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June 9, 2015

2015 Registration

Update : Registration for XOXO 2015 is now closed. Thanks, everyone.

Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement of our upcoming workspace, we’re ready to announce the details for XOXO 2015 registration.

The short version, which should be familiar to anyone who attended last year:

  1. This Thursday, June 11, we’ll announce the launch lineup for XOXO 2015 and open registration.
  2. You’ll have a week to fill out the registration survey — ending at noon PT/3pm EDT on Thursday, June 18.
  3. Like last year, attendees will be randomly selected from approved surveys.

Growing XOXO

Four years ago, we launched a Kickstarter project for the first XOXO. We had no idea if it would work or if anyone would care, but you did — more than we could have ever imagined.

Thanks to the ridiculous enthusiasm of so many of you, the festival has continued to grow every year, from 400 attendees in our first year to 750 in 2013, and then capped at 1,000 last year.

That felt right to us, a sweet spot for serendipity, while still giving us the resources to do crazy stuff like painting a block-long mural and flying over a hundred artists to Portland every year to participate.

So, this year, we’re done growing the festival! It’s staying the same size. (Sorry, Red Bull and Doritos.)

Timeline and Passes

This Thursday, June 11 , we’ll announce the initial lineup and open up registrations for XOXO 2015.

Like last year, you’ll have a week to fill out the registration survey, ending on Thursday, June 18 at noon PT/3pm ET.

Attendees will be randomly selected from approved surveys starting shortly after registration closes on June 18. You’ll have 48 hours to buy your pass, and then it’ll be given to another randomly selected attendee.

Despite the increased demand, we’re keeping passes the same price as last year:

  • $500 for the conference talks, plus all festival events
  • $150 for festival events only

XOXO passes are non-transferable, but can be refunded in full until Friday, August 21. After that, all sales are final.

Surveys

For those of you new to XOXO, we ask you to fill out a short survey. We’ll ask you to sign in with Twitter and answer three simple questions:

  • What do you do?
  • What are you working on right now?
  • What’s something you’ve made that you’re proud of?

This isn’t an application — we’re not judging you based on the quality of your work, how many Twitter followers you have, or anything else like that. We use these responses to answer a simple question: is this someone who makes things, or building tools to help people make things? Artists, writers, designers, founders, and hackers of any kind are immediately approved.

For the last two years, we’ve used this survey solely to screen out those people who were looking to exploit the attention of XOXO attendees — companies who want to be at XOXO to sell you their services, instead of participating. The feedback from attendees is clear: it works, so we’re sticking with it.

Diversity

There’s only one major change to registration this year, and we’re very excited to tell you more about it. With the help of our incredible patrons, we’re offering a number of subsidized passes in our continuing effort to make XOXO more diverse and inclusive. We’ll have more details about how that’ll work tomorrow.

It’s all happening! More soon!

— Andy & Andy