A dispensary you sell into is planning a pop-up at a weekend market and wants your team at a table. You said yes on the phone, and now, before you call them back with a plan, you're trying to work out what your people are actually allowed to do there.
In New York a legal pop-up runs as a Cannabis Showcase Event. The dispensary holds a state permit and its own staff make every sale from its own stock, so your team's part is smaller than at a regular market stall, though it's the part worth planning around.
Can you open a marijuana retail pop-up shop in New York? Only as a Cannabis Showcase Event, where a licensed dispensary or retail microbusiness holds an OCM permit and its own staff sell from its own stock.
Can a cannabis brand sell or give out samples at a pop-up in New York? No, at a Cannabis Showcase Event only the permit-holding dispensary's authorized staff sell cannabis, from its own inventory, and brands taking part can show their products but can't sell them or hand out samples.
Who applies for a cannabis pop-up permit in New York, and how early? The dispensary or retail microbusiness applies to OCM at least 45 days before the event, after the town signs off (in New York City through Cannabis NYC), and pays a fee of $300 to $800 depending on length under Part 117.
How long can a cannabis pop-up last in New York? One permit covers one location for up to 14 consecutive days, and a location can host showcase events for no more than 45 days a year.
Where can a cannabis pop-up happen in New York? In open air such as a park, parking lot, farm or field, in a storefront, outside the permit-holding dispensary or at a participating brand's premises, and never within 500 feet of a school or 200 feet of another dispensary or a place of worship.
One date matters before anything else. The dispensary's application has to reach the state at least 45 days before opening day, so if that weekend is only a few weeks away, the realistic version of this pop-up may be a later one. That's the first thing to ask when you call back.
The first thing to tell your people is that they won't be ringing anything up. As of October 2026, OCM's showcase rules let only the permit holder's employees sell cannabis. A brand taking part can show its products but can't sell them or hand out samples, and the day isn't a chance to sell the dispensary more of your product either. What your team can sell is branded merch, with your own name on it or the name of another brand that's also at the event, but nothing for a brand that isn't there, nothing aimed at people under 21, and nothing with alcohol or tobacco in it. It's worth going through the merch box before it goes in the van. If you run a microbusiness and want to sell your own products, the rules for microbusinesses work differently.
So what's the table for? It's for answering questions about your product the way only the people who make it can. That matters more than it might seem, because a budtender recommends what they understand, and a product nobody has explained to them tends to stay on the shelf however good the packaging is.
The dispensary's budtender working next to you all day, ringing up your product, gets a whole market's worth of hearing your team answer real shoppers. That teaches them more than a store visit squeezed into a busy shift usually does, and they take it back to the store when the market's over. An hour with those budtenders before the market opens, somewhere quiet, is probably the best hour your team spends on the whole thing.
The call can be short. Ask who holds the permit, whether it covers this market and these dates, and where the application stands against that 45-day line. The paperwork is theirs, including the town's approval, a written OK from whoever runs the market, and the fee, but since OCM opened applications statewide only on May 4, 2026, plenty of partners are doing this for the first time, and it's a fair question to ask. Then ask for that hour with the staff who'll be selling.
On your side, we'd send someone to the table who can handle the hard questions about the product, keep the signs factual with nothing medical on them, ask people before photographing them, and make sure everyone on the team is 21 or older. Their staff make the sales and your team does the explaining, and that hour with their budtenders keeps working long after the market packs up.
If you'd like help building the table itself, our production team can help.
Source: New York State Office of Cannabis Management. For persons 21 and older. General marketing information, not legal advice.
