Sales on 4/20 represented the biggest sales day of the year in Colorado last year.
We saw it last year for our big national holiday, and it visits us again (to a lesser extent) this year: 4/20 falls in the middle of the week (on Thursday). Sales on 4/20 itself, of course, are a big deal to the industry — last year Colorado consumers spent $7.47 million on 4/20, making it the biggest sales day of the year. But it is the weekends that transform the holiday from just another big day into something more like a holiday season.
Last year, we faced a conundrum. With 4/20 falling on a Wednesday, which weekend — the one before, or the one after — would generate the most sales?
The answer — last year it was the weekend before, which saw sales of $13.03 million from Friday, April 15 through Sunday, April 17 in Colorado. The weekend following 4/20 performed splendidly as well, raking in $12 million.
The entire 4/20 week (which for the sake of this analysis begins on a Friday and extends for 10 days until the conclusion of the following weekend, so Friday 4/15 until Sunday 4/24) was a sales bonanza, generating $46.08 million in Colorado. It was the busiest 10-day span in Colorado for the year.
Consumers largely divided their dollars between flower, concentrates and edibles during 4/20 week.
The next busiest week (the same span of 10 days beginning on a Friday) in Colorado began on Friday, Sept. 2 and ran through Sunday, Sept. 11, which generated $43.99 million in revenue.
April was not the busiest month — September wins the medal in Colorado for the busiest month of the year.
Coloradans have fully embraced the 4/20 holiday, but enthusiasm for the holiday is not as intense in Washington, where many weekends and 9-day spans surpassed sales around 4/20. In Oregon, the 4/20 holiday performed well in medical shops with $3.48 million in sales between 4/15 and 4/24 (recreational shops could not sell products other than flower when 4/20 hit last year). In fact, just as in Colorado, the 10-day holiday last year was the busiest span of 9 days during the year.
This year, the holiday kicks-off this Friday, on April 14. The big day is Thursday, and the holiday concludes on Sunday, April 23. Which weekend will win this year? Given 4/20’s closer proximity to next weekend, it would not surprise if next weekend is wreathed for the 2017 4/20 weekend battle. We will have an answer soon enough.