Key story highlights:

• D.C.-based Halcyon is launching By the People, an international arts and dialogue festival, June 21-24 in D.C.
• About 100 events will feature more than 40 speakers, performers and artists across the city’s four quadrants.
• The festival will set out to mirror the impact of conferences like South by Southwest in Austin.

Despite Washington’s strong arts and innovation ecosystem, the region looks to Austin’s South by Southwest every year. So Halcyon, the nonprofit spinoff from D.C.-based S&R Foundation, wants to change that — by launching a giant festival in our own backyard.