WGW April '16 - Remembered for the wrong reasons

There are only 4 words that can describe this WGW event, damn cold and quiet. It's easy to forget how cold the wind is when it blows straight in off the sea. We even had a smattering of snow on Sunday morning and we were told by someone who had driven in over the tops they were covered in snow.

The main talking points of this WGW are the new rules for entering the venues, which basically boiled down to no weapons of any description -  a point picked up in Steampunk Journal's article and the petition for the closure of the graveyard during both events. The article by Steampunk Journal also raises some interesting points that should be kept in mind when designing a new outfit or accessorising an existing one. We're not sure about con-safe ones though as we must admit we forgot to ask!

Embed from Getty Images

The biggest talking point after this event is the petition set up to close the graveyard for the duration of both events. We don't how or why it's suddenly become such a big issue, perhaps WGW is getting more popular with both visitors and photographers and its become the 'thing to do' and this event was the tipping point. There are plans to create a mock graveyard so people wanting photos don't go into the graveyard itself.


 Nevertheless we enjoyed the weekend and broke tradition by eating at the moon and sixpence instead of the magpie. We highly recommend it and think it's a local's secret spot because the other people didn't look like they were in Whitby for the Goth Weekend, so we'd say it's recommended to book in advance.

After doing Comic Con in March, we thought that the floor space was the same as WGW so we thought we'd try a similar set-up. We thought it worked really well for us but it's difficult to get a good idea because it was really quiet, it probably didn't help that Easter was really early this year so it didn't fall in the school holidays as it usually does. I think a good indication of how quiet it was is that we had a choice of tables in the Elsinore at 8pm on Saturday! Usually people are spilling out of the door and onto the path outside.We're back in November so we'll try the same set up to see how it goes then.

Highlights of the weekend...

For all the wrong reasons © Rob Grey

For all the right reasons

So onwards to our next event Crewe Steampunk Convivial

A subdued start to the year

Our pitch

MCM Comic Con proved to be a rather quiet and subdued start to the year, perhaps it was due to the rather odd 'L' shape set up meant people were walking straight up and past the rows. I did have a quick walk round on Sunday afternoon and it was quite empty towards the back of the hall.

 We had a few new items for this event, a variation of our leather goggles inspired by Harley Quinn and some bags inspired from Japanese designs and a new style of umbrella.



Not surprisingly, given the release of Deadpool in February we saw quite a few of them but the best one had to be Deadpool in the shower - complete with a duck shower cap, towel and back brush. There were also the usual characters from Sword Art Online, Pokémon and Fairy Tail

The countdown to our next event, Whitby Goth Weekend has already started and we're already looking forward to it!

November / December round up

November and December was a really busy period for us, it seems like they went in a blink of an eye! We'll start at the end of October / beginning of November with Whitby Goth Weekend.

Whitby Goth Weekend

New range of umbrellas on
prominent display

Whitby Goth Weekend was the great weekend that it usually is. It was good to catch up with the people that we don't see at the other events we go to and The Magpie was up to it's usual standard too!

We had a new range of umbrellas which went down really well despite some initial grumbles from superstitious people about putting umbrellas up indoors, Gothic / Steampunk inspired Christmas baubles and a range of telescopes and compasses.

MCM Birmingham Comic Con

This weekend was really, really busy hence the reason there is no photos - we didn't have time to take any! Highlights of the weekend included seeing Virginia Hey from Farscape, who is now selling hand made vegan soap on Etsy, and a really good cos-play version. Liv Tyler was charging £150 for a signed photo, the queues were insane for her and so was her security. It was like the President had visited Comic Con!
The only blemish of the weekend was that we had a few items were stolen overnight, but we're going back in March - we hope to see you there

Steampunks in Space

We went to Steampunks in Space at the National Space Centre to play and let our hair down at the last Steampunk event we would attend before the New Year. The event was really good fun and set in a brilliant setting - we're not sure what was more interesting, the Steampunks or the displays themselves. We plan to go back to visit the Space Center to have a proper look round in the New Year and have bought an annual pass.

A Local Christmas Fair

Our stall

It's not often we get invites or information about local events / Christmas fairs but as we had a range

of Christmas baubles and other Christmas themed items we thought we'd give it a shot. Unfortunately the foot fall wasn't as expected and was well down on last year but we had a good time anyway and met some really nice people and we received a lot of interest in Steampunk and what it was.
However, we did realise the potential of Facebook selling so every cloud has a silver lining. 

Worcester Victorian Christmas Market

Christmas-themed items

I don't think the organisers of the Worcester Victorian Christmas Market could have picked a worse weekend to hold the event on if they tried. The weather was absolutely atrocious - we got completely drenched walking round Worcester. Despite the weather there were some really interesting stalls selling a variety of hand-crafted and other items and was really, really busy.

Without doubt, the majority of the vendors were selling Christmas related items including decorations and unique gifts some of them being hand made by the vendors, such as the items shown in the photo on the left, but as a Victorian Christmas Market, there was a few stalls selling traditional Victorian items as well.

These are just a few of the highlights of the Christmas Fair.

A Goth / Alternative stall

Victorian confectionary

Hand-made Jewellry

A Steam powered...

...carousel

Asylum Steampunk Festival VII

Before we start the blog, we would like to wish Empire Edibles all the best for the future as it transpires that this is their last event... we will savour the last of the fudge with bittersweet feelings.

The Asylum Steampunk Festival VII was a truly awesome weekend, not only because the weather was good for a Bank Holiday weekend with the exception of Monday. But no-one can really complain because it was one day out of four.

Our Marquee by The Banjo

As usual we were in the Castle right on the side of the Banjo which meant we had excellent views of all the activities planned, including the Wacky Races and Jet Pack race.

After last year, we decided that we'd bring leathercraft supplies and leather with us because we kept being asked what we used to make our goggles/masks, etc. These went a lot better than we expected so we will be continuing to offer leathercraft supplies at our future events as well as on-line.

Is this the only Steampunk
Camper Van?

 One thing we love about attending Steampunk events is people's absolute ingenuity on show at every event and this one certainly didn't disappoint.
When the Castle had closed, we went for a well earnt drink but got sidetracked by an innocuously looking grey van with a large group of people hanging around. Of course, natural curiosity got the better of us so we went over and found that the van had been converted into a fully-working, self-sufficient Steampunk camper-van of which some items had been donated, such as the copper coal pan that they'd turned into a sink. There are solar panels on the roof which provide enough electricity for the lights, TV, etc. and the water system includes a filtering system so they can rock up anywhere, but we're not sure what the toilet situation is!

On closer inspection, the only thing that would have given it away was the brass port-hole windows on the outside.

Albot

"Albot" made his debut on Monday, despite the rain and made an instant impact with the kids.

He is a radio-controlled robot with fully moveable arms, head, eyebrows and "computerised" sounding voice so was able to convey a number of emotions based on the tone of his voice and the position of his eyebrows.

No self-respecting Steampunk robot would be complete without having a chimney bellowing forth smoke...

A special mention must be made to the fellow who made a jet pack that emitted smoke with that very satisfying barbecue smell.. particularly as we got quite excited at the prospect of a barbecue only to have our hopes dashed when we discovered it was his jet-pack. His partner said that the kitchen had smelt like it for months as he tried to perfect the smell, he had total dedication and ingenuity that must be celebrated along with the rest of the contraptions created for this weekend.

We look forward to next year to see what you all come up with next!

Celebrating the Magna Carta

This year was the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. To celebrate, Lincoln Castle had commissioned someone (I never found out who) to create a stunning sand sculpture to commemorate the anniversary. The level of detail in the sculpture was amazing and I'm not surprised it took 2 weeks to complete however, I don't know when it was finished but do they use some sort of binding agent afterwards to make it last? It stood up suspiciously well to the pouring rain on Monday...


On our travels, we have spoken to many people who attend the Whitby Goth Weekend but for whatever reason have not been into the Spa Pavillion. As we prepare for this event we would like to take the opportunity to encourage you to visit us (and the other traders) because we are constantly evolving our products and will have different items to those at Lincoln or sold out of.

As a final thought, we would like to say thank-you to all the people we met and traded with over what was a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend and we hope to see you again next year.

Facebook chucked us off!

Yes - Facebook chucked us off, during their apparent purging of accounts that didn't fit their criteria of being 'real' names. You may or may not have been affected but we've heard of whole groups, pages and events have been lost because the admin accounts have been removed.

Anyway, after a lot of faffing around trying to get things back into some order, we have created a brand new Facebook page which we invite you to like or follow to get all our updates for our future events and creations. Unfortunately, we have lost our friends list somehow as well, so those of you who were our friends in previous adventures, please send us a friend request and accept our apologies for not sending you a friend request.

Facebook is a wonderful tool, but can be damn frustrating as well!