Eleven months ago, leaders from Skeptic/Humanist/Atheist/Agnostic/Freethinking organizations from around the state of Wisconsin descended upon Madison to concoct a plan. With the help of Fred Edwords and the UCOR, we aimed to advance the many shared goals of these groups by fostering a greater degree of cooperation between them. Together, we founded the Madison Area Coalition of Reason. Moving forward, how could we effectively get the word out about “MadCoR?” Billboards and Bus Ads, often deployed with great success by the Coalition of Reason, have already been used so effectively by the FFRF in the Madison area, that such a campaign would hardly be newsworthy.
Then, inspired by the Skepticon model, I thought, why not host our own conference?
And make it totally free to attend.
After nearly one year of planning, I am very proud to announce the fruits of our significant labors:
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| Annie Laurie Gaylor, with Dan Barker, is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Author of several books, including: Woe To The Women: The Bible Tells Me So, and Women Without Superstition: ‘No Gods, No Masters’. |
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| D. J. Grothe, formerly a professional magician, now president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. Well known host of the “For Good Reason” and “Point of Inquiry” podcasts. |
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| Kevin Padian is the president of NCSE’s board of directors and an international expert on the evolution of vertebrates, about which he testified in the Dover, Pennsylvania trial on “intelligent design” in 2005. |
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| PZ Myers has been among the fiercest, most public critics of religion and pseudoscience on his wildly popular blog, Pharyngula.org. |
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Plus a ton of other fantastic speakers – an exciting mixture of new faces and many more familiar names: Darrel Ray, JT Eberhard, Lyz Liddell, Matt Dillahunty, Richard Carrier, to name a few… and then 10 more speakers after that! With a lineup of 21 speakers presenting over the course of three days – this makes the Freethought Festival the largest and most ambitious free atheist conference ever attempted.
From the beginning, we have been committed making the Freethought Festival a totally free conference to attend. I have operated with a “Field of Dreams” approach to raising the required funds (if you build it…), guided by two simple principles:
- That no one should excluded from participating in a conference due to financial constraints.
- That those who are able to financially support the movement, ought to support it, and will.
I hope you’ll join us!
Do you have have any "lessons learned" or a primer for someone wanting to start a similar event in another region? I'm going to look back through your site for just such information, but I thought I'd ask in the meantime. I don't know if I'm willing to make this commitment, but I'm thinking about it.