The new kid on the block
Daring, impuslive and a little bit crazy Punajuuri block party is bound to be a hit. It’s always refreshing to see active people in Finland who have vision and ambition to do something different. This time an independent group of enthusiasts put together a line-up of well-known Finnish bands to play for free this Saturday 21st August 17-21 in Punavuori, Helsinki. And all that was arranged in a space of a week!
The concept behind the party is to offer free music to the public, reinvigorate the community and deliver a powerful message that seems to be at the core of the project – not all good things have to cost money. Though the party is free for the participants, the organizers welcome donations to reward some of the helpers and fund future events. Sum of donations varies from 1 to 100 euros and when you send the money you can attach a message that will be put on group’s twitter page @Five_Corners. The payment system is powered by fläbät, the new ticketing service developed by Scred.
The party should be a great addition to other activities of the Helsinki juhlaviikot. So if you happen to walk past Viiskulma or the corner of Kankuri and Pursimiehenkatu on Saturday evening, you’d be treated with a free performance by K-X-P, MANNA, 22-PISTEPIRKKO and UUSI FANTASIA. The event will also be livestreamed on Punajuuri’s webpage.
What’s most intriguing, however, is what will come out of the initiative – the party this weekend is just the beginning of a larger project that aims to promote mutual help as an alternative to money. How far that would go remains to be seen.
Who else wants a ticket to the AltParty?
AltParty is the biggest digital art festival in Finland, if not in the whole of Europe. Founded a decade ago by Scred‘s founder Kristoffer Lawson (a.k.a. Setok), it hardly numbered a hundred people at the start. Ten years down the line the festival is massive: it runs for three days and occupies all of the humongous hall of the Cable Factory.
Every year demosceners, coders, computer enthusiasts, digital art appreciators and curious public flock Ruoholahti to indulge yet again in what the festival has to offer. Exhibitions, presentations, competitions with excellent prizes and even fun activities for families with young kids revolve around digital culture but are themed differently every year.
From dreamy-eyed star-gazers to astronomers to top-notch scientists space exploration and space technology continues to capture people’s minds and emotions. Unfortunately, though, the topic has been unduly neglected by the media and society in general for almost 20 years. This year’s AltParty aims to bring attention back to the open space with a ‘Space, The Forgotten Frontier’ theme. If you’re interested in space or digital art or simply want to visit one of Finland’s coolest events this autumn you should definitely drop by!
The event will take place between 22nd-24th October and you can follow the example of many and buy your tickets now. Ticketing service for the event is powered by Fläbät.fi – Scred’s up-and-coming new product that offers a dead-simple solution for ticket sales. Mobile Africa is using Fläbät too but it’s not just big events like these two that can benefit from the service’s simplicity and affordability. Small and medium-sized events would definitely find it handy. If you’re arranging an event and are looking into ticketing services - get in touch and we could arrange a special deal for you 
Otherwise, stay tuned for Fläbät’s official launching party!
Indie film “Snowblind” & wreckamovie.com use Scred
In a first step of what will hopefully be many, the great online tool for community sourced indie films, Wreck-a-Movie, and Scred have worked together to bring out an integrated web shop for the fantastic indie film production, Snow Blind as part of their funding process.
Go to check it out, purchase a few frames of their film, and participate in their project, or set up your own at Wreck-a-Movie.
This is something that is really exciting as it brings together two excellent products into something even greater. Of course, this is just the beginning.
Scred use cases: Flaming Tusk
We’ve been talking to a good number of groups about how they would like to use Scred in a wide range activities. We have long held the belief that Scred would be great for managing the money for bands, code crews, indie film producers, indie developers, trip organisers and various other loosely formed groups. Indeed that is really the core idea at Scred: that there is nothing good available for communities and groups which are less formal than a business, but still actively deal with money issues. The groups which aren’t interesting to stiff and less flexible banks or accounting companies. We’ve been involved with several of those groups ourselves, and more and more are signing up every day.
Last week we got one more confirmation that this our assumption is true. I decided to repost part of it on or blog because the feedback hit the nail on the head for us:
I wanted to submit a request for a beta code for a Scred Minicorp. I recently switched all finance tracking for my band, Flaming Tusk, over to Scred. It’s worked great; not only can we track who paid for a van or the latest run of shirts—which we had previously been doing with Billmonk—but we can also track who got paid for last night’s gig or who sold a shirt, which Billmonk couldn’t do in the slightest.
So now we’ve got these shirts and these CDs, but selling them outside of gigs is still a huge pain. We have tried to insert a Google Checkout widget into our website, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Given that we’re already using Scred to manage all our finances, I think it would be a great bit of integration if we could participate in your beta program.
This is exactly the kind of use we have had in mind and so naturally they got their beta code!
You can check out their music from their website. Our local metalhead at the Scred office gave his thumbs up.
Sci-fi evening at Scred office
In honour of our upcoming release of Scred v2 (dubbed ‘Babylon Squared’), we’re planning to watch some sci-fi at the office. So if you like sci-fi, and anyone smart does, drop by at the Cable Factory (door E, 5th floor, room 565).
Some beer and beverages will be available.
Episodes planned (approx): Babylon Squared (B5), Amok Time (Star Trek), Time’s Arrow (Star Trek TNG), Army of Ghosts (Dr Who) or The Awakening (Dr Who) if found in non-VHS format.
Two free Alt Party tickets for Scred users!
We are launching a mini competition for Scred users (remembering that registration is free) and offering two free VIP tickets to the hottest digital party this autumn, The Alternative Party, which takes place this weekend in Helsinki. VIP tickets include full access to the whole event, from beginning to end, plus the Thursday VIP event and Sunday sauna with organisers and special guests.
Sounds nice? All you have to do is respond to this blog with a story about some digital adventure you have had. Been at a weird art gallery? Performed live to the Queen? Reverse engineered a processor? Hacked into NASA? Tell us about it in a few lines.
Alternatively you can also tell us why you deserve the ticket! The deadline is Wednesday-Thursday night 24:00 GMT. We’ll pick the winners for Thursday.
The Cable Factory building is alive
Our radiator started playing music. Yes, you read correctly. It suddenly started playing out this really HC industrial beat. I’m not talking about some weird bubbly noise, but a heavy four-on-the-floor beat, like machinery of some kind. Not only that, but the track is developing all the time. There are fills, faster portions, and changes of pattern. It’s one of the spookiest things I’ve ever heard and we can’t figure out how on earth a radiator can make this kind of sound.Perhaps it’s a joke by one of our neighbours? Maybe some artists downstairs doing something? Or then our radiator has got an industrial DJ stuck inside. Truly weird.
We are trying to set up a Skype stream, so ring toivotuo. We’re working out how to do this. Believe me, it sounds fantastic (alternatively visit our office at the Cable Factory to hear it live, and maybe participate).
Update: Our radiator is now silent, after a good midnight performance. We will be putting soundclips up a bit later.
Update 2: I put up a soundclip of our radiator. It doesn’t demonstrate many of the cool bits with the fills and patterns, but you can get some idea. Available here.
Scred launch at Altparty
We’ve just had our very first product launch. With the company having existed 10+ years its taken its time. But better later than never. Always wanted to do our own thing. Somehow never really managed that. Oh, not to forget though our ill-timed adventure into location-based services on mobile clients in 2001. We were too early: the devices were not up to task. These days “nodnol” would be doable, but with Google Maps / Earth on the scene we’d be going against windmills. So, instead, we’ve taken Scred public. We’ve used it for years and years internally, and loved it. Maybe the “world” will too.
We’re live at www.scred.com but currently only in a public beta. Ask for an invitation from an existing Scred user. Or contact us by email if you want to be a beta tester. And what is Scred, you might ask? Community credit management. Sort of Facebook for monetary transactions within trusted communities (think of a group of friends). We make it easy to keep track of debts and clear any remaining balance when so desired. No messy ad hoc tracking for who has paid for the what e.g. in your commune. “Just Scred It!” ™
And Altparty? It’s been brilliant… except that WordPress ate the rest of my post and I’m rewriting it now feeling somewhat less than amused. Anyhow. This time – the seventh Altparty – we are at the Cable Factory, a hall downstairs from our office which is kind of convienient. So far it has been really good. Must be the biggest true scene event in years. Even the “pelulamu” (gaming geeks) area is populated mostly by 8 and 16 bit machines with a sprinking of Apple laptops (can’t avoid those these days). The gig earlier tonight by David Hasselhof Big Band featuring Al Lowe (of Leisure Suit Larry fame) was excellent. Even my parents liked it. Funny thing though that they were here too. Well, with my Mom having hosted Margaret Lowe around Helsinki this week it kind of made sense for them to come and see Al on the saxophone. But yeah, I am really happy that an Altparty was organized again. Thanks to all the organizers (who’ve mostly done a lot more work than I have for this event). Altparty truly is a unique event and eminently worth the effort.
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