016.
After an outcry from those who felt squeezed by the price hike, the student group has now withdrawn those vendor contracts and is in the process of revising them.
“When I saw the $1,000, I just couldn’t believe it, honestly. I had to re-read it,” said Tiffany DeAngelo, an Easthampton artist who sells her work at festivals full-time.
DeAngelo makes trees out of wire, and said that they were a big hit at last year’s Extravaganja, which moved from Amherst to the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton. She said the higher fee would favor corporate vendors and those who just buy cheap goods wholesale, rather than making them, forcing out small-scale local artists like herself.
The student organizers say that’s not at all what they want. The group emailed potential vendors on Thursday to tell them to disregard the initial contracts while they found a workaround involving dynamic pricing “based on the wares being sold.”
“The Cannabis Reform Coalition wants to host a diverse assortment of vendors and we believe that an unintentional effect of increasing the vendor prices to cover our costs would have been a diminishing of that diversity,” the group’s public relations officer, junior Morgan Phillips, said in a statement to the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
But he said that as the April event has exploded in popularity, so too have the financial burdens of putting it on.
“Last year’s move to Northampton’s Three County Fair allowed us to expand Extravaganja and accommodate 15,000 people,” he said. “However, operating at the larger venue has drastically increased our costs.”
And the added challenges to putting on Extravaganja this year don’t end there.
Phillips said a bigger crowd is expected this year, meaning attendant swells in private security, police and emergency service costs. And blues guitarist and sound engineer Art Steele, who previously provided the stage and all the audio equipment for Extravaganja, died unexpectedly this spring; Phillips said having to rent all that gear has doubled what is already the festival’s biggest money sink.
Local business owners like Justin Bergeron expected there would be a fee increase because of Extravaganja’s growth, but was shocked at how steep the vendor-fee hike was.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was kinda irritated, questioned why, what the cause was for such a drastic increase,” said Bergeron, the co-owner of Head Eaze smoke shop in Easthampton, who has been a vendor at Extravaganja for the last four years. “But then I came to the realization that as far as out-of-store events go, for one day the amount of profit we make makes it worth it to give it one shot.
“I’m curious to see what the new rate they’re offering is,” he said.
So too is Robyn Whitney, 55, who lives in Adams but has been coming to Extravaganja “since the beginning.” She said she makes good money at the rally every year, but the uncertainty over vendor fees has her questioning whether she and her artisan friends in Adams will attend.
“I started looking at other events,” she said. “So we did find some other events. However, I guess we’re just curious to see what they come up with. I’m not paying over $200, I can tell you that.”
Phillips said he hopes the group will be able to send out new contracts by this weekend. He said given the recent changes in Massachusetts law, this year’s festival will be focused on pushing for federal legalization of marijuana.