About XOXO

XOXO is an experimental festival, shared workspace, and online community for independent artists and creators working online.

It started in 2012 with an idea and a project, selling out in 50 hours to become (still) the most-funded event on Kickstarter.

By 2015, XOXO had grown from 400 people into a four-day festival with over 1,000 attendees and 100 performers flying to Portland from around the world.

That year, we invited over 1,200 of you into a Slack team, effectively turning XOXO from a four-day festival into a year-long community supporting each other every day and night in 175 different channels.

Then, last February, XOXO took its biggest leap yet in the Outpost, a 13,000-square foot shared workspace for independent artists paying only what they can afford, now with over 70 members and events running weekly.

There won’t be a festival in 2017, but XOXO lives on as the experiment it always was.

To commemorate five years of the festival, this site archives all the remarkable people and projects we’ve featured at the first five XOXO festivals. Every talk, every game, every movie, every musician, every podcast, and more.

To the 2,430 of you who spoke, performed, or attended — thank you for turning this into something more than we could’ve imagined.

Independence is hard, but it matters. So let’s stick together and make it a little easier, okay?

Hugs & kisses,

Andy Baio & Andy McMillan