An Update on the festival

Dear East Oakland community,

For the past four years, East Oakland Futures Fest has brought neighbors together on 90th Avenue to celebrate the creativity, culture, and possibility that lives in Deep East Oakland. The festival has always been about more than a single day. It’s about celebrating East Oakland and the Black community today while shaping the vision for a thriving future.

Each year, the block party has transformed the Scraper Bike Way into a space filled with music, food, art, culture, and connection. With dozens of vendors, performers, and community-based organizations offering services and programming, East Oakland Futures Fest has been a place where neighbors, community based organizations, artists, and families come together to celebrate what makes this neighborhood special.

In that same spirit, this year we are excited to announce the launch of the 90th Ave Neighborhood Action Council, a resident-centered effort to build a shared vision for the corridor and strengthen connections across Deep East Oakland.

We will be pausing the East Oakland Futures Fest this year while we focus our energy on standing up the Neighborhood Action Council.

Through the Neighborhood Action Council, residents will come together to explore questions about the future of 90th Avenue, including neighborhood identity and pride, the role of the Scraper Bike Way, connections to spaces like the shoreline and the Black Cultural Zone, and how local organizations and partners can continue supporting the neighborhood.

This work will include regular meetings, neighborhood activations, and opportunities for residents to connect with ongoing city initiatives that impact the corridor.

East Oakland Futures Fest is rooted in the idea that the community should have a voice in shaping its own future. Taking this year to focus on deeper engagement and resident leadership is part of that same vision.

We remain committed to 90th Avenue and to the Deep East Oakland community, and it’s our hope to bring the festival back next year, better for the work we're doing now. Events like this are still far too rare in Deep East Oakland, and sustaining them takes continued community support, collaboration, and long-term investment from partners, agencies and funders.

Thank you to everyone who has helped build East Oakland Futures Fest over the years—the artists, performers, vendors, community partners, and neighbors who have made the festival what it is today.

In community,

Chris Hwang
Co-Founder – Walk Oakland, Bike Oakland (WOBO)

Brytanee Brown
Co-Founder – Emergent Labs

Keta Price
Co-Founder – Hood Planning Group