First and foremost, Hempfest is truly an enormous undertaking that requires several days of long hours to assemble the stages and hundreds of individual exhibitor and vendor booths three days of long hours to manage, including a security team to guard the park overnight and provisions to feed the hundreds of volunteers each day and then several days of equally long hours to disassemble everything, clean the grounds and replace any damaged turf. Also keep in mind this is an all volunteer event sponsored by Seattle Events, a not-for-profit corporation, and is also free to the public. The event costs the Hempfest organization nearly $900,000 to put on, and the money raised is largely from vendors, exhibitors and sponsors. The volunteer effort is headed by Hempfest co-founder and Executive Director Vivian McPeak. McPeak leads a core group of volunteers who meet year around to plan for the next Hempfest, and who run a downtown store called Hempfest Central selling all sorts of hemp based products. - NORML Seattle
