The best city-wide creative social events are sourced by individuals

You may think the most popular, buzz-inducing events that creatives flock to are sponsored by city or arts-related organizations with budgets, but not so. Remember, creatives are attracted to natural cultural districts, which in turn consist of third places, events and scenes sourced by individuals.

A case in point – let’s look at the ongoing events attracting creatives in Washington DC:

Pecha Kucha – The first Thursday of the month, the DC version of this nationwide design presentation (a handful of artists presenting 20 images for 20 seconds each, no more, no less) is organized by two sister architects and hosted at innovative venues throughout the city.

The Pink Line Project – Single-handedly run by flaneur Philippa Hughes, Pink Line hosts ongoing creative get togethers known as Salon Contra, to spontaneous edgy events like roller derby art shows and live paintings, the latter of which just logged in at 700 attendees.

X in DC – This monthly third Saturday of the month event was founded by multimedia creative David Fogel as a 21st century Live-art “happening”. In his words, it’s a “kick-ass, inspired and inspiring event for all that brought artists out of their personal studios and into a multi-media, live-art environment” – LIVE (Electronica + Projections + Art + Fashion + Performance) + YOU = X.

Capital Fringe – The world renowned Edingburgh Fringe Festival, a wildly innovative, crowdsourced, underground cultural event of performers comparable to nothing else in the world, now has its own version in DC, thanks to founders Julianne Brienza and Damian Sinclair.

Elements! – Where else can you mass collaborate (that’s right, crowdsource) a restaurant? Join its ‘beta community‘, initiated by VIBE Linda Welch, and check out the monthly collaborations. Pictured above – the one-year anniversary party of the first meeting and celebration of the signing of a lease for a 3500 s.f. space.

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