The DMV Democracy Festival

Mark your calendar for DemFest 2025, tentatively scheduled for Saturday, October 25, 1-6pm in Washington, DC.  Check out Learning Life’s report on the first DemFest, which took place on Saturday, October 26, 2024 at Friendship Collegiate Academy in DC.  

Donate here $50, $100, $250 or what you can afford to support DMV DemFest 2025!  

Click here for other simple ways you can support DemFest. 

Summary & Purpose 

Widen and deepen civic engagement, foster collaboration, and make democracy more fun, less fractious with a financially sustainable, youth and family-friendly democracy festival in the Washington, DC capital region.

Context 

Dance, flowers, marijuana, beer and wine all get festivals.  If we want to make democracy more engaging for more people, rather than boring or divisive, why aren’t we investing in democracy festivals?  If democracy is so important to Americans, why don’t we have democracy festivals every year in towns and cities across the country?  If Washington DC is the capital of our country, and democracy is central to American freedom, why does DC have folk life, kite flying, and cherry blossom festivals, but no democracy festival?

In the mid to late 1800s, American democracy was often highly participatory and fun, involving parades, rallies, music, public speeches and debates, culminating in elections with some of the highest voter turnout in U.S. history.  Democracy then was also conflictual, corrupt and exclusionary (e.g., women and people of color were often or always barred from participating), so progressive reformers gradually remade American politics into what it is now: relatively orderly, peaceful, inclusive, yet also less fun.  Can we make democracy fun again, without spurring conflict, corruption and exclusion?  Learning Life, a DC-based educational nonprofit, believes we can, in part with democracy festivals, as part of a wider Democracy Learning Community (DLC).  And we’re not alone: democracy festivals are spreading in Europe.  And, here are five reasons to support democracy festivals. 

Date & Location

Mark your calendar!  DemFest 2025 is tentatively scheduled to occur on Saturday, October 25, 1-6pm.  

Stay tuned to this page for confirmed date, location, and other details.  

Goals

Produce a youth and family-friendly DMV Democracy Festival (DemFest) that:

  1. Makes democracy fun for all ages
  2. Widens participation in democracy
  3. Deepens civic learning
  4. Is financially self-sustaining, and helps grow the wider DLC 
  5. Fosters creative collaboration, particularly between folks in the DMV arts, education, business, philanthropic, and democracy sectors
Schedule

Click here for the draft DemFest 2025 schedule.  

Activities & Deadlines

DemFest 2025’s activities are to be determined, but will likely include:   

  1. Games, digital or analog, stationary or active, for kids of different ages and adults to learn and practice democracy through play.
  2. Arts, like comedy, dance, theater, or other artistic productions related to democracy.     
  3. A democracy market: tables with information, resources, goods for sale, and opportunities to engage from a variety of democracy-related businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies. 
  4. A youth citizen assembly, allowing diverse DMV students to come together to learn, deliberate and propose school, city, county and/or state policies that empower youth. 
  5. Discussions on democracy and media, education, economics, polarization and authoritarianism, and world democracy trends.   
Tickets, Sponsorship & Volunteering

Tickets to DemFest 2025 will be available for purchase online in advance, and at the door.  Return to this page for details.   

Click here for information about sponsoring DemFest 2025 as an individual or organization. 

Click here to apply to volunteer at DemFest 2025.   

Why do we charge to attend or take part in DemFest?  Three reasons.  First, many festivals charge for entry, so charging for DemFest entry is consistent with common festival practice.  Second, Learning Life’s aim is to make DemFest financially sustainable and hence replicable elsewhere. Ticket revenue is a part of sustainable funding, even if our purposefully low ticket prices far from cover the total festival expenses. Third, democracy is not free.  Just like it takes money to run campaigns, elections, courts, legislatures and executive offices, it takes money (plus lots of volunteers!) to pay festival expenses, like staff time, printing, food, awards, rentals, etc.                     

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