A couple of months ago, Andrew Patterson received a package in the mail on Valentine’s Day, but it wasn’t roses or a box of chocolates.
It was a cease and desist letter asking him to discontinue using the name “Obey” for Halifax’s OBEY Convention music festival, now in its twelfth year.
The creative director of the OBEY Convention didn’t see it coming.
“I think we both laughed. That was our first reaction. Then we sort of moved through all the emotions of feeling very frustrated and vulnerable. There is a lot of fear associated with when you get a letter from a millionaire telling you to stop doing something.”
The letter came from Bold Strategies Inc., a law firm representing the interests of street artist Shepard Fairey, known for his OBEY posters and a poster featuring an image of Obama with the word “hope” written under the image in bold type.
The letter said the festival had to stop using the name OBEY in their branding. Fairey’s company, Obey Giant, had trademarked the word “obey” styled in a similar manner two years before the Obey Convention had started.
The next few months were a rush of internal meetings and meeting with lawyers, said Patterson. It was a lot to handle.
“It takes a lot of time and energy to even address the request in the letter and we’re people who don’t necessarily have a lot of time and energy because we’re an underfunded non-profit.”
But Patterson said it could have been worse.
The lawyers said Bold Strategies was being generous. They could have told the OBEY directors to stop using the name of their festival immediately, mere months before the twelfth edition of the festival. Or they could have sued.
Patterson said the plans for this year’s festival are continuing as normal. But after the festival ends this year, Patterson said there will be meetings with members, board members, staff, foundational community members and the original director of the festival about rebranding the festival. Patterson said it’s also a time to delve into a rebranding of their values.
“We haven’t really taken a moment to officially take stock of what our values are and we’re a 12-year-old festival that started very much as a punk noise and really in some ways quite a different festival aesthetically and policy-wise in 2007…It’s an opportunity to take a look at those things and say we’re not the OBEY Convention we were in 2007, or even 2015.”
The Valentine’s Day cease and desist letter did make for a stressful few months said Patterson, but there was one thing that made the bad news less sour.
“The cease and desist means we are being seen on a [higher] level.
“The reach has changed. We’ve seen people buy passes from San Francisco, Texas from the UK. We’ve had artists from Australia, Indonesia, Colombia, France, you know, all over the place.”
The twelfth annual OBEY Convention will take place in Halifax, Nova Scotia from May 30 to June 2.