Every October, Kingston throws a party that feels less like a festival and more like a grassroots uprising. The O+ Festival was born in 2010 with a wild barter proposition—musicians and artists would swap their gifts for healthcare, “the art of medicine for the medicine of art.” In the years since, O+ has remade the city’s surfaces with murals that climb up brick walls and stretch across alleyways, bright testaments to a creative economy that refuses to be measured in dollars alone. Its feisty spirit has drawn everyone from national headliners to local punk poets, from yoga teachers to dentists in volunteer scrubs, all buying into a vision of mutual aid and community resilience. And the thing just keeps growing: three days stuffed with block parties, group bike rides, readings, film screenings, wellness workshops, interactive art, and more music than you can possibly pour into your ears. The calendar is a delirious sprawl, with every corner of Uptown humming. That vision feels more urgent than ever in a country still allergic to universal healthcare, where artists—who give so much—are too often shut out of even the basics. O+ isn’t just a festival. It’s a prescription.
FRIDAY
Annual O+ Festival Parade
6pm from Keegan Ales to Somewhere Stage
The O+ Parade kicks off the festival with a burst of music, costumes, and community spirit winding through Uptown. Join the throngs lining Wall Street or snag prime views from Keegan Ales’ beer garden or Santa Fe Uptown’s back deck.
“Come Home” by The Chase Brock Experience
7pm at the HV LBGBTQ+ Center
“Come Home”channels the vigor of sea shanties into a kinetic dance of restless sailors: stomping rhythms, spray-tossed movement, and a surge of maritime myth crashing through contemporary choreography. Repeats on Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 12pm.
Jonathan Lethem
7pm at Chronogram Stage
Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, has made a career of blending detective grit, magical realism, music, and memory into novels that double as cultural critique. Expect a sharp, generous conversation with fellow bestselling author Ayana Mathis about art, resistance, and the fractures—and possibilities—of American life.
Beautiful Losers
7:30pm at Lower Parking Lot
Directed by Aaron Rose and Joshua Leonard, Beautiful Losers (2008) chronicles the rise of a 1990s DIY art movement rooted in skateboarding, graffiti, punk, and hip-hop. Featuring Shepard Fairey, Harmony Korine, Margaret Kilgallen, and others, the outdoor screening includes a pre-show skate party and filmmaker Q&A.
O+ Comedy Hour
9pm at Kegan Ales
The O+ Comedy Hour brings laughs courtesy of host Beth Carestia with comics Alex Castle, Andy Monk, Phoenix Griffin, and Kevin Smith—a showcase of Kingston’s burgeoning, big-hearted comedy scene.
Fiery Furnaces
9:15pm at Chronogram Stage
Fiery Furnaces return to Kingston for a reunion show that’s been a longtime coming. Siblings Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger will dig into their genre-twisting catalog for a grab bag of dense lyrics, jagged riffs, and weird, art-rock abandon.
Wild Pink
10pm at Assembly
Wild Pink’s latest release, Dulling the Horns, pushes their heartland-rock into sharper relief—propulsive guitar riffs, driving drums, and lyrics that hitch memories, metaphor, and frailty together. Wild Pink is all about muscular energy, sweeping choruses, and silences that makes the loud bits hit all the harder.
SATURDAY
Fat Tire Mural-to-Mural Bike Tour
11am at Kegan Ales
Led by O+ Operations Director Aimee Gardner, the Fat Tire Mural-to-Mural Bike Tour highlights some of the 70 murals across Kingston. The ride showcases the wide range of styles and subjects—abstract, figurative, political, playful—that have reshaped the city into an open-air gallery.
Smash the Plateriarchy
11am-1pm at YWCA of Ulster County
Carolyn Silveira invites festivalgoers to hurl dishes into pieces, transforming frustration into freedom. The act, equal parts ritual and release, bonds participants while clearing psychic space for new beginnings—catharsis rendered in porcelain shards. Repeats on Sunday, 11am-1pm.
“Trying” by Kyle Turgeon
1pm at Assembly
Kyle Turgeon’s “Trying” melds live-scored cello, synth, and piano with a chance-based film projected in real time. Exploring grief and memory, each performance unfolds differently—an immersive act of presence where sound, image, and emotion entwine uniquely for every audience.
“Lin-Bob” by Linda Mary Montano
2-4pmat Block Party on Wall Street
Performance art legend Linda Mary Montano channels Bob Dylan with playful reverence, donning wig and placard to offer songs and snapshots. It’s part performance, part blessing—an eccentric saint riffing on iconography, humor, and the strange intimacy of becoming someone else. Repeats on Sunday at the Old Dutch Churchyard, 2-4pm.
Stone Lifting and Strongman Competition
2:30pm at Block Party on Wall Street
The Northeast Highlanders bring Highland games bravado to O+ with a Stone Lifting and Strongman Competition. There’ll be kilts, hefted boulders, and feats of grit that channel ancient tradition into raucous, muscle-bound spectacle on the streets of Kingston.
Recessive Jean
8:15pm at O+ Exchange
Recessive Jean conjures a hybrid of song and spoken word, weaving sharp wit with redheaded pride. Their O+ set promises offbeat harmonies, quick turns of phrase, and a playful exploration of identity through music and storytelling.
Akie Bermiss
8:45pm at Somewhere Stage
Akie Bermiss delivers funk-soul grooves with warmth and wit, his unmistakable baritone anchoring songs that sway between playful and profound. A longtime member of Lake Street Dive, he brings seasoned chops and irresistible charm to his O+ set.
Kool Keith
9pm at Assembly
Kool Keith, hip-hop’s surrealist godfather, lands at O+ with rhymes that warp reality. From his Dr. Octagon alter ego to decades of avant-rap innovation, Keith’s performance promises wild wordplay, cosmic beats, and the uncompromising eccentricity that made him a legend.
“Ignite! A Live Band Burlesque Show”
10:30pm at Assembly
Ignite! fuses burlesque with the firepower of a live rock band. Expect high-voltage dance, campy drama, and cheeky comedy, all decked in dazzling costumes and inventive props—an immersive spectacle that’s equal parts raucous fun and sharp social commentary.
SUNDAY
The Ceremony Within: An Introduction to Psychedelic-Inspired Practices
3-5pm at O+ Exchange
The Ceremony Within offers an introduction to psychedelic-inspired practices with facilitators Stephanie Frank, Jesse Scherer, Jaguar Mary X, and Amy Shuman. There’ll be discussion, guidance, and ritual framed around connection, healing, and the transformative possibilities of altered states.
Gary’s Dream
4:30pm at Keegan Ales
Catskill-based shoegazers Gary’s Dream spins reverbed guitars, spectral vocals, and nostalgic synths into a dreamy swell that blooms from bedroom hush to basement thunder—blue-tinted dream pop that crashes, sways, and soars.
Lydia Von Hof
8pm at Tubby’s
Lydia von Hof casts a spell of high-drama alt-pop, where theatrical vocal swoops meet glitchy electronic flourishes and moody atmosphere. Her new EP The Strange, The Unusual delivers twists in tone—hushed intimacy followed by pounding beats—and lyricism that leans gothic yet deeply personal.
This article appears in October 2025.
