Hall of Flowers returns to Pier 36 next week for its second New York run, and the trade show itself is only part of the story. October 21 and 22 remain industry-only, the way the show has operated since it launched in California in 2018. But the two days are now bracketed by something new: Hall of Flowers Week, a four-day stretch from October 19 to 22 with comedy, art, and nightlife spread across Manhattan and Brooklyn — and, for the first time in the show’s history, programming the public can actually attend.
I was at the New York debut last October, and what struck me was how little it resembled a trade show. The pier had been built out as a destination rather than a hall full of folding tables, and the brands on the floor had clearly been selected rather than simply sold a booth. That curation is the whole proposition, and this year it scales up: more than 200 brands, with over 100 of them exhibiting exclusively at Hall of Flowers. Pier 36 is again being transformed into a full environment: food, lounges, and programming woven into the floor plan rather than parked at the edges of it.
The public-facing expansion is the genuinely interesting development, and I would encourage people not to treat it as a marketing footnote. Hall of Flowers has always been a closed room (elite brands, licensed buyers, badge required) and that exclusivity has been central to the brand since its California days. Opening the days around the show to anyone who wants in is a real shift in posture. Rama Mayo, the show’s co-founder, framed it as attendees activating venues all over the city so more of the public can engage with the community, with the trade show remaining the anchor. The structure makes sense to me. The B2B floor keeps the focus that makes it worth a buyer’s time, while the nights around it put the brands in front of the consumers they are actually trying to reach, in the city where those consumers live.
The floor should justify the trip on its own. For retailers, the value is plain arithmetic: a hundred-plus brands making their only New York appearance, in one room, across two days. For brands, Hall of Flowers has always been the show where presentation is taken seriously, which matters more in a crowded market than most operators want to admit. In a state with hundreds of licensed brands fighting for the same shelf space, the ability to stand in front of a buyer and look like a real company is not a vanity concern. Doors are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.
That seriousness about presentation shows up in who they hired. This year’s visual identity comes from Craig Costello, the artist known as KRINK, a Queens native who started out making his own markers in a Lower East Side apartment and went on to collaborate with Nike, Moncler, Marc Jacobs, and Levi’s, with a Rizzoli retrospective to his name. He developed the full theme for the show. The attendee bag was designed with BOND, the New York label run by Arben and Kuj Durollari, whose client list runs through Billie Eilish, Bad Bunny, and Dua Lipa, and it comes with a built-in scent-proof pouch. Those are not the credits you find on a typical trade show. They are the credits of an event that understands it is operating in New York and has decided to act like it.
The week itself opens Monday the 19th at Caveat on Clinton Street, where author and filmmaker David Bienenstock presents The History of Weed. Tuesday brings a free mixer and early badge pickup at Nittis, which is the move if you would rather not stand in a line Wednesday morning. The trade show runs Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday night, Puffco and Astor Club host an official afterparty at 99 Scott Studio in Brooklyn, open to the public. Thursday closes out with Highest Standards and Third Thursday on The Delancey rooftop. If you work in this industry, you will be at the pier. The rest of the week is the part worth telling your friends about.
