Stewardship • Culture • Music • Travel
Destination stewardship, cultural tourism, music, museums, travel, and public storytelling — shaped through real-world work with communities, institutions, festivals, and places across California and beyond.
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The Human Being
Brian Applegarth is the founder of Applegarth Intelligence and works across destination stewardship, cultural tourism, museums, hospitality, music, travel, and public storytelling.
His work is shaped by international study, longer-term residencies in Japan, Italy, and Barcelona, destination stewardship work, museum collaborations, tourism systems, performance touring, local radio, hospitality, cultural exploration, and years spent observing how people participate in place.
Cultural Projects
A curated body of work shaped through cultural exploration, tourism systems, museums, hospitality, music, media, storytelling, and long-term participation in how people experience place.
Press & Travel Culture
Museum Exhibitions
Maps & Destination Systems
Frameworks & EducationProjects become more powerful when they help people understand a place, its stories, and the communities that shaped it.
Culture • Stewardship • Tourism • Public MemoryProjects connecting culture, tourism, hospitality, history, and public participation.
Brian led the Cannabis & Hemp Task Forces for Destinations International and the California Travel Association, helping tourism organizations navigate emerging conversations around cannabis, hospitality, visitor experience, policy, education, and destination stewardship.
A pioneering cultural tourism and public history initiative connecting destinations, maps, timelines, museums, hospitality, and California cannabis heritage through storytelling, education, and place-based participation.
Co-curator of Grass Roots: Cannabis from Prohibition to Prescription, presented by the Museum of Sonoma County, a Smithsonian Affiliate museum.
Co-curator of Outlaws of the 20th Century: Rum Runners and Pot Farmers, connecting local history, prohibition, and cultural memory.
Creator of the Effect Pairing Cannabis framework and public education initiative exploring how cannabis effects interact with activities, environments, hospitality, tourism, food, creativity, and experience design through a reflective and observational lens.
Founder and launch contributor to the California Cannabis Awards and Exhibit at the California State Fair, including three IAFE recognitions with first- and second-place awards for exhibition design, educational programming, and public engagement.
Creative contributor to projects including the Modesto CannaPass visitor experience initiative, San Francisco travel content and visitor education work, destination campaigns, tourism storytelling, hospitality activations, and cultural participation projects.
Speaking & Events
Brian participates in conferences, cultural gatherings, performances, interviews, webinars, and conversations around stewardship, hospitality, tourism, culture, music, and place.
His work includes more than 130 speaking engagements, destination stewardship conversations, cultural initiatives, exhibitions, tourism projects, performances, and collaborations across North America and internationally.
For the most up-to-date information on appearances and performances, follow @briancapplegarth and @bapplemusic on Instagram and Facebook.
Films & Documentary Work
Selected films, festival screenings, documentary collaborations, and cultural media projects exploring tourism, identity, activism, public history, LGBTQ+ culture, cannabis history, and social change.
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Films and cultural media projects shaped through observation, participation, storytelling, and long-term engagement with communities and place.
The Secret Story: How Medical Cannabis was Re-Legalized in the US explores LGBTQ+ activism, cannabis access, AIDS-era advocacy, and the overlooked human stories connected to the medical cannabis legalization movement in San Francisco.
Brian is considered a leading cannabis historian and amateur filmmaker whose work explores Northern California cannabis culture, identity, activism, tourism, and public history. His documentary and short film projects have screened at multiple film festivals and received audience recognition and festival awards.
• Mill Valley Film Festival
• London Cannabis Film Festival
• New York Cannabis Film Festival
• Palm Springs LGBTQ Film Festival
• Voiceless International Film Festival
• Additional festival screenings, documentary selections, and recognition archived on FilmFreeway
Brian's documentary and film work has been recognized through independent film festivals, cultural screenings, LGBTQ+ programming, museum collaborations, tourism storytelling initiatives, and public history projects focused on California culture, social change, identity, and place.
Associate Producer and archival contributor to The Emerald Triangle, a feature documentary project with filmmaker Mark Kitchell exploring Northern California cannabis history, culture, land, activism, and legacy communities. The project has been in development for nearly six years and includes interviews, archival material, historical storytelling, and long-form cultural documentation connected to California's cannabis movement and heritage.
Brian contributed interviews, archival materials, historical context, and public history documentation connected to Dennis Peron, Proposition 215, and the broader California medical cannabis movement. The collaboration also reflects the long-term relationship between documentary storytelling, The Cannabis Trail, museums, cultural tourism, and public memory work.
Documentary participation and cultural history contribution for NBC Bay Area's Bay Area Revelations, exploring California cannabis history, cultural evolution, tourism, and public memory.
Creator and contributor to educational and documentary-oriented short films exploring California cannabis history, cultural pioneers, museums, tourism, heritage, and public storytelling.
Film and visual storytelling integrated into museum exhibitions, destination experiences, educational programming, conference presentations, and cultural interpretation initiatives across California.
Music
Singer-songwriter performances for listening rooms, hospitality spaces, galleries, cultural venues, private gatherings, and community events.
Performances may also include carefully selected songs from the Americana, folk, country, and classic songwriter traditions.
The music section is intentionally integrated into the broader cultural storytelling narrative — reinforcing Brian as a multidimensional creator whose music, stewardship work, travel, films, museums, and public storytelling all emerge from the same lived experience and long-horizon worldview.
Writing & Sensemaking
Writing and long-form thinking across destination stewardship, tourism, hospitality, culture, systems change, and navigating periods of transition.
A stewardship-oriented exploration of navigating complexity, tourism systems, institutional pressure, cultural change, and long-horizon thinking during periods of transition.
The work establishes a baseline framework for understanding how people, places, and systems evolve through periods of disruption and transformation.
Brian is the founder of Applegarth Intelligence, a destination stewardship platform focused on tourism systems, visitor economies, community vitality, cultural participation, and long-horizon place stewardship.
Photos & Posters
A small visual archive of music, gatherings, projects, and moments along the way.
Catalog & Licensing
Selected songs are available for film, documentary, hospitality, tourism, arts, community storytelling, and creative media projects.
Audio files should be uploaded to the same folder as this page, or Lisa can update the file paths to match the live media library.
Book
Setting a Baseline for Stewarding Places Through Change.
Learning Under Pressure explores how people and institutions navigate complexity during periods of transition, uncertainty, and change — establishing a baseline for stewardship-oriented observation and sensemaking under pressure.
Connect
For speaking, moderating, interviews, cultural projects, stewardship work, and collaborations, contact Brian directly. For music performances and licensing, use the music contact.