Category: crowdfunding

The Version festival, co-produced by Public Media Institute (PMI), is asking for crowd-funding. See their pitch is below.

What happens when you invite cultural workers, community developers,  entrepreneurs, artists, designers, foodies, public space hackers, urban planners, cultural geographers, and dreamers to swarm a neighborhood and transform it for one month? Version 12: Bridgeport: The Community of the Future.

This May 2012, we’re inviting you to come visit us in Bridgeport, a Chicago neighborhood, and join in on our month-long urban experiment. During the Eleventh Annual Version Festival, we will be opening and remixing twelve temporary spaces, businesses, enterprises and projects, all to celebrate the neighborhood we love and call home. And then we’re going to use these places as home bases, networks, and maps, all to energize our local environs for long-term change – but we need your help to make it happen.

Right now our plans include opening up the following: a bookstore, a music/performance space in a church, a home brewing clubhouse, a department store/gallery showcasing locally manufactured small batch and artisanal products, nomadic collaborative restaurants and community kitchens, parking lot flea markets, a neighborhood tourism bureau, a donut shop /art gallery and couple of exhibition spaces for artists and designers. A new holiday, Bridgeport Day, will be celebrated, and a bunch of new publications and projects will be launched as well.

One thing we are super excited about is the Small Manufacturing Alliance (SMALL), a new organization that promotes companies and individuals who make locally manufactured products.  The organization will open the SMALL Showroom at our gallery the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and publish the SMALL Directory.

This year, we’re also launching a new publication: Mash Tun: A Craft Beer Journal. Mash Tun is a paean to craft beer. It follows the pleasures and aesthetics of craft beer and how it intersects with food, culture, and society.  It will come out during Chicago Craft Beer Week ( May 17-27),  with its own mini festival during Version, the Mash Tun Fest.

All the funds we raise will be used to rent spaces, pay our licensing and permit fees, rent equipment and produce marketing materials to promote the festival.

Thanks for your support! We’ll see you soon in Bridgeport, the Community of the Future.