G-Sprout Journal: GRC Sponsors Electric Forest
Two weeks ago, tens of thousands returned to Rothbury, Michigan for weekend 2 of Electric Forest. For Grassroots California employees, that Wednesday was no different. With a two-day break in between Week 1 and Week 2 for laundry, sleep, and ATVing, members from the Warehouse and Chicago team united for another round of music, heat, and Forest magic.
Not 1, but 2 Booths!
Grassroots California sponsored Electric Forest this year and ran two vendor booths: one outside the festival grounds on Main Street, and one inside near the Ranch Arena. The outside booth was poppin' as early as Wednesday night hosting live music from DJ TRANTIC (listen to the live stream from Night 1!) and live painting by Whitney Houlborn. Here, campers and Forest friends moseyed around day and night, learning about Grassroots' artist collaborations while catching some shade during the hottest hours. 
At night, our dance parties raged until about 3am each night, close to food, drinks, and an aweome light show! Some of the most popular items sold at the outside booth this year included our straw hats, new line of socks, and our 2017 Electric Forest Moon Men Creations collabs: both snapbacks and fitteds customized with laser-cut, wood brims. The inside booth was even more exciting! Not only did we have 3 mega-inflatables parked and ready to lounge on, our speakers were constantly blasting bangers. 
Festival-goers roaming Sherwood Forest between sets stopped by to purchase Grassroots merch and visit with our team. Even some of Electric Forest's VIPs visited the inside booth. The Glitch Mob came through Saturday afternoon after running a giveaway. They brought two winners and TOKiMONSTA to check out our art and go on a shopping spree! Each of the fans each picked out a new hat and visited briefly with our Saturday squad.
Grassroots' Forest Family
We were also pleased to host Kevin from SunSquabi, who came to play a solo set after Cheese on Saturday night. Accompanied by his own beats, Kevin serenaded a crowd of fans just before Griz Live Band went on at Ranch Arena. We also were visited by our Forest Family contest winners from Denver and Chicago who each earned free tickets to Electric Forest by purchasing a winning Forest Family hat earlier this month. Other notable artists hanging with Grassroots at Electric Forest this year included Gwen AP, Chris Dyer, Randal Roberts, and Vincent Gordon. 
EF NEW NEW
Grassroots California proudly sponsored Electric Forest by designing 6 exclusive Electric Forest hats, dropped Weekend 1 at the festival sold at the offical festival merch booth. Grassroots also designed the Forest Friends hat (sold in Colorado), the Forest Family strapback (sold exclusively in store and at the festival), the 2018 Rothbury Village snapback, and 2018 Rothbury Village fitted. Other new merch dropped just in time for Electric Forest included the Laser Forest snapback and fitted, the new Camproots Purple V2 snapback.
Grassroots dropped a number of other new items at Electric Forest outside of our newest Spring/Summer Collection items and also offered a sneak peek of some of our upcoming designs. The new John Speaker Yoga Pants, whose art is currently featured at Grassroots Colorado, were sold at our inside booth. You may have also seen the newest Chris Dyer hats, two rereleased Phil Lewis reversible hoodies, and a Phil Lewis umbrella which was perfect for when that rain came! Also newly released at Electric Forest were our Wool Hats, Johnny Chimpo Dad Hat, a rereleased Stanley Mouse Blue Rose hat, the Luke Brown hat collection, and new additions to our Jerry Garcia collection.
Our Favorite Sets from EF2018?
Many Grassroots team members are still reeling from String Cheese's incredible sets complete with quadcopter light show. We were also blown away by Griz's Live Band. Other sets the GRC team got down to included Bassnectar, Clozee, CharlestheFirst, Desert Dwellers, Manic Focus, Space Jesus, and Zhu. We also really enjoyed watching Chris Dyer develop his Electric Forest mural featured below. The good vibes have us super-charged to radiate positivity and look forward to more Forest magic in the coming years. Until next year Sherwood Forest... we can't wait to see all your beautiful faces again!
Contributing Photographers: Emily Behnke and Niki Graham