PorcFest 2012 - Agorist Extravaganza!  

Wow, that was quite a week. We are still recovering and catching up from our time up in the White Mountains at the Free State Project's summer event, PorcFest.

Thanks to the folks at Freedom's Phoenix, the Silver Calculator App, and Don't Tread On Meme we were able to utilize the amazing Moneylith. The Moneylith is a fairly typical vending machine, but this one was loaded with most of the alternative currencies that were in use at PorcFest. This meant that we could spend much more time out enjoying the event, schmoozing, networking, and just generally having a good time.

All told, we only spent a couple hours hanging out at the Freedom's Phoenix dome tent. There was just so much stuff to do that we never stayed in one place long.

Agorism in Action

One of the first things we did was get the lighter cover we had pre-ordered. A friend of ours makes them by hand, and you can get a unique one that will help ensure you can always recognize it. Ours has a stylized 8-bit version of the Shire Silver logo on it. But there were all kinds of products and services available.

We made sure to donate to Fr33Aid, the pro-liberty health provider (they are limited in what they can provide due to governmental interference, but are extremely helpful). The photo to the left shows some of the donations they received during the week.

Early in the week Ron Helwig joined a handful of other folks on the Intro to Alternative Currencies panel, an hour long discussion of free market money. Most people who attend PorcFest are familiar with Shire Silver now, but it was certainly worth attending. The Q&A session at the end was enlightening. The video of this should be available soon, and we'll be posting it on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ when it does.

More Media Exposure

We also got on some radio shows and podcasts. We started out with an hour on Declare Your Independence with Earnest Hancock. That was a great discussion and we got some more ideas for improving our marketing as well as potential new product ideas.

A bit later we got on the Angel Clark show, where we talked about the cards to a new audience for most of another hour. Its always fun introducing the cards to new people, and this show was no exception. Angel also had the cheapest coffe in the camp, so we visited with her often. And even better, one of her later guests was Bad Quaker's Ben Stone, who we finally got to meet in person. The podcast should be broadcast soon, and when it is you'll hear about it!

Awesome Networking

One of our favorite events was the SOLE reception. Sure, the whiskey drinks were excellent, but the atmosphere of libertarian entrepreneurs getting together was even more stimulating. We came out of that with some more ideas we hope to implement soon.

We also got to hang out with a great crew of folks associated with bitcoins, even participating in the bitcoin panel as a typical business user. While that discussion was a bit more technical than I'd like, we did get to talk a little bit about how to actually use it in your everyday business. Big fans of bitcoins, we appreciated that and hope for even more bitcoin usage at PorcFest next year.

Great Entertainment

One of the most anticipated events was the premiere of the Silver Circle movie. Its not quite finished, and you could tell from some glitches, but the story held up to our expectations. It remains to be seen if the animation style is a hit (we're not a fan of it personally), but we did hear people talking about it positively.

We didn't get down to any of the music happenings - maybe next year we will. But the names are familiar to folks in the liberty movement, and next year you won't be disappointed.

Wrapping up PorcFest

We didn't take a huge amount of cards to PorcFest, expecting people and vendors to bring the cards they got in previous years, and many of them did. We saw plenty of our older designs floating about. But we did sell all but two cards we brought. We also handed off some of the co-branded cards we made, and some of those got sold too.

One of the last events we attended wasn't strictly money related, but it was cool. Jeff Berwick of the Dollar Vigilante did a session on expatriating. His writeup of PorcFest is here. We hope he'll be returning to future FSP events.

All in all it was a great week. We got to hang out with all kinds of liberty activists from big names like Larkin Rose, Bob Murphy, Dan D'Amico, Stephan Molyneux, and Boston T. Party to lesser known liberty luminaries to the everyday "normal" activists that make it all happen. This is certainly one of the best liberty events on the planet, and you should already start preparing to attend next year.

Non-PorcFest News

In other news, we got some media love from Nathan Fraser at LiveFree.fm. We did a short interview which he cut into a minute long ad and has played on his podcast. You can hear it at about the 45 minute mark in this podcast, where he gave us the Agorist Marketplace Spotlight of the week.

And as we close out this update, we'd like to remind you that we now have professionally printed high quality brochures that you can use to spread the word and sign up merchants. We also have a few items at our Zazzle store, which we hope to expand very soon. Please check them out and help us return our communities to a sound precious metal economy.

Short URL

Freedom's Phoenix.com

Silver Circle Movie

Silver Annex - get on the map!