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July 7, 2016

2016 Registration

Here, finally, are the details for XOXO 2016 registration, coming up this September 8-11. The short version, same as the last two years:

  1. Next Tuesday, July 12, we’ll announce the launch lineup for XOXO 2016 and open registration.
  2. You’ll have a week to fill out the registration survey — ending at noon PT/3pm EDT on Monday, July 18.
  3. Like past years, attendees will be randomly selected from approved surveys.

Want more? Read on.

An Announcement

First, some big news: XOXO will not be returning in 2017.

We haven’t yet decided if this is the last one for now, or the last one ever, but we can say with 100% certainty that there will not be a festival next year. Certainly if XOXO does return, it’s likely that it will look very different to the event we’ve been running for the last five years.

We deeply love this community and everything it’s become — everything you’ve made it — and we’ll continue to work for this community through projects like the Outpost. But, for now, we need to take a break.

So if you were thinking of sitting this one out and going next year instead, you might want to reconsider.

Timeline and Passes

This Tuesday, July 12 we’ll announce the initial lineup and open up registrations for XOXO 2016.

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

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

We have two tiers of passes:

  1. $500 for the conference talks, plus all festival events
  2. $200 for festival events only

XOXO passes are non-transferable, but can be refunded in full until Friday, August 19. 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:

  1. What do you do?
  2. What are you working on right now?
  3. 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 three 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.

Accessibility & Diversity

We know that accessibility and diversity factor into whether many of you can attend an event, so we’re happy to confirm that we’re continuing to offer the following like last year:

Free, on-site childcare will be provided — the schedule and arrangements will be similar to last year. Children under 12 are welcome to attend the festival for free with parental supervision, but conference seating is limited to badgeholders only. You can read more details on our Families and Significant Others policy from last year.

All talks will be live captioned, and seating will be reserved for the hearing impaired. All venues are ADA compliant.

And we’re again offering 50 subsidized passes to those who would be unable to attend XOXO any other way, but we’re reducing the price from $50 to free.

We’ll have more details on each of these next week.

Get Ready

This all started with an idea — that there should be a space for the growing community of artists, hackers, and other creators working online independently on their own, and the unique set of challenges they deal with every day: impostor syndrome, anxiety, harassment, financial burdens, and the ever-present feeling that you have no idea what you’re doing.

After four years, that gathering evolved from a four-day event held once a year into a year-round online community with our 1,200-person Slack team. And then, in February, XOXO found a real-life local incarnation in the Outpost, now with over 70 independent artists and creators and year-round events.

This community keeps growing and changing, as you all share each other’s stories, make new friendships, and support one another. We don’t know where it’s going, but we’re pretty excited to find out.

More on Tuesday!