Cannabis brand Spherex has found a lot of success leaning into activity-based events—a strategy Katie Mattox, vp-marketing, says was “partially intentional, partially by accident.” After hosting a roller-skating party inspired by the release of a Taylor Swift album a few years ago, Spherex discovered that its community enjoyed skating and wanted more.
Around the same time, Mattox says, Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division started cracking down on cannabis consumption events, so it was a good opportunity for Spherex to pivot from sponsoring consumption events to hosting events that didn’t involve trying cannabis products. And skating events fit the bill.
“We were doing events so consistently, while our competitors were having a hard time trying to come up with a plan B, and we were hitting our stride with it,” she says. “Activity-based events are more approachable for the general public. We found that with consumption events, someone’s significant other or friends may not consume and those types of environments can be overwhelming, so they tend to be a lot smaller. We opened ours up. As long as you’re 21 and older with an ID, you can come, and it’s basically like any other event. That really helped us to gain a lot of traction.”
This year marked the fifth Skate with Spherex event, which has grown through the years from 150 attendees to 700, at its biggest. Word of mouth has largely contributed to the growth, Mattox says, noting that fans of the brand would bring friends, co-workers and roommates to the events for a good time, even if they weren’t cannabis consumers. Spherex also works with cannabis and roller-skating influencers to promote its events, as well as local dispensaries to hang up and distribute flyers.
Spherex centered its most-recent Skate with Spherex event around Halloween, encouraging its 600-plus attendees to dress up in costumes. In addition to free admission and free skate rentals, the Oct. 29 event at Reelworks in Denver included games, seven vendors and dispensary partners, djs, free drink tickets and merch, a photo booth, and prizes for costume contest winners.
Specially for this edition, Spherex added aura photographers and airbrush tattoo artists to help attendees enhance their costume looks. Outside were food trucks and a BYOC consumption bus as an option for attendees who wanted to consume. Mattox hired a visual artist to create themed graphics with Spherex’s logo for the stage, and branded graphics and videos from Spherex and its sponsors were projected onto the venue walls.
“It’s really important for us to keep the events free, just because it establishes trust with the consumer. Trust is important in the buying experience, and we’re starting to see that more and more, especially with the younger generation,” she says.
For each of its events, Spherex partners with nonprofit organizations to collect donations, food, clothing and essentials. In November, the brand delivered more than 400 brand-new and gently used bags and blankets donated at the Halloween skate party to The Gathering Place in Denver.
To stay ahead of the game, Mattox is planning the brand’s entire event calendar for 2026 before the year ends, and this kind of foresight was what helped her snag a date for the Skate with Spherex 5 event 10 months in advance. In January, Spherex will hit the ground running by sponsoring tentpole events in Colorado, including Aspen Gay Ski Week and Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks concert in February. Some guerrilla marketing campaigns are also on the horizon in 2026.
“This is something we’ve been building over the past three years. Our first event was very small, and then we’ve grown to now mostly sponsoring big events in 2026,” Mattox says. “The strategy for us, originally, was to establish community. I realized that if people met our team, they would like us and trust us more, and what better way to get people to know you than to go do something fun together with drinks and food and get to talk in a casual environment. The more memorable we can make our experience and close the gap, the better.”
Photos: Courtesy of Spherex
