Yoyo A Go Go

Yoyo A Go Go
Festival events were based in the Capitol Theater
Genre	Punk rock, indie rock, queercore, twee pop, cuddlecore
Dates	July 1994, 1997, 1999 and 2001
Location(s)	Olympia, Washington
Years active	Original festival held in 1994; successor events held in 1997, 1999, and 2001
Founded by	Pat Maley Michelle Noel Kent Oiwa Pat Castaldo

Yoyo A Go Go, usually abbreviated to Yoyo and often typeset in various ways, was an independent music festival in Olympia, Washington, first held in 1994 and followed by successor festivals in 1997, 1999, and 2001. Five- and six-day concert marathons featured dozens of punk and indie rock acts stacked back to back, as well as a variety of associated entertainment and small-scale local retail. The concerts took place at the historic Capitol Theater and showcased performers from the local Olympia music scene, while also including national and international artists.

The first Yoyo enterprise was a recording studio built inside Olympia's Capitol Theater by audio engineer Pat Maley. By 1992, Maley had formed the Yoyo record label and released the compilation Throw (reissued on CD in 2001) which included tracks by area musicians. Maley eventually decided to initiate an independent musical event, inspired by Olympia's earlier International Pop Underground Convention (IPU), a highly regarded 1991 festival that has been deemed "a watershed moment in indie rock".

A musician himself, Maley organized the festival with help from drummer Kent Oiwa, graphic designer Pat Castaldo, and local disc jockey Michelle Noel. The guiding principle was the DIY ethic central to punk rock. In a press release for the festival, Maley declared: “Long ago, punk rock stopped being simply a noun that was young, loud, and proud. Now it’s also a descriptive term that tries to explain the difference between the buy in/sell out culture that wakes us up every morning for work, and the culture so many of us make every day with our own hands”.

The Yoyo festivals ran concurrently with another citywide event, the annual Lakefair festival. Yoyo organizers felt little sense of competition, and were inclined to believe Lakefair, with its more traditional style of fireworks and parade, would be a complementary affair and "add to the overall sense of fun". From the first festival, audience members and performers marched together as a contingent ("The Throw Team") in the Lakefair Parade.