Our Story: Anarchapulco Through the Years
Anarchapulco just celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.
We have kept going through so much and at this point it feels like nothing will keep us down, not even hurricanes or world pandemics or even the events catalogued in the HBO series The Anarchists.
We thought it time to share a bit about our history for those who might be new to the conference.
The first Anarchapulco was hosted in the main bay of Acapulco at Hotel Copacabana. This was very much a community run event from the beginning. Jeff created the idea and a lot of the production was handled on the fly by the people who attended the event. It wasn’t perfect but it started something truly special that no one had seen before.
Anarchapulco moved to what was at the time called The Grand Hotel in the main bay, but later rebranded to Dreams Hotel. It was this beautiful tall triangular shaped building and the event itself was held on the top floor with a 360 view of Acapulco Bay. People loved the vibe of the conference being right in the city so at the end of the main stage you could walk out and venture into the city to really enjoy what Acapulco had to offer.
We moved south of the main bay, to a hotel called the Mundo Imperial resort. It was a little inland in a huge venue with the intent to scale. The resort had a lot to offer on site but many missed the ability to be able to venture into the city or at least the beach.
Growth
This was the first year hosted in the Princess Hotel, not far from the Mundo Imperial but right on the beach. The hotel itself looked like some sort of Mayan or Aztec temple and for many was a great compromise between what was offered in The Grand and the Mundo the year prior. This was also the first year Anarchaforko (now Agoraforko) was offered to the community, in the main bay of Acapulco at the Centro de Convenciones by some locals to the community, Lily Forester, John Galton and friends.
The second year hosted in Princess Hotel was a bit tumultuous, as John Galton was murdered just days before the event, stalling the second year of Anarchaforko and making many second guess their trip to Acapulco for Anarchapulco. Despite that, the event still went on and nothing else bad happened that year. The community did what they could to support Lily (now a principal part of the Anarchapulco team) get through that tough time.
This was the third and final year of the event being hosted in the Princess Hotel. Just at the whisperings of the COVID pandemic, people once again came together for what was a beautiful event. The event itself ran 3 different stages and had many workshops to offer. Between 2018-2020 the stage experience itself was highly upgraded, a far cry from the very simple one speaker event that was 2015.
Despite world lockdowns, Anarchapulco 2021 Breathe was still on, albeit much smaller. The team worked hard to secure a beautiful location that didn’t require masks or social distancing lovingly called the Secret Garden or Jardin Secreto in spanish. We offered very limited VIP tickets that included food and the majority of the talks were virtual. We livestreamed this event and even held the first virtual event a few weeks before called Anarchovid. People rejoiced at the ability to come together in person after lockdowns. We also started raising money for the local orphanage with the use of auctions.
Anarchapulco grew and took on the yearly theme of Unstoppable for 2022 and with us so did the Secret Garden. Before the money for venue went to a corporation but now hosting it with a local family owned venue, the money went to hiring people year round for construction to expand along with us as well as during the event to serve our attendees and offer the high quality experience people received in 2021. We kept with our community support of the orphanage and continued to raise money through auctions for them!
Themed Resist, we expanded even further with the Secret Garden to accommodate both VIP and general admission attendees. 2023 marked the return of Anarchaforko, termed Agoraforko to give people 2 full weeks of activity after our attendees requested 2 weeks of Anarchapulco instead of one. We had circus performers, art auctions including a custom painted VW bug and more. Our support of the local orphanage continued. Agoraforko was a success, with more than 65 attendee added events to the calendar.
Just after choosing the theme of Reborn, Acapulco suffered a catastrophic category 5 hurricane in late October 2023. We considered moving locations as we were not sure the area could support us after the devastation. We helped to raise 500k USD for relief and had team members on the ground days after the hurricane to pass out food and medicine. Our venues assured us they could handle us and begged us to keep the event as planned. We moved forward in what was undoubtedly the most important event for the community to date. We arrived to see businesses hanging signs with our logo welcoming us back and definitely made a huge effect on the local area that had taken care of us for so many years. This year our charity efforts with the auctions expanded to help local businesses suffering as well as the orphanage we had helped for years.
Hi guys, Miranda (Lily) here. This page was written with love from my point of view. As many know Anarchapulco has had a huge effect on my life since I first crossed the border to Mexico in 2016. It has actively shaped every single year since and while there have of course been some challenges along the way I will say I wouldn't have it any other way. Through my involvement with Anarchapulco I have grown and transformed as a person comepletely. This page and the rest of the website was built with love by me with the hopes of accurately portraying both my love for this event and appreciation for the effect it's had on my life. Thanks for reading, see you in Acapulco!
Lily (Miranda Webb) Forester Co-Producer and Web Girl