We’re back! After taking a year off, XOXO returns to Portland, Oregon on September 6–9.

One week from today, we’ll announce our launch lineup and open registration for the sixth year of XOXO.

For those of you returning to XOXO, this will all be very familiar. For those of you who have never attended, here’s how registration works and the timeline for distributing passes. Short version:

1. Next Tuesday, June 19, we’ll announce the launch lineup for XOXO 2018 and open registration.

2. You’ll have ten days to fill out the registration survey — ending at noon PT/3pm ET on Friday, June 29.

3. Like past years, attendees will be randomly selected from approved surveys.

Everyone must fill out their own survey to attend, even partners and significant others.

Timeline and Passes

This Tuesday, June 19 we’ll announce the initial lineup and open up registration for XOXO 2018.

This year, you’ll have ten days to fill out the registration survey, ending on Friday, June 29 at noon PT/3pm ET. There’s no need to hurry, and no advantage to getting your survey in early.

Once registration closes, attendees will be chosen from approved surveys by lottery. You’ll have a guaranteed 48 hours to buy your pass, and after that, it will be released to another attendee.

This year, we’re retiring the two-tier system for passes. We’ll have a single $500 pass that gets you full access to everything — the conference, all our evening festival events, meetups, and parties.

For those who can’t afford to attend, we’re significantly expanding the number of subsidized passes this year, offering hundreds of passes for free to those who wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise. You’ll be able to apply for a subsidized pass on your survey.

XOXO passes are non-transferable, but can be refunded in full until Friday, August 17. After that, all sales are final.

How Surveys Work

We ask you to fill out a short survey with 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?

In addition, we ask if you belong to an underrepresented group or whether you need a subsidized pass to attend for free.

This survey isn’t an application — we’re not judging or ranking you based on your answers. We use these responses to answer a simple question: is this someone who makes things, or builds tools to help people make things? Artists and creators of any kind are immediately approved.

Why Surveys?

Initially, we implemented surveys to screen out people who were looking to exploit the attention of XOXO attendees — namely companies who want to be at XOXO to sell you their services instead of participating.

Over time, we found it to be a powerful tool to ensure the group of attendees reflects the creative communities that the festival was designed to celebrate.

Each year, we’ve heard criticism from some people who see our survey system as exclusionary or elitist, arguing that a first-come, first-serve system for ticketing would be far more fair, equitable, and inclusionary.

In our experience, the opposite is true. A first-come, first-serve system favors those with time and money, which ends up benefiting predominantly white men with well-paying jobs and disposable income.

Our survey system allows us to factor diversity into admission, which helps to counteract systemic biases and prioritize access to the festival for underrepresented folx and independent artists.

The feedback from attendees each year is clear: it works. So we’re sticking with it.

Get Ready

After running XOXO for five years, we wanted to take some time to reflect on what made it great, what could have been better, and where we wanted it to go. After a year away, we think we’ve come up with something new and special, and we’re excited (and terrified!) to share it with you.

But, like always, it’s an experiment. And we’ll only know if the experiment worked when you all show up in September. More next week!