Thanks Bulldog, it is always good to put a face to the name. Enjoyed getting to spark up a few joints with you and chat. I'm smoking on some of your rosin right now in fact, been a bit since I had some nice extracts for my personal stash :)

Now that I know how the event runs, next time I will have a much larger surprise pack for you. I am getting much better at presenting my rosin as well. No more dark globed up grams.

That 88' cherries was potent for a cherry cross.

I wonder what they will do for it next year. It has obviously outgrown the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. There was a number of problems this year too from issues with the lab testing, to people who entered not getting tickets, to even those who had tickets not being able to get in to see Damien Marley (including our group.) I was surprised how heavily SoCal was represented this year too, if definitely lost it's Northern California feel in my opinion.

I still had a lot of fun but I hope they rectify some of the issues before the next one, there were a LOT of really pissed off people this year, especially on Saturday.

I was pissed. All my stuff got tested on 12/9. The video they posted of the judges smoking the samples was posted on 12/7. I bet 1 mil that my flowers never got judged, or smoked by the judges at all. Still don't have my lab results, wasn't allowed in the concert, gave me the wrong color wrist band and nobody could fix it the first day so no VIP rooms, security gaurd got in my face, pushed me, and got fired on the spot. It was a shit show.

Yep my entries were not tested until 12/9 either, despite being turned in early, makes me wonder if the judges ever even saw them. Some entries never got tested, or didn't get tested until AFTER the competition. They even extended the submission deadline to take in more samples, but I really doubt any of those late submissions ever got judged.

There were growers who submitted entries, were not given tickets upon submission, and told they would be at will call waiting for them, only to be turned away at the gates. This happened to quite a few contestants - no ticket, no lab test, and wouldn't refund the $250 entry fee or the 3 oz submitted even though they could not get in or participate.

I was also really shocked yesterday to hear that the judges got only 1.5g each to judge and there was only like 8 or 10 judges this year. So do the math - what happened to the remaining 2.5 oz of the samples? There was something like 800+ flower samples submitted - so where does that additional 125+ lbs that apparently never smoked bu the judges disappear to?

Same thing got pulled on some of the vendors too. One of the dispensaries we work with was telling me they booked a booth in the 215 area months in advance only to be told it was 'sold out' so they ended up outside. Apparently they oversold not just the concert, but the booths too. They were so pissed off about they will probably never participate again.

Then there was the whole debacle with the Saturday concert where hundreds of people couldn't get in to see the show. Those tickets were not cheap either - I think they were charging $120 for the Saturday pass. Again - no refund for those who didn't get in.

So I don't know man, I usually try to keep and open and positive mind about these things, but there was definitely some odd things that happened behind the scenes this year. I'm not sure if they just got overwhelmed or didn't have good management, but there was a LOT of angry contestants, concert goers, and vendors this year and a lot of claims of corruption and favoritism. The Cup has always been a great event in the past and I still had a great weekend but it is unfortunate to hear all these negatives things unfold out of it.

that sounds f*cking horrible..what's gonna win..zskitlles?..lol. Heard the HT cup in socal was a shit show as well. Maybe this is the natural course for events that outgrow themselves. Time to start planning the Blaze cup..for realz :)

Actually it was Zkittlez that won.....twice.

It's a terp popularity contest these days. Zkittlez..I haven't had the pleasure. Saw my girl Trixie Garcia posting about judging..she mentioned fossil fuel, BLR, and something else..saw the BLR tested real low too..like 9% thc. Been having this discussion about tests vs smoking experience..although the 30% thc club seems to always hit..there's much to be said about terp levels and complexity to the high.
I'd like to sample your watermelon rancher..been running a watermelon kush x sour dubble hard last fall and just love her terps and high. Got loads of clone only's going through the sample machine, but not many stay rescued from the bin..too much competition to stay focused on a strain that doesn't have a wow factor.

Oh yeah terps are very important, I prefer higher terps over raw potency any day. Ironically the Zkittles that won the cup tested pretty low on terps - 1.8%.

The Watermelon Rancher usually tests around 3.5%-4.0% terps but it is a finicky strain and sometimes will test as low as in the 2's. Our Guava OG we've been working with (sister to the Watermelon) usually tests at 3.5-4.5% terps. At the cup it tested at 4.8% terps and 23.4% THC. We have hit as high as 26.5% THC and 6.1% terps for a total of 32.6% total active cannabanoids with it though.

Bulldog420 said:

I was pissed. All my stuff got tested on 12/9. The video they posted of the judges smoking the samples was posted on 12/7. I bet 1 mil that my flowers never got judged, or smoked by the judges at all. Still don't have my lab results, wasn't allowed in the concert, gave me the wrong color wrist band and nobody could fix it the first day so no VIP rooms, security gaurd got in my face, pushed me, and got fired on the spot. It was a shit show.

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Wow, bum trip for sure. Sorry to hear about your hassles bro.

Blaze said:

Oh yeah terps are very important, I prefer higher terps over raw potency any day. Ironically the Zkittles that won the cup tested pretty low on terps - 1.8%.

The Watermelon Rancher usually tests around 3.5%-4.0% terps but it is a finicky strain and sometimes will test as low as in the 2's. Our Guava OG we've been working with (sister to the Watermelon) usually tests at 3.5-4.5% terps. At the cup it tested at 4.8% terps and 23.4% THC. We have hit as high as 26.5% THC and 6.1% terps for a total of 32.6% total active cannabanoids with it though.

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Very respectable man.

Natural said:

It's a terp popularity contest these days. Zkittlez..I haven't had the pleasure. Saw my girl Trixie Garcia posting about judging..she mentioned fossil fuel, BLR, and something else..saw the BLR tested real low too..like 9% thc. Been having this discussion about tests vs smoking experience..although the 30% thc club seems to always hit..there's much to be said about terp levels and complexity to the high.
I'd like to sample your watermelon rancher..been running a watermelon kush x sour dubble hard last fall and just love her terps and high. Got loads of clone only's going through the sample machine, but not many stay rescued from the bin..too much competition to stay focused on a strain that doesn't have a wow factor.

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It really is all about the Entourage Effect when it comes to weed. Shit that flattens your forehead just isnt going to make it anymore unless it has all of the other factors covered as well. There really is a complexity to cannabis that some miss chasing the new 35% thc threshold.

Natural said:

that sounds f*cking horrible..what's gonna win..zskitlles?..lol. Heard the HT cup in socal was a shit show as well. Maybe this is the natural course for events that outgrow themselves. Time to start planning the Blaze cup..for realz :)

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The Blaze Cup, that has a shcweet ring to it. Blaze a dang Bulldog Cup. Seems even the Ecup isnt immune from the same BS we see with HT Cup events anymore. Really sad. Wait till the real deep pockets get fully entrenched and see where it all goes from there.

My buddy and I had a terrible experience as well.. Definetly ruined my night.. We did eventually get to see damian but it was super stressful being shoved around by a mob of people trying to squeeze through a single door.. I have been to country summer at the fairgrounds and it holds massive amounts of people.. I know its the outdoor harvest celebration but if they did it during the summer time when everyone could be outside and enjoy some nice weather it would make things way better.. Putting that many people into a crowded barn isn't an ideal place to listen to music...

Seems to be a common consensus. Really is too bad. I feel your pain.

MendoGiantZ said:

My buddy and I had a terrible experience as well.. Definetly ruined my night.. We did eventually get to see damian but it was super stressful being shoved around by a mob of people trying to squeeze through a single door.. I have been to country summer at the fairgrounds and it holds massive amounts of people.. I know its the outdoor harvest celebration but if they did it during the summer time when everyone could be outside and enjoy some nice weather it would make things way better.. Putting that many people into a crowded barn isn't an ideal place to listen to music...

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You guys were more patient than our group then... It was cold and nasty and not very fun to be outside so we eventually just left, got a bottle of rye and some pizza from NY Pie, and went back to our friend's place.

Seems like they could have solved this issue simply by selling the concert tickets separately so they knew for sure they didn't over sell the show.

They had a line of firefighters and cops outside at one point, looked like things were going to possibly get out of hand. Who would have though a bunch of stoners could get so riled up.

It was so nuts. All my friends texted me to get back inside now. We were about 15 feet from the door shoulder to shoulder with 300 people all pushing us forward. We were finally the next two people to get in and the security guard flipped out and slammed us back into the crowd and started yelling at us to scoot back 10 feet. (This was not possible with 500 people pushing behind us. ). Finally he let us go in and it was not even that crowded. The security guards are the worst. The little Asian lady guard was so mean and was calling everyone stoner losers as they got in . I was amazed at how big of dicks some people were around us, pushing through people and knocking a girl over and trying to fight. Crazy.
It was fun chilling Friday night. Your joint we blazed was super tasty

Haha yeah I had way more fun just chilling with you and your friends drinking some beer and smoking joints on Friday night than I did at the 'concert' on Saturday...

People get fucking weird and angry when you herd them all together like that, it was one of the reasons we left. I wanted to see Damien, but I wasn't about to literally fight my way thru a crowd of hundreds (I'll save that for the Anderson Valley Beer Fest lol).

I felt like I was there just reading all yalls experience lol Congrats @Blaze the gear looks cool to!

Blaze said:

I'm not sure if they just got overwhelmed or didn't have good management, but there was a LOT of angry contestants, concert goers, and vendors this year and a lot of claims of corruption and favoritism.

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So, I talked with the head person at SClabs.........

First off, it was bad management by the Emerald Cup, and the person who had that job, no longer does.

Second, it is much worse than we thought guys...... I don't want to write everything I found out, cause strait up, it depresses me. This stuff makes me want to shoot myself.

SC labs never picked up early samples...... They asked for everybody to enter asap, but I knew they didn't pick it up. At harborside I vend once a week. I entered my flowers on 11/3, vended several times, then entered my rosin on 11/23. Flower entry was still there. So they picked up all 1200 samples, as late as possible?

Since they knew there was NO WAY they could test even 1% of the entries before the judges started their judging, they told the judges. The judges were told they could smoke the samples if they felt comfortable. Sounds like the flower judges were "ok" with this, but some "may" not have smoked unfamiliar samples. (even though it was suppose to be blind) The rosin judges, they wouldn't comment on whether or not they smoked the samples. G, wonder how somebody swept the first 10 spots? Maybe cause the judges wouldn't smoke any other samples but the samples they knew were clean..... Do you blame them?

Top that off with samples from last year that was disqualified, would not have been this year. They had faulty mold ranges, and now admit they didn't know what they were doing. So how many samples and contestants got dicked last year also?

It was a very morbid feel over at SClabs the last couple days. Poor guys and gals. With that said, I took a large blow with this. This is my life, my lively hood, the reason I pick my head off the pillow in the AM. I hand trimmed and spent about 12 hours packaging just my flowers, another 12 hours pressing and packaging rosin, entered 9 ounces of herb and 42 grams of rosin. Then I paid them $1,500 for these entries. I have harvest left to deal with, and infrastructure work that needs to begin. Instead I am putting together a very expensive "gift" for the emerald cup. Huge blow time wise, monetarily, and emotionally. I put everything I had into this season, many many 18 hour days. All working up to this, and I didn't even get judged. Makes me feel pretty empty, and maybe even a little hopeless. Hard to make it in the world with all the competition, let alone when people are seemingly cheating.