Despite what the HBO series might imply, Anarchapulco is far from dead. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go watch The Anarchists on HBO.

Anyway, we (Me, Cat, and the rest of the production team) have been hard at work laying the plans for next year and I am here to share what’s changed, what’s new, and what to expect.  Why? Cause I’m pretty excited about how the event has evolved over the years. It’s no longer the event that held the vibes of, “Hey come party with people considered famous in the movement while going to Anarchy school.”

It’s evolved to something more like, “Come meet, mingle, and explore with like minded folks in a beautiful part of Mexico.”

So here’s what’s up.

For the last 2 years prior to this, Anarchapulco has only offered a limited capacity VIP event with much higher ticket prices, which included food and an open bar every day of the main event as well as some nightlife. It led to a very intimate high vibe event that I’ve been proud to be a part of.  It also moved venues from the big resort known as “The Princess” to a smaller outdoor venue known as The Secret Garden. The main reason for this is “The Princess” took on some pretty heinous rules and restrictions around Covid that we were just not willing to make the attendees endure.

In fact, those restrictions were still in place last year and one of the attendees staying there got kicked out for refusing to wear a mask. We wanted a place without mask requirements or social distancing and we found that all in the Secret Garden, plus a really interesting location with incredible food options.

This year, because restrictions worldwide are lifting, we have increased attendee count to almost double last years, to about 800, and we brought back the much cheaper general admission ticket. This ticket includes access to the main event, a lifetime replay package, and involvement in Agoraforko (which I’ll explain in a minute). General admission is only $500 and is really reminiscent of the way Anarchapulco was priced pre-covid.  The VIP ticket only went up by 15 dollars, from 1250 to 1265 this year, but includes an extra meal each day, the launch party, and more, so in many ways is a much better value than even last year, despite rising prices in general thanks to inflation.

For more information on tickets in general, visit the store.

Agoraforko is the agorist rebirth of my old event started in 2018, which was called Anarchaforko at the time.  Hate to refer you to HBO again, but the series does really do a good job of telling the tale of Anarchaforko.

Long story short, I forked Anarchapulco in an attempt to decentralize both the content and location of the event. We felt that Anarchapulco was a little too centralized in a big resort just outside Acapulco, and that it was too tough for the average person to get involved and offer their knowledge.  Anarchaforko was also the culmination of complaints and criticisms we’d collected for the 2 years we attended Anarchapulco before starting the event. It was really something built by the people for the people. We provided a website with a community generated calendar that allowed all attendees to add events and even tickets for those events that would display on the website immediately.

The event happened in 2018, sponsored by SmartCash, and it was a success in concept. We rented a venue where basically anything could go for 3 days, but left the calendar open for weeks after Anarchapulco 2018 ended.  The calendar was filled with everything, from physical workshops to scuba diving adventures, and talks and more during that time.

The idea was good, but it somewhat died after the murder in 2019, when my co-producer at the time, John Galton was killed, again more about that in the series. There’s also plenty of interviews that outline that story. My plan since then was always to revive the idea, in partnership with Anarchapulco.

In fact, even though the organizers at the time thought we were trying to replace Anarchapulco with our event, the whole point of Anarchaforko was to offer something extra to the community, to work directly with the main conference not against it. Our long term goal was to basically move the calendar to the Anarchapulco site if we could stimulate cooperation to make it a one stop shop for everything going on in Acapulco during February.

Last year at the event, producer Cat Bonandin asked the audience if they wanted a second week added to the event and everyone raised their hands. It was with this that Agoraforko was born.  The dates will be from February 11-18, just after the end of the main conference this year (which goes from the 5-10^th of February).  There are tickets available on the website that are only for the fork for those interested in just doing the decentralized agorist section of Anarchapulco.  I’ve been asked why the name was changed from Anarchaforko to Agoraforko and the answer is simple, because I’ve always been more of an agorist and Anarchaforko was always more of an agorist event, one built and dictated by the markets, not necessarily by one group of people deciding who can do what and when.  The hope is that they compliment each other perfectly to provide something special for everyone involved.

Anarchapulco will still follow the main stage, workshops, conference vibe that people have come to love.  Agoraforko tickets also include access to the nightlife (save for the launch party) during Anarchapulco as well as lifetime replay to the event; but this much cheaper ticket is intended for those primarily focused on the Agora. General Admission and VIP tickets all include access to Agoraforko as mentioned earlier, which makes it so basically everyone involved with Anarchapulco (excluding the virtual only ticket) will be able to interact with the fork, adding their own events and adventures.

I know what I’m bringing to the Agora in Acapulco this year, what about you?