Steampunk Con 2019: A Rundown

Now that I’ve had a chance to recover, it’s time to go over my impressions of the very first steampunk event hosted by VampireFreaks, Steampunk Con. A few weeks ago, I wrote up a preview of what we could expect from this new convention, which took place in  Piscataway, New Jersey, on June 21–23. As a first-year event, Steampunk Con was modestly attended and somewhat mellow, but its small size had the advantage of creating a feeling of intimacy and a close-knit community of attendees. This convention’s other great strength lay in the way it found a unique area of overlap between steampunk and goth. Read on for a few highlights from the weekend:

The best part of this convention—as with most VampireFreaks events—was the bands. But I don’t just mean their performances. I saw many of the band members wandering around throughout the weekend and actively engaging with the rest of the convention. Chris from Stabbing Westward joined the VampireFreaks DJs in spinning a few sets and also entertained the crowd during Saturday night karaoke (Is it cheating if you karaoke your own song?). Anka and Pat of the Long Losts turned the convention into a family affair by bringing along their young baby for friends and fans to coo over in the lobby. And Braxton and Sarah of Valentine Wolfe did me the honor of attending my panel on “Victorians and the Birth of Genre Fiction” and sharing some insights about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that they learned while writing their last album.

A personal high point for me came Saturday evening when Steampunk Con brought back my favorite element from the first two Dark Sides—a DJ-ed pool party! This time the pool party was made a hundred times more magical by the presence of a real live mermaid. I didn’t catch her name, but a young woman attending the con wore a colorful mermaid tale to the pool and spent the evening gracefully swimming and splashing around. Meanwhile, the DJs set up in the exercise room next to the pool and played a wide variety of music from emo and pop-punk to goth and old school classics.

While many of the aspects that I loved about this con were carryovers from VampireFreaks’ goth events, there were also many elements that were unique to the steampunk scene. While I didn’t make it to the Maker’s Contest on Saturday night, I did see lots of folks with intriguing inventions walking around the floor, including one person playing music from some sort of jazzed up portable record-player like Victorian DJ and another person with a steampunkified Ghost Busters proton pack. Apart from admiring their creativity and ingenuity, I also really appreciate steampunks for their passion for history. This was particularly evident in one of the presenters who goes by Captain Zorikh. Active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, Zorikh specializes in medieval armor and fighting styles. He showed off his knowledge Sunday afternoon by hosting an impromptu battle between two fully armored knights in the hotel’s courtyard. Apart from explaining medieval fighting techniques and the modern organizations that practice them, Zorikh also linked the demonstration back to the steampunk theme by explaining that much of what we know (or the misinformation we think we know) about knights comes from the Victorians’ obsession with the medieval era. I always consider it a successful steampunk event when I have learned something new about history!

There have been no announcements yet about whether VampireFreaks will host more steampunk events in the future, but I am interested to see where this alliance between goth and steampunk goes. Were you at Steampunk Con this year? What were your favorite parts? Let me know in the comments!