10.03.18 / Washington / D.C

The human/progress Festival Launched a Socially-Aware Hospitality Concept in D.C

Marking the opening of a new hotel, workspace, and cultural community

This past weekend, a new festival emerged in Washington D.C. Typically this wouldn’t be news; micro-festivals have been cropping up all over the country for years, brining a selection of talented musicians together without the headache (and expense) of their big, bombastic counterparts. But D.C’s first human/progress Festival was a little different. human/progress marked the official opening of Eaton Workshop, a new brand that merges hospitality, wellness, culture, and social change under one brand. There’s a hotel, a workspace (a focus is to serve as a meeting place for journalists), a media division, and much more, but this weekend focused on one of their other core tenets: social impact. The festival featured an eclectic array of acts: Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem, progressive musician Yves Tumor, cellist Kelsey Lu, and The Roots’ Questlove all performed, but the event was as much about celebration as it was about activism. Eaton doesn’t just want to be a simple hangout space or a wellness retreat, but instead use its brand as a platform for causes like women’s rights and environmental justice. This was reflected at the festival in a series of panels and discussions alongside wellness treatments and eco-conscious food & drink offerings. The festival was only the start of Eaton’s ambitious goal of using hospitality to build a community rather than simply offer a space. Their next location is already set to open in Hong Kong, but D.C couldn’t be a better place to kick things off. With their first human/progress festival, Eaton Workshop is enabling its community to use their voices right beside the very the people that need to hear it the most.