the letter we shared with our community, and the broader public, on November 11th.

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When we started planning our Future in Love cycle, we knew it would come to a close in November — at the end of a year where globally, more voters than ever in history would head to the polls in national elections, the results of which would set the stage for our collective future. 

We chose to host LoveFest on November 14, fully aware it would land amid a vibe shift, one way or another. America’s biggest cultural export, after all, is its mood. Whet—her we'd find ourselves celebrating love’s transformative power and exploring how to triple down on it to reshape system-s, stories, and worlds — or standing at the brink of nihilism, in dire need of remembering that love remains a radical force for change — we knew LoveFest would be vital.

As a global community committed to imagining and accelerating better futures, we’re particularly cognizant of the fact that the WEIRD world is not the center of the universe; that an American election, however significant, is not a world-stopping event everywhere.

This moment is one of many devastating realities: multiple ongoing genocides, a global climate crisis, omnipresent gun violence, violations of rights of all kinds, and the simple decline of everything from democracy to basic decency.

While RADAR can feel like a sanctuary; a place to belong away from the noise and the anger and the futures we don’t want, that’s never been our promise. We exist not just to envision and platform better futures, but to help build them — empowering our community and beyond to do the same.

As we reflect on 2024 and beyond, our focus remains on cultivating citizens of the future. We’re committed to the idea that, no matter how much it might feel like it, none of us are passengers on someone else’s ride to the future. That the simple act of imagining a better future is the first step to realizing you can act on it too. It’s the most accessible unit of change there is.

That’s what LoveFest was always meant to be. An opportunity to gather and imagine what’s possible when we treat love as more than an ideal or emotion — as a public ethic, a shared responsibility, and the core of the systems and stories we create together.

Initially, LoveFest was a ticketed event, thoughtfully priced to honor our incredible speakers, cover operational costs, and sustain the RADAR ecosystem. This inclusive approach allowed us to recognize the value of every contribution and keep our community thriving. Mutual community support remains deeply important to us (which is why everyone who was being compensated for their generous contributions will still be!!). 

But we feel like this isn’t a time to gatekeep love. In this moment, we believe it’s more important to open doors wide for gathering, imagining, and creating together. Gathering to dream up better futures feels essential right now. 

Hearing from people who are living love in action feels essential right now.

Being in community with those who believe in better futures feels essential right now.

Because the future belongs to those who think about it. 

So, LoveFest is now free to attend, as a gesture of cultivating abundance that we hope will ripple forward.

Anyone who purchased a ticket may request a refund if they wish (details in comments), but all unrefunded ticket sales and donations will go directly to helping us cover honorariums for speakers and to the micro.grant pool that will fund projects activating A Future in Love in the world. The pool will open at LoveFest with our public briefing, and ideas from any and every corner of the world are welcome. 

To join us on this day of activating love, hope, and collective imagination, you will still need to collect a ticket — which you can do at the link in our comments/bio. 

With all the love our hearts can manage, 

We invited participants to grab their comfiest clothes, find their favorite spot at home, and join us for a day of collective dreaming and (virtual) doing — no matter where they were in the world. Whether calling in from the living room floor or a perfectly-angled desk setup, we spent our November 14th exploring, creating, and imagining together on Butter. (This wasn't a "check your emails while you listen" kind of gathering. We were thrilled to see so many people show up ready to play, share, and dream with us.)

🌸 Kickoff & Getting Cozy: In which we introduced ourselves, shared what brought us here, and set some intentions for our time together. Think less "spiritual retreat" and more "gathering of curious minds ready to reimagine everything."

🎤 Opening Talk: Art, Heart & Radical Possibilities: What happens when we think bigger about what love can do? Yazmany Arboleda, master of turning public spaces into playgrounds of possibility, kicked us off with stories and insights about the wild and wonderful things that emerge when we lead with heart. From turning prison buses into celebrations of resilience to creating "explosions of love" in communities around the world, his two decades of making the impossible possible show us just how transformative collective acts of care can be.

💫 Deep Dive: Three Months of What If...: In which we took a guided tour through RADAR's three-month exploration of what happens when we reimagine love as more than just romance and relationships. We mapped some fascinating territories, uncovered surprising connections, and found some stories that might just change how you see your own corner of the world. Warning: side effects may include questioning perfectly trimmed hedges.

🌱 Love as Infrastructure: Because Systems Need Hearts Too: In which strategic designer Jenny Grettve (The Mothering Economy), wellbeing economy expert Amanda Janoo, and Root of Two’s Cezanne Charles whose work plays at the intersection of practice and public policy joined us for a dynamic discussion about rebuilding our world's systems with love at their core. From city design to economic structures, we'll explore how radical care could transform our fundamental infrastructure. Big ideas were welcome, practical solutions were encouraged.

🧘 Side Quest: Getting Out of Our Heads: Because we're more than just floating heads on Zoom. Here, ritual designer Evva Semenowicz guided us through a gentle exploration of what becomes possible when we bring our whole selves to imagining better futures.

Act Two: From Dreams to Action

🔦 Love Unbound: Speed Dating with Big Ideas: Five brilliant minds, five rapid-fire explorations of love's transformative potential. From reimagining digital spaces and community care to exploring new forms of kinship and collaborative creativity, these quick talks expanded how we think about what's possible when love leads the way. Afterwards, our collection of wonderfully diverse perspectives collided in a lively cross-pollination of ideas – less Q&A, more "what if we combined these wild possibilities?"

🍽️Vibe Shift (+ Intuitive Side Quest): We took time to nourish ourselves however we needed, while the curious souls among us stuck around for a side quest into the spaces between thoughts – where intuition whispers and possibilities multiply. Which is all to say, it was tarot time!

🛠️ Show Me the Love: Microgrant Launch: After a surprise appearance by Phoebe Tickell to stoke everyone's inner imagination activist, we shared some wild ideas from our research to get the creative juices flowing then helped folks start sketching out their own visions for building a Future in Love — with $10,000+ in grant funds to light the spark.

🌱 Love in Action: Cultivating Intimacy, Care, and Community IRL: How do we create environments where authentic connection can flourish? This conversation brings together pioneering perspectives on love's transformative potential. We were joined by Flower City Noire Collective founders Tonya Noel Stevens and Kristen Walker, bestselling author Christie Tate, connection designer Lakshmi Rengarajan, and community care author & advocate Tamela Gordon to gab about all sorts of unexpected insights from their work creating brave spaces for storytelling, designing for human connection, and practicing revolutionary forms of care. Through their collective wisdom and real-world experiments, we explored different pathways to deeper relationships with ourselves, each other, and our communities.

🧘 Creative Side Quest: Love Letters to Tomorrow: This was our moment to dream in ink and possibility. Through guided poetic practice, we crafted messages to the future we were re summoning into being, letting our words become bridges between what is and what could be. This gentle exploration from our friends at The Well wove together mindfulness and creative expression, offering us a chance to pause and reflect on poetry’s ability to help us encounter both what is and what might be.

🛠️ Designing for Love: A Hopeful Romantic's Guide to Better Worlds: What if we approached every space as hopeful romantics? In this session, experience designer Olivia Vagelos helped us reimagine a slice of our world through the lens of love. Together, we explored how to weave more tenderness, play, and possibility into the places and moments that matter – whether that meant transforming your team culture, reimagining a public space, or infusing family rituals with magic. The session had us learning to be brilliantly, bravely extra in the name of human connection — because sometimes the most revolutionary act is caring enough to make something beautiful.

💫 Until We Dream Again: What better way to end our journey than by coming together to let it all sink in? In our last bit of day together, we took time to digest the day's discoveries, share what sparked our imagination, and strengthen the threads of possibility we've spun together. Part reflection, part celebration, part collective dreaming – because the best futures are the ones we imagine together. Plus, we made sure everyone knew how to stay connected with the whole community of thoughtful humans who showed up to reimagine love.

More than just a virtual event or a moment to look back, LoveFest was an opportunity for folks to immerse in the systems, stories, and practices that could make this vision real and join us in co-creating a better future with love at the center.

The energy of LoveFest continues to warm our hearts - from vulnerable conversations about reimagining care, to collective dreaming about systems built on love, to unexpected connections forged in breakout rooms. Whether you joined us live or are just beginning your journey into these possibilities, we've packed up a care package filled with sweet treats for you to savor.

Inside you can:

🎥 Access full session recordings with curated listening prompts + a community-built Miro board of favorite moments (with space to weave in your own highlights!)

🌎 Explore the world of A Future in Love by jumping into our research and imagination immersion Miro board, journeying through the experience, diving into some of the fodder that inspired us, and continuing to co-create the world in async activities

💫 Dig into our micro.grant briefs that ultimately resulted in the funding of 7 dreamy ideas (which you can read all about here).

✍️ Revisit the honeymoon of sorts we took in our partnership with Switch-Lit — an experiment in co-writing an anthology of collaborative stories that shows us what's possible when we expand our notion of love beyond the romantic and commodified to embrace the full spectrum of care and connection. (The outcome? Our latest drop on Metalabel — still available to support!)

📻 Did LoveFest give you a glimmer of hope? You can still share your story at Tomorrow.Radio - we're collecting these moments of possibility to build a case for better futures, one voice at a time