Inclusion

This is a living policy, subject to continual refinement and expansion. Last updated May 26, 2024.

It’s important to us that XOXO reflects the diverse and vibrant creative communities it was created to celebrate. We currently make the following accommodations in our production to make the festival more welcoming and inclusive.

If you have questions about this policy, or suggestions for ways it might be improved, please contact us at [email protected].

Lottery

Registration for XOXO is offered through a survey and lottery process. A first-come, first-serve system typically favors those with time and money, which ends up benefiting those with well paying jobs and disposable income.

Our survey system allows us to counter some of these biases, prioritizing access to the festival for underrepresented people and independent artists.

Read more about How Registration Works.

Subsidized Passes

In past years, we were able to offer complimentary passes to a number of attendees who couldn’t otherwise afford to attend. This program was directly funded by generous contributions from companies and organizations in our community. In 2018, almost 20% of our attendees were able to attend XOXO completely free of charge.

Unfortunately, we are unable to continue our subsidized pass program through our final year due to a significant drop in sponsorship since we last produced XOXO.

We’ve decided instead to cut our pass price from $500 to $250 by scaling back our programming. With the resources available to us as a small, independent festival, we hope the shorter schedule and overall reduced ticket price offer a fair compromise.

Read more about our Pass Types.

Families & Childcare

XOXO provides free on-site childcare for the duration of the event. We work with a Portland-based childcare service who provide experienced, background-checked childcare providers.

All of our venues are designated all-ages. Children under 12 are welcome to attend XOXO free of charge, so long as they’re accompanied by a parent or guardian. Due to limited capacity, an XOXO pass is required for anyone taking a reserved seat either indoors or outdoors, even minors.

Read more about our Childcare & Families accommodations.

Photo Consent

XOXO enforces a media consent policy for our attendees, designated by colored lanyards available at Registration.

A red lanyard designates strictly no photos or video, a yellow lanyard designates that photos and video are allowed with explicit consent. A regular XOXO lanyard allows photos and video without permission.

Gender Identity

XOXO provides gender pronoun pins at Registration. We encourage all attendees to wear a pin displaying their pronouns.

Restrooms

Our venue offers two single-occupancy gender-neutral restrooms, in the back of Show Bar on the ground floor. There are also multi-stall gendered restrooms on each floor of Washington High. Attendees should use whichever restroom they feel most comfortable with.

We offer sanitary products and toiletries (including menstrual products, sunscreen, makeup remover, cotton pads, dental floss, and deodorant) in all our restrooms.

Curation

As an event centered around independent creativity, XOXO prioritizes curating a diverse and representative lineup of speakers and festival performers from a variety of creative, professional, economic, and personal backgrounds. We also recognize our responsibility to amplify voices that have been traditionally underrepresented or marginalized.

We pay all of our speakers, and cover travel and accommodation for all main stage speakers and performers.

Where relevant, we provide explicit content warnings in advance of our talks and festival performances.

Hospitality

XOXO curates a lineup of local food trucks offering a variety of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options from 9am–10pm each day.

We offer coffee and tea (including decaf) during the day, and our evening bar includes a curated menu of non-alcoholic options.

Our bars also serve beer, wine, and cocktails. We ask our attendees to please drink responsibly. Alcohol consumption is not an excuse for violating our Code of Conduct.

Vendors

XOXO prioritizes working with women and minority-owned businesses, and vendors who clearly prioritize diversity and representation in their teams.

Land Acknowledgement

XOXO takes place on the unceded, traditional Tribal lands of the Multnomah, Cascades, Clackamas, Oregon City Tumwater, Tualatin Kalapuya, and other Chinook bands who make their homes along the Columbia and Willamette rivers.

License

This policy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, and is available on GitHub. We encourage other events to adopt (and enforce) similar policies by using and remixing ours.