2022 O+ Kingston Theme: SO+mewhere

The O+ Festival will return to Kingston, NY for the 12th annual celebration of art, music and wellness October 7-9, 2022. As everyone imagines a “new normal” after the extraordinary last two years, we ask our community to envision where we are going together. 

The theme of the 2022 O+ Festival is SO+mewhere.

For years, Somewhere Alley was an essential element of O+ Festival’s programming; a place that was unexpected, intimate and where innumerable memories and connections were made. Marked by a neon sign made by local artist Erika DeVries, Somewhere Alley was a tunnel behind BSP marked with graffiti writing and bands playing pop-ups for those who stumbled upon it. While the community now grieves the loss of beloved venues like BSP, and we respond to change in our communities, the surprise, wonder, weirdness and joy brought by experiences like Somewhere Alley are being carried into O+’s future… somewhere.

We have hung the Somewhere neon in our new office window, across the street from another beloved O+ venue, The Old Dutch Church, as a sign post along the highway of change, a lighthouse in the unknown, sometimes dark, space of what’s next. We see that sign as a symbol of hope, energy and direction as we move forward as an organization and a community.

The term Somewhere is defined by Merriam Webster as: in, at, from, or to a place unknown or unspecified, to a place symbolizing positive accomplishment or progress,  in the vicinity of, or an undetermined or unnamed place. We welcome our community to join us in imagining what “Somewhere” can look like, feel like, where we are going and what we build together. 

Somewhere is an imagined utopia, a place of refuge, a place free of the confines of antiquated structures or arbitrary boundaries. Somewhere is a place we go in our memories of the past, it is being present in the present, and it is a future moment not yet relegated to history. Somewhere is pink neon in the sky, a Stephen Sondheim song, a place we have never been and a place we discover along the way. Somewhere is where we lost or left things along the way, it is a future home not yet found, it is searching, seeking, striving. Somewhere is possibility. It is where we find hope, direction and the inevitability that change is the only constant. 

If you don’t start somewhere, you’re going nowhere. ~ Bob Marley 

There’s a place for us, Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air, Wait for us, somewhere.
There’s a time for us, Some day a time for us, Time together with time to spare,
Time to learn, time to care. Some day, Somewhere, We’ll find a new way of living…”
~ Stephen Sondheim