Thank you for running Solstice this year, and for starting this tradition.
It’s been several days, but I still don’t know how I feel about it. My thoughts seem too disorganized and contradictory to fit in the feedback form, though I did try.
Emotional Arc
I watched the livestream of the 2022 Bay Solstice, and came in person to the 2024 Bay Solstice. I found them both to be really moving, each a useful call to action in their own way. You warned us that Solstice this year would be unusually dark. I took that seriously, and braced myself.
This year’s solstice was difficult to bear. The middle hour was particularly painful for me, surfacing grief and anger that I thought I had processed. The uplift section at the end felt more intellectual than emotional. Ordinarily that might be a good fit for me. In context it landed like a pale imitation, weakly argued, compared to what came before.
I left 2024′s solstice with a sense of defiance, spurred to do my part with righteous indignation against the laws of nature that offend my values. I left 2025′s angry and sad. Depression as a service.
I recognize a lot of this is particular to me, but felt I should share the data point.
Overall I’m glad this year’s version existed. I’m glad you ran this experiment, I appreciate the artistic strength and coherence. But I think it wasn’t for me. I probably shouldn’t come to future versions that are similarly dark, unless I’m starting from a significantly better place emotionally.
Afterparty
I found the afterparty particularly infuriating. I went looking for the decompression sessions, found Damon briefly, but didn’t really find my way in. Instead I talked to people and eavesdropped on loud public conversations. I feel I got a reasonably representative sample of the crowd. Most of the people I heard from at the afterparty had not been to Solstice. Several didn’t even know what it was.
The people who came only for the afterparty varied widely in motivation. One person told me they left Solstice after ten minutes because the tone wasn’t for them, but came to the afterparty to discuss, which I admired. Several others knew Solstice wasn’t for them but wanted to see friends who were in town—fair enough.
A vocal minority thought Solstice was dumb and cringe and came to the afterparty to mock it in person. I’m still baffled by this. It was Saturday night in one of the world’s greatest cities. There were other places to be. What sort of person chooses to go to an afterparty for an event they despise? If you dislike and disrespect people trying to process emotions from this ritual, why choose to spend time with them? I don’t think we should welcome those who consider that a fun evening out.
I suspect this is a growing problem with Lighthaven events.
I’ve heard similar comments from several people about the afterparty, and regret not spending a lot more time trying to make it a good part of the experience. I think in future years I maybe would prefer the afterparty on Saturday night to be more primarily “for Solstice attendees” and try to make a different night of the weekend the “everyone from all over the extended community comes over.”
(You didn’t mention the decompression zone but I maybe also want to take the opportunity to apologize: I had announced the decompression zone around firepits, but, then it turned out that all the firepits were full of people by the time I got there, and the whole area was so loud it felt hard to do announcements to direct people into the room we found. What I realize now was that I should have put up more/bigger signs about that)
Agree that the afterparty was Too Many Humans. If it was limited only to solstice-goers it might be a more reasonable amount of humans.
I wanted to get pizza but the food area was so crowded that I gave up. Maybe some kind of signage about not loitering in the food line area?
I am a fairly extroverted /social person but it was so loud and crowded that if I hadn’t had the option of running away to the choir room I probably would have left within about 10 minutes of arriving. It was way too much.
I looked for the decompression firepit because a chill mediated conversation seemed lovely, but that did not seem to be happening. Maybe have decompression ROOMS that can be closed off / quieter? Possibly multiples because I bet there was lots of interest.
the tragedy to me is that there was enough physical space for everyone, but people clustered into a much tighter area than they needed to. The drop off at one space was sharp even though there was at most a very mild physical feature delineating it.
I suspect there’s a growing list of tech folks a few degrees of separation away from the community who’ve started coming to Lighthaven events. I met several people at the Solstice afterparty who did not even know that it was an afterparty for another event at all.
I am also pretty confused who would show up to the afterparty to mock Solstice. What a weird move.
Thank you for running Solstice this year, and for starting this tradition.
It’s been several days, but I still don’t know how I feel about it. My thoughts seem too disorganized and contradictory to fit in the feedback form, though I did try.
Emotional Arc
I watched the livestream of the 2022 Bay Solstice, and came in person to the 2024 Bay Solstice. I found them both to be really moving, each a useful call to action in their own way. You warned us that Solstice this year would be unusually dark. I took that seriously, and braced myself.
This year’s solstice was difficult to bear. The middle hour was particularly painful for me, surfacing grief and anger that I thought I had processed. The uplift section at the end felt more intellectual than emotional. Ordinarily that might be a good fit for me. In context it landed like a pale imitation, weakly argued, compared to what came before.
I left 2024′s solstice with a sense of defiance, spurred to do my part with righteous indignation against the laws of nature that offend my values. I left 2025′s angry and sad. Depression as a service.
I recognize a lot of this is particular to me, but felt I should share the data point.
Overall I’m glad this year’s version existed. I’m glad you ran this experiment, I appreciate the artistic strength and coherence. But I think it wasn’t for me. I probably shouldn’t come to future versions that are similarly dark, unless I’m starting from a significantly better place emotionally.
Afterparty
I found the afterparty particularly infuriating. I went looking for the decompression sessions, found Damon briefly, but didn’t really find my way in. Instead I talked to people and eavesdropped on loud public conversations. I feel I got a reasonably representative sample of the crowd. Most of the people I heard from at the afterparty had not been to Solstice. Several didn’t even know what it was.
The people who came only for the afterparty varied widely in motivation. One person told me they left Solstice after ten minutes because the tone wasn’t for them, but came to the afterparty to discuss, which I admired. Several others knew Solstice wasn’t for them but wanted to see friends who were in town—fair enough.
A vocal minority thought Solstice was dumb and cringe and came to the afterparty to mock it in person. I’m still baffled by this. It was Saturday night in one of the world’s greatest cities. There were other places to be. What sort of person chooses to go to an afterparty for an event they despise? If you dislike and disrespect people trying to process emotions from this ritual, why choose to spend time with them? I don’t think we should welcome those who consider that a fun evening out.
I suspect this is a growing problem with Lighthaven events.
I’ve heard similar comments from several people about the afterparty, and regret not spending a lot more time trying to make it a good part of the experience. I think in future years I maybe would prefer the afterparty on Saturday night to be more primarily “for Solstice attendees” and try to make a different night of the weekend the “everyone from all over the extended community comes over.”
(You didn’t mention the decompression zone but I maybe also want to take the opportunity to apologize: I had announced the decompression zone around firepits, but, then it turned out that all the firepits were full of people by the time I got there, and the whole area was so loud it felt hard to do announcements to direct people into the room we found. What I realize now was that I should have put up more/bigger signs about that)
Agree that the afterparty was Too Many Humans. If it was limited only to solstice-goers it might be a more reasonable amount of humans.
I wanted to get pizza but the food area was so crowded that I gave up. Maybe some kind of signage about not loitering in the food line area?
I am a fairly extroverted /social person but it was so loud and crowded that if I hadn’t had the option of running away to the choir room I probably would have left within about 10 minutes of arriving. It was way too much.
I looked for the decompression firepit because a chill mediated conversation seemed lovely, but that did not seem to be happening. Maybe have decompression ROOMS that can be closed off / quieter? Possibly multiples because I bet there was lots of interest.
(Solstice itself was lovely.)
the tragedy to me is that there was enough physical space for everyone, but people clustered into a much tighter area than they needed to. The drop off at one space was sharp even though there was at most a very mild physical feature delineating it.
Yeah, I went looking for the decompression zone and didn’t find it. Gave up and talked to the crowd instead.
Interesting. Could be good to have spaces that are for Solstice-attendees-only, if this were to continue to be the case.
Most of our events aren’t open access! I am also pretty confused who would show up to the afterparty to mock Solstice. What a weird move.
I suspect there’s a growing list of tech folks a few degrees of separation away from the community who’ve started coming to Lighthaven events. I met several people at the Solstice afterparty who did not even know that it was an afterparty for another event at all.
Followed up with DM.