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O+ Festival
The O+ festival was founded in Kingston, New York in 2010. The festival has become an intellectual gathering place for a wide variety of musicians, artists, and free thinkers.The O+ Festival is a celebration of art and music that creates a bridge to access health care for artists. O+ fosters complete physical, mental and social well-being by connecting artists directly with a coalition of health care providers and health resources, in a shared vision to nurture the individual and the community. This unique relationship replaces the traditional monetary exchange with an exchange of health care for musical and artistic entertainment, inspiration, and enlightenment.

''"The O+ Festival took over a hundred volunteers. It took people who had venues to say, "Yes, I'll open my doors. For free." It took 30 bands and 48 visual, performance and film artists to take a gamble on bartering their work for health care. And most of all, it took the generosity of medical, dental, and alternative wellness providers who gave the equivalent of $38,000 in care."'' -Michael Frank

The O+; Festival -- a three-day, multi-venue festival of art and music which launches in Kingston, NY this weekend. Participating artists and musicians submit intake forms along with their stage plots, because they'll be paid in health services: dental work, addiction counseling, cancer screenings, physical therapy and more, during a weekend triage clinic staffed by doctors who opt to treat artists outside the system, with case-by-case opportunities for follow-up care. How can anyone argue with this fantastic idea? It benefits the artists as well as the community they are spicing up through their art and music.

''"Artists should not be falling through the cracks," said Dr. Art Chandler III, director of hospitalists at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson, N.Y., and overseer of the festival's clinic. "They contribute so much to what makes a community worth living in."''

Chandler and other organizers are incorporating O+ as a nonprofit and want to put on art-for-health-care festivals in Kingston and other cities next year. Like-minded artists, musicians, and physicians from Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Nashville, Berkeley, and Lowell, Mass., have contacted O+ looking to replicate the model. "It seems like something that should be everywhere and could definitely be everywhere," says Julia Henderson, a 32-year-old writer and development coordinator at a San Francisco theater who hopes to bring O+ to Berkeley. A transplant from Brooklyn, Henderson says she hasn't had insurance for six years. For how short lived this festival has been it's message is spreading like wild fire across the nation. Even to the extent where an O+ festival is beginning in San Francisco, California. The festival has become a drawing force of progressive people such as the internationally renowned street artist, Gaia (artist). He channeled Mother Earth in Uptown Kingston on the side of an ancient theater that has been transformed into a large art center.

The 2012 Festival numbers (from only the Kingston Festival) are nothing short of astonishing. The event drew 2000 attendees who were treated to the work of 45 visual artists and 35 bands (note: 150 musical acts applied for these spots). A record $78,000 in care was given by 85 healthcare providers and four dentists. Launched in 2010, this three-day event has always been funded by donations and sponsors. This year, the non-profit, volunteer-produced O+ will present nearly 50 performances by approximately 130 musicians from all over the Hudson Valley region and beyond. Likewise, about 30 visual artists and filmmakers will be selected to exhibit public art pieces throughout the Uptown Kingston neighborhood. As always, the musicians and artists gain access to a pop-up O+ Clinic in exchange for their contributions to festival programming, where they will have access to a wide menu of services ranging from primary care, physical and occupational therapy, psychological screenings and follow-up visit vouchers to massage, acupuncture, eye care and dental.