XOXO (festival)

Last updated
XOXO
Chad Dickerson at XOXO Festival.jpg
One of the speakers at XOXO 2012, Chad Dickerson of Etsy
StatusActive
GenreArt, technology
FrequencyAnnually
Location(s) Portland, Oregon
Country United States
Inaugurated2012
Founder Andy Baio
Andy McMillan
Website xoxofest.com

XOXO is an annual festival and conference held in Portland, Oregon, that describes itself as "an experimental festival for independent artists who live and work online". [1] XOXO was founded in 2012 by Andy Baio and Andy McMillan with funding from prepaid tickets and other contributions via Kickstarter. In 2016, technology website The Verge called it "the internet's best festival". [2]

Contents

XOXO was held every year from 2012 to 2019 except for 2017; it was not held between 2019 and 2023, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

History

2012

The inaugural event was held in Portland's Yale Union Laundry Building in September 2012 with approximately 400 participants. [3]

Associated events included live music, film screenings, an arcade of independently produced videogames, a market, and food trucks. [4] News media and bloggers noted an "impressive list of speakers" and an "intimate tone" missing from other technology-focused conferences. [3] Ruth Brown wrote "the audience was overwhelmingly white, male, middle class and educated." [5]

2013

The festival returned to the Yale Union Laundry Building with speakers, workshops, films, music shows, game events, and a market. [6] Baio described it as being "about artists and hackers and makers that are using the internet to make a living doing what they love independently without sacrificing creative or financial control". [7] Portland Monthly compared the event to the larger South by Southwest festival, quoting Matthew Haughey saying SXSW speakers are "in the business of selling technologies" and XOXO speakers are "creating things". [8] To handle increased interest while remaining small (500 conference tickets and 200 "fringe event" tickets), it had an application process with questions intended to filter out people who wanted to market to attendees. [7]

2014

XOXO 2014 inside The Redd XOXO Festival 2014.jpg
XOXO 2014 inside The Redd

XOXO 2014 was held at The Redd, a former metal stamping facility in an industrial area of SE Portland. [9] Conference speakers included Anita Sarkeesian. Sarkeesian's appearance was met with controversy from Gamergate supporters, with one protester trespassing the festival grounds and Portland Police Bureau being called to the festival. [9]

2015

XOXO 2015 was held at the Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon [10]

Engadget wrote many talks were "emotionally driven... centered around the difficult issues of being independent." [11] The Guardian attributed the festival's popularity to "its gentleness, its emotive undertone and thoughtful curation, but also its commitment to supporting individual artists over businesses and corporates." [12]

2016

XOXO 2016 was also held at the Revolution Hall and was attended by over 1,200 attendees. [13] The Verge called it "the internet's best festival," and highlighted its attention to detail, focus on diversity, and curation. [14] A follow-up article featured highlights and discoveries from the festival lineup. [2]

2018

After a one-year hiatus in 2017, the sixth XOXO was held on September 6–9, 2018 at a new venue, Veterans Memorial Coliseum. [15] Nearly twice the size of past years, over 2,300 attendees attended XOXO 2018. [16]

The festival opened with a keynote from comedian Cameron Esposito about the production of her "Rape Jokes" standup special. [17]

The festival closed with an unannounced concert by Lizzo on the festival's main stage, who surprised attendees after the show by performing karaoke in the Blue Ox Bar, a dedicated pop-up dive bar created for the event. Other on-site installations included a secret speakeasy, accessible only by solving a series of puzzles accessible via telephone booths around the venue, and Dear Future Me, an interactive installation by illustrator Alice Lee inviting attendees to mail a postcard to their future selves. [18]

2019

After experimenting with a larger event, XOXO returned to its previous size and venue for its seventh year, with 1,200 attendees at Revolution Hall. Organizers cited the desire to return to a more comfortable, accessible, and intimate size. [19]

2020–2023

The 2020 XOXO festival was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In an interview with Willamette Week , festival co-founder Andy Baio said that, due to uncertainty about the duration of the pandemic, "The last XOXO may have been the last one." [20]

There was again no festival in 2021, 2022 or 2023 due to the pandemic.

2024

In March 2024, organizers announced that XOXO would be hosted one final time in August 2024. [21]

Outpost

In June 2015, the organizers of XOXO announced they were opening a shared workspace to "bring some of our favorite people and projects in indie art and tech under one roof" in a 13,000 square foot building in Portland's Central Eastside Industrial District. [22] The Outpost was open from February 2016 until December 2016. [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hackers on Planet Earth</span> Conference series

The Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference series is a hacker convention sponsored by the security hacker magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly that until 2020 was typically held at Hotel Pennsylvania, in Manhattan, New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TED (conference)</span> American-Canadian organization of conferences

TED Conferences, LLC is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". It was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in February 1984 as a technology conference, in which Mickey Schulhof gave a demo of the compact disc that was invented in October 1982. Its main conference has been held annually since 1990. It covers almost all topics—from science to business to global issues—in more than 100 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evan Williams (Internet entrepreneur)</span> American technology entrepreneur

Evan "Evraid" Clark Williams is an American billionaire technology entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Twitter, and was its CEO from 2008 to 2010, and a member of its board from 2007 to 2019. He founded Blogger and Medium, two of the largest blogging internet platforms. In 2014, he co-founded the venture capital firm Obvious Ventures. As of February 2022, his net worth is estimated at US$2.1 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Broadcasting Convention</span> Trade show for the TV industry

International Broadcasting Convention, more commonly known by its initials IBC, is an annual trade show, held in September at the RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. IBC's tagline is "By the industry. For the industry." and it is aimed at broadcasters, content creators/providers, equipment manufacturers, professional and technical associations, and other participants in the broadcasting, entertainment and technology industry. In addition to being a trade show showcasing a hundred of exhibitors there is an IBC conference, panel discussions, demo’s, technical paper presentations and speaker sessions to attend. IBC is an independent body, owned by six partner bodies: IABM, IEEE, IET, RTS, SCTE and SMPTE, with a full-time professional staff.

South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. It began in 1987 and has continued growing in both scope and size every year. In 2017, the conference lasted for 10 days with the interactive track lasting for five days, music for seven days, and film for nine days. There was no in-person event in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Austin, Texas; in both years there was a smaller online event instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Baio</span> American technologist and blogger

Andy Baio is an American technologist and blogger. He is the co-founder of the XOXO Festival, founder of Upcoming.org, a former CTO of Kickstarter and the author of the Waxy.org blog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portland Hempstalk Festival</span> Cannabis event in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Portland's Hempstalk Festival is an annual event in Portland, Oregon advocating decriminalization of marijuana for medicinal, industrial, and recreational use. Founded in 2005, the festival often takes place the weekend after Labor Day and features food vendors, live music, and information booths. The event has always been free to attend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SAPO Codebits</span> Lisbon computing conference held 2007–2014

SAPO Codebits, also known simply as Codebits, was a conference held in Lisbon from 2007 to 2014, focused on computing and light-hearted geek culture content for a highly technical audience. It was organized by SAPO which, besides a news media brand, was also an internet-focused R&D division of Portugal Telecom at the time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Ignite</span> Annual conference for developers and IT professionals

Microsoft Ignite is an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft. It has taken place in several locations around the world. The first conference, then known as TechEd, happened in 1993 in Orlando, Florida, United States. The 2014 TechEd in Barcelona marked the last event using that name. Microsoft altered its conference schedule and introduced the Microsoft Ignite name from 2015 on.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marco Arment</span> American software developer and podcaster

Marco Arment is an American iOS developer and web developer, podcaster, technology writer and former magazine editor. As a developer, he is best known for being chief technology officer for Tumblr and creating Instapaper and Overcast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anita Sarkeesian</span> Canadian-American feminist media critic

Anita Sarkeesian is a Canadian-American feminist media critic. She is the founder of Feminist Frequency, a website that hosts videos and commentary analyzing portrayals of women in popular culture. Her video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, examines tropes in the depiction of female video game characters. Media scholar Soraya Murray calls Sarkeesian emblematic of "a burgeoning organized feminist critique" of stereotyped and objectified portrayals of women in video games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Build</span> Annual conference event held by Microsoft

Microsoft Build is an annual conference event held by Microsoft, aimed at software engineers and web developers using Windows, Microsoft Azure and other Microsoft technologies. First held in 2011, it serves as a successor for Microsoft's previous developer events, the Professional Developers Conference and MIX. The attendee price was (US)$2,195 in 2016, up from $2,095 in 2015. It sold out quickly, within one minute of the registration site opening in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web Summit</span> Annual technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal

Web Summit is an annual technology conference held in Lisbon, Portugal. Founded in 2009 by Paddy Cosgrave, David Kelly, and Daire Hickey, Web Summit was originally held in Dublin, Ireland until 2016, when it moved permanently to Lisbon. The conference's topics center on internet technology, emerging technologies, marketing and venture capitalism. Web Summit's partners range from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, with attendees representing all levels and sectors of the global high technology industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy McMillan (designer)</span>

Andy McMillan is a co-founder of XOXO festival.

Tech Open Air is an annual interdisciplinary technology festival that takes place in Berlin, Germany. It started in 2012 as the very first tech festival organised through crowdfunding. The festival has developed into a well-known tech conference in and out of Europe. The main concept behind Tech Open Air is to bring together the areas of technology, music, art, and science by providing a platform for multi-disciplinary knowledge exchange, collaboration, and development. Tech Open Air is organised every year in June or July and gathers a number of influential speakers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, start-ups, and attendees from Germany and 55+ other countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TechfestNW</span>

TechfestNW (TFNW) was an annual technology conference in Portland, Oregon that ran from 2012 to 2021. It was founded by Willamette Week editor Mark Zusman, and was the sister festival to MusicfestNW, which ran from 2001 to 2018. The event included innovators, entrepreneurs, tech companies and investors from around the world. It featured main stage speakers, workshops, a startup pitch competition, exhibitor booths, networking opportunities and parties. In 2012, Fortune magazine called it the next South by Southwest (SXSW).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slush (event)</span> Startup and investor event in Helsinki, Finland

Slush is a startup and tech event held annually in Helsinki, Finland. Slush facilitates meetings between the founders of startups and investors such as venture capitalists, accomplished with events such as matchmaking and pitching competitions. Slush aims to build a worldwide startup community. In 2021, Slush brought together 8,800 attendees from around the world to participate together in this global networking festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Jeong</span> American journalist (born 1988)

Sarah Jeong is an American journalist specializing in information technology law and other technology-related topics. A member of the editorial board of The New York Times from 2018 to 2019, she was formerly a senior writer for The Verge and a contributing editor for Vice Media's Motherboard website. She is the author of The Internet of Garbage, a non-fiction book about online harassment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portland Winter Light Festival</span> Annual festival in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

The Portland Winter Light Festival is an annual winter light festival in Portland, Oregon. Each year has been presented by the local nonprofit Willamette Light Brigade. The festival is open to the public and free to attend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bailey's Taproom</span> Defunct bar in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Bailey's Taproom was a beer bar in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The bar, which was established by owner Geoff Phillips in 2007, was a popular destination for craft beer tourism and garnered a positive reception. The bar had a second-floor sibling establishment called The Upper Lip, which was also known as Bailey's Upper Lip. Both establishments closed in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

  1. ↑ "XOXO Festival". XOXO Festival. XOXO. Retrieved 7 July 2020.
  2. 1 2 Newton, Casey (11 September 2016). "Our favorite discoveries from the internet's best festival". The Verge.
  3. 1 2 Gantz, Ryan (September 19, 2012). "The Dream of the Internet is Alive in Portland: Inside the XOXO Festival". The Verge. Retrieved December 30, 2012.
  4. ↑ Wortham, Jenna; Gallagher, David F. (September 18, 2012). "XOXO: A Festival of Indie Internet Creativity". New York Times Bits Blog. Retrieved December 30, 2012.
  5. ↑ Ruth Brown (2012-09-18). "Reflections on the XOXO Festival". Willamette Week . Retrieved 2014-09-28.
  6. ↑ Larsen, Luke (September 20, 2013). "Technology, creativity cross at XOXO". The Oregonian. Retrieved November 10, 2013.
  7. 1 2 Edidin, Rachel (September 20, 2013). "The Record-Breaking XOXO Festival Returns to Cross-Pollinate Art and Tech". Wired. Retrieved November 10, 2013.
  8. ↑ Patall, Marty (September 3, 2013). "How the XOXO Festival Charms Cutting-Edge Thinkers". Portland Monthly. Retrieved November 10, 2013.
  9. 1 2 Newton, Casey (16 September 2014). "A tiny gathering of artists has become the most interesting weekend in tech". The Verge. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  10. ↑ "XOXO". 2015.xoxofest.com. Retrieved 27 August 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ↑ Lee, Nicole. "How an independent art and technology festival captured my heart". Engadget. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  12. ↑ Kiss, Jemima (28 October 2015). "Makerbase and the mission to dispel tech's 'founders' myths". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  13. ↑ "XOXO". xoxofest.com. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  14. ↑ Newton, Casey (12 September 2016). "In praise of the internet's best festival, which is going away". The Verge.
  15. ↑ "Bringing XOXO Back". XOXO Blog. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  16. ↑ "Patronage at XOXO". XOXO Blog. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  17. ↑ Smith, Suzette. "XOXO Fest, Day 1: FREE Carly Rae Jepsen Soda, the Albina Vision Project, Cameron Esposito's Rape Jokes". Portland Mercury. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  18. ↑ Damewood, Andrea. "Snapshots of the Coolest Things at XOXO Fest 2018". Portland Mercury. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  19. ↑ "Return to Form". XOXO Blog. XOXO. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
  20. ↑ Singer, Matthew (May 23, 2020). "This Year's XOXO Festival Got Canceled Early in the Pandemic. Co-Founder Andy Baio Isn't Sure It'll Ever Return". Willamette Week .
  21. ↑ "One Last Time, With Feeling · Blog · XOXO". xoxofest.com. Retrieved 2024-04-01.
  22. ↑ Bell, Jon. "Portland's XOXO Festival lands 13,000-square-foot year-round home in Central Eastside". Portland Business Journal. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  23. ↑ "XOXO Outpost". XOXO Outpost. XOXO. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.