Last weekend we had the great pleasure of being invited to head out to the Steampunk World’s Fair.  Our very own Mr. Khon was kind enough to cover the convention for us.  What follows below is his overall thoughts on the con and whether or not you should go next year.

The outlook?  You need to make some space for this con in your schedule for next year.

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The Steampunk World’s Faire was an interesting con going experience. As a first time convention thrown by veteran con promoters I went in wondering what aspects of each would be present. I should say that while I was only there for Saturday I managed to catch a wide variety of performances, panels and main stage events so I saw enough to fully review the con.

First things first… check in was very simple and very quick. I’ve had issues at events where I was on the guest list but here it took next to no time to get my pass and move on into the show.

The next thing to mention was the quality of costumes at this show. It was full of creative steampunk inspired costumes that ranged from those just dressed in themed costumes to the re-imagining of characters like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka and Iron Man.

I tried to stop as many people as I could for pictures but since I was only going to be able to do so much in one day I relegated the majority of picture taking to the costume contest. I was the only member of the site present so I tried to fulfill all the different things we do on the site. I am a video guy as a default and I’ll try to do video reviews from now on as I figure out where I fit in the Coswatch dynamic.

The costume contest saw some sincerely excellent work and was hosted by the group from Outland Armour. Decked out in their unbelievably cool Steampunk Wars costumes they judged the many excellent costumes made by attendees. Winners included Steampunk Dorothy with Robotic Toto and a Boba Fett with full Steampunk Mandalorian Armor as best in Technical Achievement.

Among the standouts in the vendor department would have to be Dr. Clockwork’s Home for Electrical and Medical Oddities and Brute Force Leather. Brute Force Leather featured many impressive pieces for sale; everything from gauntlets to corsets to armor and goggles. Their work is top notch and they allow for custom orders. They had the Twinbees modeling their wares and helping customers which was a very cool as they are friends, shout out to Alex and Juli.

Dr. Clockwork performed a demo featuring a Tesla Coil and the item he is most well known for Violet Wands. He gave an informative talk about the history of each of his electrical devices then proceeded to prod, zap and raise the hair of several willing volunteers. His items are meant for those that enjoy harnessing the power of lightning for their own… pleasure.

When it comes to performances I must admit I had to run from show to show at certain points of the evening to get a real feel of the many different performers. Those that must get at the very least a quick mention are This Way To The Egress, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, and while not truly a performance but an impressive sight to see nontheless Modvic Home Restorations (They build steampunk and victorian houses).

The other two performances that I will discuss in more detail are Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band and the combined show by Cosplay Burlesque and The White Elephant Burlesque Society.

Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band was a group I’d never seen perform before but I have to say they definitely put on a good show. They had a large raucous crowd gathered outside the front door of the hotel and basically threw a parking lot party for the better part of 90 minutes. It was ridiculous fun and honestly their crowd was larger than those for the majority of the Main Stage performances going on at the same time.

The only performance that was as fun was the final event for the evening The CB/WEBS Burlesque Show. First, I have to say that the show was awesome. It was interesting to see these two groups (which share a few members) perform together for the first time. Each group stuck to their particular strenghts with the Elephants performing their avante garde pieces focused more on music and Cosplay doing send ups of many different characters from anime, movies, comics and television. Shout out to Coswatch friend, Lily Stitches who represents both groups.

The one down side to the burlesque performance is going to be my one major knock on an otherwise truly entertaining con. The event that was drawing the most interest during the evening was by far the burlesque show. I spent most of the day walking around the con with Lily Stitches and Dangrrr Doll and every time we stopped in a hallway, had something to eat or breathed there was someone stopping them and telling them how much they wanted to see the show.

Then issue one: Time at The Clockwork Cabaret – to be fair to the performers in the early part of the evening I am not discussing the quality of their performances. I am going to say that the performances over time ran over so far that the burlesque show which was to begin at 1am was pushed to 2am then finally began at 2:52am. I also happen to know that one of the bands gave up their performance spot entirely so that the burlesque show didn’t have to go on at 3:45am. This was way out of hand and the con should have been more on top of this.

Issue two: Wristbands – In order to control the expected large crowd and to give the con a chance to keep the underage out of the burlesque show the con handed out wristbands. All of which went out so quickly that most attendees never even knew it was happening. Then they realized they didn’t hand out the bands correctly and it became turmoil again. So after worrying that I’d be kept out of the show for not getting wristbands (a point of worry for many attending the con) we find that its basically going to be up to a head-count to see who can get in. At 1am this would have been an issue as the room was full and everyone was waiting for the show… as they came to realize it was more than an hour away a lot of the audience left. (This is when I and many others went to see the Stationary Marching Band.)

Third issue: 2:52am – Now I don’t know how many performers had the con handing out wristbands to their events but I know Voltaire and the Burlesque show did. So I can assume that this is for crowd control as both shows are very popular, especially at Mach events. I don’t know when Voltaire went on (I did see him at his meet and greet and I’ve seen him perform in the past he’s awesome) but I didn’t hear any complaints regarding his performance being nearly 2 hours late. Booking the burlesque show in a prime time spot has been an issue at the last few Mach events I’ve attended. They always get the Main Stage but they get it in the middle of the afternoon or in this case as the closing event of the Main Stage Cabaret. Why not put the show everyone wants to see at a set time on the main stage? 8-11pm would be perfect times, with 8 or 9 being prime.

Okay so to sum it up The Steampunk World’s Faire was my favorite con I’ve attended in the last few years not called the New York Comic Con. Its got TONS to do, awesome costumes, excellent vendors and great performances. I wished that the burlesque show had a better slot or the cabaret was run tighter so they didn’t go on so late but that did allow me the opportunity to check out some things I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. There were other shows and vendors worth mentioning but honestly it was hard to keep track of everything because so much of it was so good.