Tag: conventions

Conventions: Start Planning Early

On By The LibrarianIn Programming, Web ResourcesLeave a comment

Want to share your passion, enthusiasm, and costume work with others? What better way than by presenting at your local (or not to local) convention?

While most conventions take place in the Spring and Summer, most are starting to put their calendars together now. Booking special guests, musicians, artisans, and speakers takes time- so the sooner the better in most cases. Bellow I’ve compiled a list of active cons deep in the planning stages for their 2017 event. Did I miss your favorite? Send a link to admin@steampunklibrary.net and I’ll add it!

The First-Ever Edwardian Ball New Orleans

New Orleans, Louisiana March 25, 2017 http://www.edwardianball.com/

While not technically a convention, The Edwardian Ball is an elegant and whimsical celebration of art, music, theatre, fashion, technology, circus, and the beloved creations of the late, great author and illustrator Edward Gorey.

Steampunk World’s Fair

Piscataway, NJ May 5-7 http://steampunkworldsfair.com/

February 15th, 2017 is their deadline for panel applications  http://steampunkworldsfair.com/applications/programming-application/

Geneva Steam

Delavan, WI March 10-12  http://www.genevasteam.com/

February 17th is their deadline for their final few panel spots. They are specifically looking for maker themed events.

Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention

Tuscon, AZ March 3-5   https://www.wildwestcon.com/

This is one of the few animal friendly conventions. They don’t have a posted deadline for volunteer/panel applications, BUT they have listed their musical guests: The Cog is Dead!

The Polar Emporium of Supernatural Oddities

Anchorage, AK April 15-16 http://www.alaskasteamposium.com/

Visit with Gail Carriger in the frigid north! Past years panels included 19th Century Sexuality & Sensuality, Introductory Leatherwork, and Creating Worlds Through Words. They have no posted deadline for applications.

I’m also including links to conventions that don’t have 2017 dates listed yet.

TeslaCon, Wisconsin, http://www.teslacon.com/

Steamposim, Seattle, http://seattle-steamposium.com/

Steamposium Seattle: 2014 Event Review

On By The LibrarianIn Web Resources4 Comments

Over the weekend (Sept 26-28) Seattle was host for the First Annual Steamposium, a new steampunk convention filling the gap felt in the community after SteamCon Seattle fell through after five years. I must admit I was skeptical that Steamposium would be able to fit the bill given how quickly they pulled everything together: I have rarely been so pleased to be so wrong.

Librarian standing to the right of powerpoint display
Look at that lovely PowerPoint

My Panel:

I hosted a one-hour panel during the Friday 3pm block that was one part discussion about the Steampunk Library Project and one part book talk about my favorite pieces to create a core steampunk library. Despite my nerves causing my originally 35 minute presentation to only last 27 minutes, the event as a whole was quite a success! There were lots of questions, interest in the specific books I discussed, and over a dozen attendees.

Over the course of the weekend I gave out about 100 buisness cards: people taking them at the panel, giving them to people I talked to, a small stack to the Other Worlds Book vendor table, and a few strategically left at the water table.  Thank you so much to everyone who turned out to support this project. I’m looking forward to my next wave of content updates including a lot of community input and new reviewers.

Conventions Pros:

  • I believe the Steamposium creators learned several valuable lessons from the business failings of SteamCon, and one of those lessons had to do with location. The Bell Harbor International Convention Center was a fantastic venue: on the water, walking distance to Pike Place Market, and surrounded by food and parking. The water made for a great background for photos, a ton of which can be found via the Steamposium Flickr and Steamposium Twitter. Be sure to look for Steampunk Iron Man and Boba Fett.
  • Add-Ons: I loved being able to really customize my con experience by choosing which events I wanted to buy tickets for and which I didn’t.
  • Variety: I loved the variety of material presented in the panel schedule.
  • Artist Gallery: The quality of authors and artist present at the con was phenomenal! There was a wide range of talent and really showcased the variety in our little subculture. Some artists and authors I recommend searching for include:

And my favorite part of the experience: Steam Powered Giraffe.

Group photot: left to right, Rabbit, Librarian, Spine, Hatchworth.
That is the face of name-forgetting-levels of joy. From left to right: Rabbit, The Librarian, Spine, and Hatchworth.

I had the opportunity to do a photo-op and visit the autograph table on Saturday. During the photo I completely forgot my name and only barely redeemed myself during the autograph session. I fully intended to go to the table and express my admiration for the band and share how they were a founding piece of this project (and therefor a major piece in completing my Masters) but I’m fairly certain I only awkwardly shook their hands and babbled a bit. Ah well, still the highlight of the weekend.

Convention Cons:

  • This may be more of a difference in priorities, but I wish the convention had more panels and fewer dances. Personally, I’d rather keep attending sessions and meeting with writers and cosplayers than attend a second set of parties and cabarets.
  • Along the same lines, timing was an issue. The panels and merchant hall would open at 10am (noon on Friday), but would be all wrapped up at 5pm. As someone who was traveling down from the suburbs for the events, I would have liked it if things had started a little later and ran a little later into the evening, particularly on Friday as I felt a lot of panels I attended suffered from low attendance since many Seattleites were likely still at work during the bulk of 12-4pm time slots.

    Librairian holding Steam Duck learns to Fly open to the group
    Practicing my book-talk strategy

For me, the pros greatly outweigh any negatives I felt towards the scheduling. It was a well put together event in a great location and had a wide variety of offerings for everyone. And it gave me the opportunity to talk about this little project with a lot of people I never would have had the opportunity to meet otherwise.

Bottom Line: Will I be going again? Absolutely! In fact, you can already pre-purchase full weekend passes for only $40 on their site now. Look for another update once they begin accepting panel/workshop applications.

Please share your experiences from Steamposium 2014 in the comments below or send your thoughts and pictures to share via submissions@steampunklibrary.net or via Twitter @SteamLib.

Librarian’s Update

On By The LibrarianIn Web ResourcesLeave a comment

Thank you so much to everyone following and sharing on this site and re-tweeting, sharing, and commenting on Twitter (@SteamLib)! This project is a labor of love and the support and enthusiasm of my followers make it all worth while.

I’d also like to say a huge thank you to the ladies over at SS Librarianship, a library-life focused podcast hosted and produced by two of my UBC SLAIS classmates. I was lucky enough to get to talk about all things steampunk on their episode titled “I Can Do It My Damn Self” which you can listen to via their site.

Want more Steampunk Library content? You can become the content! In making this project a community resource I am always looking for library programs, displays, and crafts as well as reviews of books, music, movies, and websites. Any material can be sent to submissions@steampunklibrary.net and will be posted here. Please including any links and the name you’d like listed in the by-line (and your Twitter handle if you have one).

Want to get involved in person? I will be presenting at the Steamposium Seattle Steampunk Convention in September. Conventions are great opportunities for steampunk fans from all walks of life to network and find inspiration. In addition to great panels the convention will also be hosting musical guests Steam Powered Giraffe and celebrity guests from around the geeky universe. I hope to see lots of bookworms and educators gussied up in their finest top hats.

 

Happy Labor Day!

Convention Season

On By The LibrarianIn Web ResourcesLeave a comment

As a community resource for librarians and steampunk fans in all walks of life, we here at The Steampunk Library project want to connect and share with as many members of the community as possible. To that end The Steampunk Library project is active on Tumblr (follow at http://steampunklibrary.tumblr.com/), sharing posts and steampunk art.

Recently Steampunk Library has also joined Twitter (@SteamLib), where we can share links from other steam-inspired people, like the Boston Metaphysical Society (@HMollyRosing), the Airship Ambassador (@airshipEmbassy), authors like Gail Carriger (@gailcarriger), and more. Follow the #steampunk hashtag and @SteamLib to get connected to the community.

Looking for some face-to-face cosplay filled interactions? August may be fast approaching but convention season is far from over!

I will be hosting a Steampunk Library panel in September at the first Steamposium Convention in Seattle Washington, September 26-28. For more info and badge prices visit their website, or their Facebook. Get your badges early to ensure you can see Steam Powered Giraffe LIVE in concert at the convention on Saturday night. Don’t know about Steam Powered Giraffe? Check out the review of them here.

Not in the Seattle area? Not to worry! Both TOR publishing and the Airship Ambassador keep up to date on the conventions happening around the US and Canada.

Been to a convention recently and want to share your experience with the community? You can share your con pics with us via Twitter, or send in your write up and pictures of your experience to submissions@steampunklibrary.net and host it on the site.