Here we announced our intention to fork Steemfest. We were inspired by the fact that we (and many others) couldn’t go to Steemfest2 for a whole all sorts of reasons. Since then time has passed and Steemfest2 is now over but I’m here to tell you all, we’re still planning on doing this, even if it’s small.

In February there will be close to 100 Steemians (at least) already in town for Anarchapulco, if it’s anything like last year. I found myself running into people I recognized from Steemit but there was no focus on it at the conference, no meetup to take advantage of the people who were already there for a different reason.

So our goal is to have a SteemFest or something of our own here in Acapulco during the month long event we’ve dubbed Anarchoforko. We don’t have any dates or places sorted out this early in the stage as that stuff is honestly dependent on interest. When could you and would you want to do this? How big will it be? That’s all up to you guys. What we do have for sure figured out is the location of the main bay of Acapulco leaving us with many options available allowing us to scale accordingly.

We’ve got our reasons for forking both conferences, but it’s important I think to highlight the ways in which we’re forking Steemfest. This is intended as a friendly fork, we want to be clear on that.

For one we’re taking advantage of the people from Steemit already in town to highlight Steemit and the effect it’s had on all of our lives. There’s publicly been a call for a Acapulco Steemit event and considering the number of people from Steemit that live here, our regular hangouts are technically Steemit meetups, just without the branding.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a list of the people that are currently in Acapulco (or are for a good part of the year) that are on Steemit:

And there are many more here, but I don’t have their usernames on hand. If I forgot you and you’re reading this, I’m sorry.

Once Anarchapulco comes around that number will go up by a lot and many of those people stay after (or are interested in doing so) so to have all these Steemit enthusiasts in town without an event would be wrong!

Here’s a short list of Steemians I know will be in town for the conference!

Part of the advantage of doing this in Acapulco lies in the fact that cost of living and just about everything (except for gasoline and some other things) is much cheaper here than it is in the US or in most of Europe. On average we have lower hotel prices with more options in the lower range here in the bay than we found when we searched hotel prices in Lisbon.

While there will be a ticket or participation price it’ll be a lot cheaper than most conferences and festivals including Steemfest. There will also likely be build your own workshops with fees to be determined by the people that put them on. The idea is to make this as affordable as possible for people so as many people as possible can come!

Our location in the Western hemisphere cuts travel costs for people in the Americas a lot which is a big deal as there’s a huge Steemit base on this half of the planet. I know for a fact many people (including myself, although I’ve personally got a lot of special reasons why I couldn’t go to Steemfest.) didn’t go because of travel and lodging expenses. We just aim to offer a cheaper, closer alternative at a different time in the year. It makes it so there are more big chances to meet up with your favorite Steemit people during the year, a huge plus.

But from what we can tell we will also be utilizing a completely different concept as far as the conference itself is concerned. We’re applying the same DIY open format concept to this fork as we are to Anarchapulco’s fork. Looking at the schedule for Steemfest you can see it had speakers on stages just like many other conferences which is fine, and necessary at this point in many ways. But we want to offer the alternative that we’re trying to offer with Anarchoforko to this fork which is an experimental way to do things, a possible better way in the future.

So there won’t be speakers or a schedule, at least not one determined by just by us. Who talks and what they talk about and when they speak is up to them. Whether someone charges a separate fee for a workshop or seminar is also up to them. Our job is to provide fertile ground for this to grow; your job is to sculpt the experience you want to have. There will be some place to organize events, like a schedule to reduce conflicts, but it’ll be subject to change and not determined by us. So if someone wants to do a workshop, they determine when and how ect. We just help make sure it’s going to be ready for them when they get here to actually do it.

How has Steemit affected your life? Think about sharing that experience with others if it’s been profound. Have something to offer as far as Steemit is concerned like information or help to users, feel free to offer a seminar or a workshop with a fee. Lets get together and celebrate this experiment in social media that is Steemit.

The best way you can get involved right now is to start posting about what you want this to look like. Who do you want to meet? What do you want to learn about? What do you have to offer? That’s the best place to start. If you’re interested in coming, comment below with your intent to help give us an idea of how many people really would come to this thing.