What’s the Best Part of Summer’s End Smokeout? We Asked the People of SESO
What’s the Best Part of Summer’s End Smokeout? We Asked the People of SESO
There are a lot of ways to review a music festival.
You can talk about the artists. You can talk about the vendors, the camping, the location, the food, the smoke, the late nights, the stages, or everything happening between the performances.
But after spending four days at Summer’s End Smokeout, we realized there was probably a much easier way to explain what makes SESO special:
Ask the people who were actually there.
So F’nAround walked around Summer’s End Smokeout asking attendees, artists, vendors, and members of the SESO community one simple question:
“What’s your favorite aspect of SESO?”
And their answers tell the story better than we ever could.
More Than a Music Festival
One thing became obvious during our time at Summer’s End Smokeout: people don’t just attend SESO.
They become part of it.
There is obviously music. There is cannabis culture. There are vendors, artists, camping, food, conversations, parties, and plenty of moments that probably make a lot more sense when you’re standing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula surrounded by the people experiencing them with you.
But underneath all of that is something harder to manufacture: community.
That came through again and again while we talked with people.
Everyone had their own reason for loving SESO, but the answers kept circling back to the same basic feeling the people, the atmosphere, the freedom, the music, the connections, and the experience of everybody being there together.
That’s difficult for a festival to fake.
The People Are Part of the Show
At some festivals, there is a clear separation between the performers, vendors, organizers, media, and audience.
SESO doesn’t always feel that way.
You might watch someone perform and later find yourself talking with them somewhere else on the grounds. Vendors aren’t simply standing behind booths waiting for transactions. People actually stop, talk, teach, laugh, network, and get to know one another.
Artists mingle.
Vendors hang out.
Campers become friends.
People who arrived knowing nobody can leave knowing half the campground.
That accessibility creates an entirely different festival atmosphere.
And when we started asking people what they loved most about SESO, we weren’t getting carefully prepared marketing answers.
We were getting people describing what the festival actually means to them.
That’s exactly what we wanted.
Why We Keep Calling SESO One of the Most Underrated Festivals Around
Throughout our coverage, we’ve kept coming back to one description:
Summer’s End Smokeout might be one of the most underrated music festivals we’ve ever experienced.
Not because it’s trying to compete with giant corporate festivals.
Almost the opposite.
There’s something refreshingly genuine about SESO.
The artists seem happy to be there.
The vendors seem happy to be there.
The attendees definitely seem happy to be there.
And the people putting everything together appear to genuinely enjoy the community they’ve created.
That matters.
Because you can book performers.
You can rent stages.
You can sell tickets.
You can line up vendors.
But you can’t simply purchase culture.
Culture develops when people want to come back, when artists remember the crowd, when vendors remember customers, when friendships continue after everyone packs up, and when people start talking about next year before this year’s festival has even ended.
That’s what we saw at SESO.
So What’s the Best Part of Summer’s End Smokeout?
We’ll let the people answer that.
This video is a collection of the voices we met during our four days at SESO, answering one deceptively simple question about what keeps them coming back and what makes this festival different.
Their answers aren’t identical.
That’s what makes the video work.
For one person, it’s the music.
For someone else, it’s the cannabis community.
For another, it’s the friendships.
Maybe it’s the freedom.
Maybe it’s the atmosphere.
Maybe it’s discovering an artist you’ve never heard before.
Maybe it’s sitting around after the stages shut down and realizing the best part of the night wasn’t even on the schedule.
Put all those answers together and you start understanding Summer’s End Smokeout.
Thank You, SESO
A huge thank you to Elevated Exotics for inviting F’nAround out and giving us the opportunity to experience and cover Summer’s End Smokeout firsthand.
Thank you to the SESO organizers, Eleveqted Exitics’ owners, founder, artists, performers, vendors, sponsors, campers, attendees, and everyone who stopped what they were doing long enough to answer our questions, talk with us, teach us something, make us laugh, or welcome our cameras into their weekend.
We came to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to cover a festival.
We left understanding why so many people treat SESO like something much bigger.
And after four days of asking questions, filming performances, meeting people, wandering the grounds, and F’nAround…
Maybe the best answer to “What’s your favorite aspect of SESO?” is pretty simple:
The people who make SESO, SESO.
Watch the full video to hear their answers directly from the Summer’s End Smokeout community.
F’nAround Media | Summer’s End Smokeout 2026
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