The Legacy Cup is Minneapolis's cannabis festival — a judged cup, the Ganja Games and a serious music bill on one outdoor field — and the event that claimed Minnesota's first-ever cannabis event license in 2025. Launched in 2019, it returns for its seventh edition on September 26, 2026 with Big Boi and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.
Built Before the Market Existed
Founder Josh Wilken-Simon was selling glass at festivals in 2009 and opened his first shop in 2010, and the first Legacy Cup ran in 2019 as a CBD competition — years before Minnesota legalized adult-use cannabis. The early editions worked with what the law allowed: a CBD cup again in 2021, then a THC competition from 2022 on — and the archive keeps every year's winners list public.
Growth came fast once the law moved. A festival that started with a few hundred people drew more than 12,000 by 2024, all on the same field at Surly Brewing's Minneapolis campus — and it kept festival pricing while it scaled, with 2025 general admission at $25 for a noon-to-seven day.
The First License in the State
In 2025 the Legacy Cup received Minnesota's first cannabis event license — the ruling that turned a sampling-and-music gathering into a fully licensed festival with legal on-site sales of adult-use products, not just samples. That is the fact that defines the event: one field where a cup, a sampling tent and a headline stage legally coexist instead of splitting into private rooms.
Rap Royalty on the Bill
The booking has become a signature: The Pharcyde in 2023 with slug of Atmosphere hosting, Lupe Fiasco in 2024 alongside Dessa and Luniz, Killer Mike in 2025 with Warren G, Afroman and local voices Maria Isa and Desdamona on the same card.
The 2026 bill keeps the bar up — Big Boi, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Nappy Roots and Sa-Roc — a lineup drawn straight from the catalog where hip-hop and cannabis grew up together, with Minnesota artists worked in rather than bolted on. That deep-catalog instinct is the point: these are bookings for the crowd that was here before legalization.
Cup Awards and Ganja Games
Two competitions run under the music. The Cup Awards judge Minnesota brands and products across categories, a tradition running back to that first 2019 CBD cup. The Ganja Games make skill a spectator sport — fastest joint rolling, biggest bong rip, dab competitions — the rare cannabis-event programming built to be watched rather than browsed, and worth arriving early for.
The grounds fill in around them: vendor booths, live glassblowing, a skate ramp, a car show and an artist bazaar, which is roughly the culture's whole family tree on one field. It reads less like a trade expo and more like the state fair this scene never had.
Pulling Up in September
Legacy Cup VII runs Saturday, September 26, 2026 at Surly Brewing Festival Field, 21 and over, with GA and VIP tiers through the official Legacy Cup site — VIP adds Sampling Tent access and has been flagged as close to selling out. Late September in Minneapolis cools off fast after dark, so carry a layer for the headline sets.
The Proof Case
Seven editions in, the Legacy Cup is the proof case for legal markets outside the coasts: get the permits right and a cannabis festival can book, sell and pour like any other real festival. It earned the first license in its state by running the event for six years before the state caught up — that is the legacy in the name. Our events calendar has the rest of the Midwest run.