Blog

After the last XOXO in 2019, we had decided to start wrapping things up, planning for one final festival in September 2020. Then obviously the pandemic arrived, derailing our plans entirely, and turns out, postponing them for almost four years.

We’re sorry to announce that we’ve decided to cancel XOXO 2020. But September is still six months away! Why not wait a little longer before deciding?

In just a few short days, we'll welcome over 1,200 of you to Revolution Hall for this year's XOXO. After last year's festival at Veterans Memorial Coliseum (a venue that even to those of us who live here feels like it's another world away), we've very glad to be bringing you back to our old neighborhood.

Last October, we announced that we'd partnered with Kickstarter to start a new project to succeed Drip, their subscription platform for independent artists. Unfortunately, we’ve decided to cancel the project, and wanted to talk a little about why.

After taking a year off, XOXO returned in 2018 looking very different from how it looked before. Most noticeably we increased in size from 1,200 to just over 2,300 attendees, and moved to a larger new venue where we could host our entire weekend of programming under one roof.

Six years ago, we launched XOXO with a singular mission to bring together and celebrate artists and creators of all kinds using the internet to make a living.

This is a deeply disturbing time in American history. The basic rights and protections of the country’s most vulnerable are under attack, distrust in every institution — education, science, journalism, and of course, government — is at an all-time high, and every day’s headlines brings new horrors. Our system of checks and balances is broken, seemingly powerless to slow it down, let alone stop it.

A week from today, just over 1,200 of you will join us in Portland to participate in this year’s festival. Each year, Andy and I try to be considerate of the impact that bringing so many visitors into the city can have on our neighborhood. As Portland residents, we want XOXO to be a force for good. With you as visitors, we want to ensure that the generosity and kindness we see in this community is shared with our neighbors too.

Great things happen after XOXO every year — people leave their day jobs, start new projects, and make new things because of the people they met and became friends with.

We know you’re anxiously waiting for news about this year’s festival, but you’ll have to wait a few more days. Today, we’re finally ready to reveal something we’ve worked on for the last six months. And we’re kind of freaking out.

After XOXO ended last year, we were curious what the gender ratio looked like. Anecdotally, it was a lot of men, but how many?

We’ve noticed a lot of familiar faces around Brooklyn these past few days, so we got together with our friends at Kickstarter, and decided to throw together a little shindig later this week for all our friends at Brooklyn Beta.