Creative Convergence Silicon Valley, or C2SV, was an annual multi-day music festival and technology conference held each fall in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

from 2012 to 2016. It was founded in 2012 as the Silicon Valley Sound eXperience (SVSX) and changed its name in 2013 with the addition of a technology conference. C2SV was patterned after technology and music events held in other cities, most notably the

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

(SXSW) festival in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

, but also

NXNE North by Northeast (or NXNE) is an annual music and arts festival held each June in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival's main focus is live music, but it also includes an eSports gaming tournament, comedy, a conversations series, a flea mark ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

and MFNW in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

. The group of blended festivals and conferences with whimsical four-character acronyms, established by weekly

alternative newspaper An alternative newspaper is a type of newspaper that eschews comprehensive coverage of general news in favor of stylized reporting, opinionated reviews and columns, investigations into edgy topics and magazine-style feature stories highlighting ...

s, have been called “four-letter festivals" in the industry.

Music festival

The 2013 festival featured a concert in San Jose’s St. James Park with

Iggy and The Stooges The Stooges, originally billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, also known as Iggy and the Stooges, was an American Rock music, rock band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 by singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer ...

on September 28, 2013. Supporting main stage acts were

Thee Oh Sees Osees are an American rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1997, now based in Los Angeles, California. The band currently consists of primary songwriter and core member John Dwyer (vocals, guitar), Tim Hellman (bass), Dan Rincon (dru ...

Bosnian Rainbows Bosnian Rainbows was an American art rock band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 2012. The band consists of former the Mars Volta members Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, backing vocals) and Deantoni Parks (drums, keyboards), alongside Le Butcherett ...

and The Bang Girl Group Revue. Five models painted by artist Trina Merry joined

Iggy Pop James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Called the " Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of proto-punk band The Stooges, who w ...

on-stage during one of the songs. Artist

Shepard Fairey Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989 he designed the " Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker campai ...

issued a limited edition poster commemorating the Stooges’ C2SV Festival show. Club performances at 12 venues included

The Lemonheads The Lemonheads are an American alternative rock band formed in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1986 by Evan Dando, Ben Deily, and Jesse Peretz. Dando has remained the band's only constant member. After their initial punk-influenced releases and to ...

, The Limousines, metal band

Deafheaven Deafheaven is an American post-metal band formed in 2010. Originally based in San Francisco, the group began as a two-piece with singer George Clarke and guitarist Kerry McCoy, who recorded and self-released a demo album together. Following i ...

, hardcore punk band

Off! Off! (stylized as OFF!) is an American hardcore punk supergroup, formed in Los Angeles, California in late 2009 by Circle Jerks/ Black Flag singer Keith Morris, Burning Brides frontman Dimitri Coats, Redd Kross bassist Steven Shane McDonald, an ...

Mondo Generator Mondo Generator (sometimes known as Nick Oliveri and the Mondo Generator) is an American rock band founded in 1997 by Nick Oliveri. History Formation and ''Cocaine Rodeo'' (1997–2002) Nick Oliveri (under the moniker ''Rex Everything'') ...

The Coup The Coup is an American hip hop band from Oakland, California. Their music is an amalgamation of influences, including funk, punk, hip hop, and soul. Frontman Boots Riley's revolutionarily-charged lyrics rank The Coup as a renowned politica ...

and

Dam Funk A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, a ...

. Performers in 2012 included Maxx Cabello Jr., Anya and the Get Down, Will Sprott of the Mumlers, rappers Antwon and

Cities Aviv Gavin Mays (born 1989), better known by his stage name Cities Aviv, is an American rapper and record producer from Memphis, Tennessee. Early life Gavin Mays was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended Overton High School and Cordo ...

, battle rapper Dirtbag Dan, Fierce Creatures, Containher and Mike Huguenor. C2SV 2014 was held in San Jose’s SoFA District on September 10 to 14, 2014. Conference presenters included technology entrepreneur and author

Vivek Wadhwa Vivek Wadhwa is an Indian-American technology entrepreneur and academic. He is Distinguished Fellow & Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley and Distinguished Fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harv ...

, journalist Yasha Levine and

BlogHer BlogHer is an American media company founded by Elisa Camahort Page, Jory des Jardins, and Lisa Stone in 2005. It is an online blogger community and holds a yearly conference for women bloggers. BlogHer is owned by SHE Media which is a division o ...

cofounder

Elisa Camahort Page use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates ...

. Club music showcases and the revived SoFA Street Fair comprised the musical portion. The 2015 conference and festival was held October 8–9, 2015 in the

SoFA District SoFA (South of First Area) is an arts, cultural, and entertainment district of Downtown San Jose, California. Home to numerous cultural institutions, art galleries, and theatre companies, including the Institute of Contemporary Art San José, t ...

, according to organizers. Headliners for the 2016 music festival include

Donald Glaude Donald Glaude is an American house music artist, DJ and remixer, and is consistently ranked as one of '' DJ Mag''s top 100 DJs. Biography As a child, Glaude was classically trained in the upright bass and violin. After hearing early funk reco ...

Shonen Knife Shonen Knife is a Japanese pop-punk band formed in Osaka in 1981. Influenced by 1960s girl groups, pop bands, the Beach Boys, and early punk rock bands such as the Ramones, the band crafts stripped-down songs with simple yet unconventional lyr ...

and

Eric Victorino The Limousines are an American electronica band based out of California's San Francisco Bay Area. Made up of multi-instrumentalist/producer Giovanni Giusti and songwriter/vocalist Eric Victorino, the duo formed in 2007 and has since gained i ...

Technology conference

The three-day inaugural conference, held September 26–28, 2013 at the

San Jose McEnery Convention Center The San Jose McEnery Convention Center (commonly known simply as the San Jose Convention Center) is a convention center in Downtown San Jose, California. The facility is the largest convention center in Silicon Valley. It is known for hosting ...

, included keynotes by technology evangelist

Robert Scoble Robert Scoble (born January 18, 1965) is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, ''Scobleizer'', which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft. He later worke ...

, guitarist

James Williamson (musician) James Robert Williamson (born October 29, 1949) is an American guitarist, songwriter, record producer and electronics engineer. He was a member of the iconic proto-punk rock band The Stooges, notably on the influential album ''Raw Power'' and in ...

and author, CEO and brain scientist Jeff Stibel. The plenary-style stage also hosted a wide-ranging series of discussions on

Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public di ...

self-driving cars A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for Sa ...

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist human ...

, drones,

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory Modality (human–computer interaction), modalities, including visual, Hearing, auditory, hap ...

, space travel and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

web standards. Other notable speakers included Chris Anderson, former editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, Match.com founder

Gary Kremen Gary Kremen (born 20 September 1963) is an American engineer, entrepreneur and politician who founded the personals site Match.com, was the first registrant of Sex.com and founder of Clean Power Finance, and is a board member of the Santa Clara V ...

, Eloan co-founder

Chris Larsen Chris Larsen (born 1960) is a business executive and angel investor best known for co-founding several Silicon Valley technology startups, including one based on peer to peer lending. In 1996, he co-founded the online mortgage lender E-Loan, an ...

, Apache server programmer

Brian Behlendorf Brian Behlendorf (born March 30, 1973) is an American technologist, executive, computer programmer and leading figure in the open-source software movement. He was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software ...

, WalmartLabs CTO Jeremy King, Yahoo! chair Maynard Webb, eBay Vice President Hugh Williams, Kerio Technologies CEO Scott Schreiman, former

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

controller

Steve Westly Steven Paul Westly (born August 27, 1956) is an American venture capitalist, entrepreneur, educator, and politician. He was the State Controller of California from 2003 to 2007 and was one of the top candidates in the Democratic primary for Gove ...

and serial entrepreneur

Steve Kirsch Steven Todd Kirsch is an American entrepreneur. He has started several companies and was one of two people who independently invented the optical mouse. Kirsch has been both a philanthropic supporter of medical research, and a promoter of misinf ...

. The event also included

John McAfee John David McAfee ( ; 18 September 1945 – 23 June 2021) was a British-American computer programmer, businessman, and two-time presidential candidate who unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president of the United States ...

’s first public appearance since his highly publicized escape from Belize and arrest in Guatemala. McAfee used the conference appearance to announce his intentions to market a low-cost secure router to foil government surveillance. The conference also presented the first on-stage fireside-style discussion with Apple co-founder

Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve Jobs, he c ...

and video game inventor

Nolan Bushnell Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consum ...

on September 27, 2013. The 2015 conference, held at the California Theatre, featured Oculus VR inventor

Jack McCauley Jack McCauley is an American engineer, hardware designer, inventor, video game developer and philanthropist. As an engineer at Activision, he designed the guitars and drums for the Guitar Hero video game series and was the Chief Engineer at Oc ...

, cameraphone inventor

Philippe Kahn Philippe Kahn (born March 16, 1952) is an engineer, entrepreneur and founder of four technology companies: Borland, Starfish Software, LightSurf Technologies, and Fullpower Technologies. Kahn is credited with creating the first camera phone, b ...

and game designer Jane McGonical. The 2016 conference was held on October 6 and 7, 2016. Uber CTO Thuan Pham provided a keynote. Researchers Hillary Mickell, Michele Madansky, Lisen Stromberg presented “The Elephant in the Valley: Gender Bias in the Technology Industry.” Other speakers included Black Girls Code’s Kimberly Bryant, “Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley” author Antonio García Martínez, Waze executive Josh Fried and Men’s Warehouse founder

George Zimmer George Zimmer (born November 21, 1948) is an American businessman. He is the founder, former executive chairman (1973–2013) and former CEO (1973–2011) of the Men's Wearhouse, a clothing retailer with more than 1,200 stores in the US and Canad ...

, who sat down with author Bryan Kramer.

References

External links

{{Commons category, C2SV
C2SV WebsiteC2SV TwitterC2SV Facebook
Rock festivals in the United States Festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area Music festivals in California Technology conferences Music festivals established in 2012 Music festivals established in 2016