A brand-new steampunk festival just dropped on the map, ladies and gentlemen: Aurora, Indiana threw its first-ever Steam Punk Festival this past weekend, September 12-13, at Gabbard Riverfront Park on the Ohio River. Gears, gadgets, Victorian-inspired chaos, costume contests, vendors, and live music courtesy of Thawind Mills all weekend, plus Seventh Day Slumber with Magdalene Rose closing out Sunday afternoon. First-time event, riverfront setting, live performances. The Doctor approves of this origin story.

Aurora is a small river town with a lot of 19th-century bones, which makes it arguably a more authentic backdrop for a steampunk gathering than most convention-center hotel ballrooms I could name. The fact that somebody looked at that historic riverfront and said, “you know what this needs? Corsets and clockwork” is the correct instinct, and I respect it entirely. If you’re in the Indiana/Ohio/Kentucky tri-state orbit, put this one on the calendar for 2027 because first-year festivals either die quietly or grow into something ridiculous. I’m betting on ridiculous.

Via: Visit Southeast Indiana

The rockets have landed. Last night at LAcon V in Anaheim, the 2026 Hugo Awards were handed out at a live ceremony, and the sci-fi/fantasy community has (once again) argued about the results on the internet for approximately twelve consecutive hours. Tradition is beautiful. The full winners list is up on the LAcon V site, so go see who took home the rocket.

The base this year was designed by Scott Lefton, which matters more than people realize: the iconic rocket stays constant, but the base is redesigned every single year to reflect the personality of the hosting convention. Southern California theming on a Hugo trophy. The Doctor approves. The Lodestar Award (that is the Young Adult fiction prize, for those of you not keeping score at home) got its own custom design courtesy of H Emiko Ogasawara. Good job, high-5. And yes, Best Poem is a category again, running for the second year in a row on a trial basis. Poetry at Worldcon. Carlin would have had thoughts.

Look, the Hugos are not a Punk award ceremony. Nobody walked the stage in a top hat and a clockwork monocle (probably). But the community that hands out these rockets is the same community that built every genre we celebrate here, including the Punk genres that keep this blog’s lights on. That makes it worth 30 seconds of your attention. Now go read the winners list and fight with strangers about it. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Via: LAcon V (lacon.org)

Nine days. That is how long you have before Weekend at the Asylum 16 kicks off in the Historic Quarter of Lincoln, U.K. (August 28-31), and if you are not already on a plane, a dirigible, or at minimum a very fast velocipede, the Doctor is deeply concerned about your life choices. This is Asylum 16, the sixteenth edition of the world’s largest steampunk festival, run by the Ministry of Steampunk out of a city that has been occupied by someone or other since the Romans showed up two thousand years ago. They know how to host a crowd.

This year’s theme is the Year of the Dragon, which means the usual brass gears and Victorian splendor get some scaly, fire-breathing additions woven in. Daytime programming lives inside Lincoln Castle, the Castle Ward, the County Assembly Rooms, and Westgate School: workshops, talks, exhibitions, games, cosplay at a level that will make you feel underdressed in full kit. Evening events feature performers including Mr. B, Victor and the Bully, Alice Strange, and Madam Misfit. Thursday the 27th has the traditional Advanced Guard kick-off for those who arrive early; Monday the 31st closes with the Dead Dog Party, because of course it does. The street festival itself is free to the public, because the Ministry of Steampunk is operated by volunteers who have somehow kept this thing alive since 2009 without a single corporate sponsor. Respect.

Wristbands and evening tickets are still available at the link above. Go. The Omega7Red Formulae was forged for exactly this kind of situation: apply it to an entire medieval city, add ten thousand costumed lunatics, and the output is pure Punk. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a long weekend in Lincoln comes close. High-5.

Worldcon is nine days out. LAcon V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention, descends on the Anaheim Convention Center August 27-31, 2026, and the Hugo Awards ceremony hits the stage on Sunday the 30th. The Doctor has opinions about who should win. The Doctor also has opinions about Anaheim in August (hot, crowded, smells faintly of churro and sunscreen), but he goes where the speculative fiction goes.

Quick civic service announcement: Hugo voting closed August 8th, so if you didn’t vote, congratulations, you forfeited your right to complain about the results. The category slate this year includes the second-ever Best Poem award (yes, poetry, keep your monocle in), and finalists in Best Novel include Robert Jackson Bennett’s A Drop of Corruption and Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author, among others. The field is legitimately strong. Whether the ceremony will be equally strong is, as always, a separate question entirely.

If you’re going, find me in the vendor hall. I’ll be the one judging your costume. High-5 to everyone who shows up in something with gears on it. lacon.org for the full schedule, membership info, and streaming details for the ceremony if you’re experiencing Anaheim from a safe distance.

August isn’t done with us yet. The Steampunk Explorer’s North America calendar shows a steampunk festival dropping in Coldwater, Ontario on August 29, and then the whole thing turns into a cavalcade: Hannibal, Missouri (September 4-7), Fergus, Ontario (September 11-12), Colfax, California (September 12-13). The brass horde is mobilizing on multiple fronts simultaneously. The Doctor approves of this level of coordination.

If you’re anywhere near the Great Lakes corridor and you DON’T have Coldwater on your radar, that’s a personal failing I cannot fix for you. Ontario in late August is legitimately gorgeous, and the idea of gears and goggles against the backdrop of cottage country is the kind of thing the Omega7Red Formulae practically writes itself for. Go. Wear the hat. You know which hat.

Meanwhile, two steampunk gatherings also happened TODAY (one in Stamford, CT and one in Los Angeles) on opposite coasts, which means either the movement is growing, or the Formulae is leaking again. Either way: high-5. Via: The Steampunk Explorer

Tomorrow, August 15th, the Hornsea Museum in East Yorkshire gets the full Formulae treatment: Victoriana, steam, gears, and presumably at least one person in goggles explaining how their ray gun works to a very patient docent. The museum’s annual Steampunk Day drops cosplayers and makers into a genuine local history collection, which is exactly the kind of collision the Doctor approves of. Real artifacts. Real history. Now add corsets and airship maps. Good job, high-5!

This is the move the genre has always deserved: not a convention center with fluorescent lighting and carpet that hasn’t been replaced since 1987, but an actual museum where the past is already doing the heavy lifting. The Punk just walks in and finishes the job. If you’re anywhere near the East Riding of Yorkshire today, you know what to do. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a steampunk museum day is a solid second place.

Via: The Steampunk Explorer

You heard correctly. TeslaCon, North America’s largest immersion SteamPunk convention, is dragging us all to the Wonderful Land of Oz this November. November 12-15, 2026, Madison Marriott West in Middleton, Wisconsin. The con is set in 1896, which means Tik-Tok the clockwork man is technically on the schedule, and the Wizard is presumably running some kind of con inside the con. The Doctor approves of this arrangement.

It gets better: the International Wizard of Oz Club’s national convention has parked itself inside TeslaCon for 2026, so you’ve got a genuine crossover event with professional actors performing a full Oz drama across the whole weekend. Vendors from 15-plus states, 100-plus breakout sessions, art workshops, panels. Tik-Tok is a brass automaton who runs on clockwork and never needs to sleep. That is just the Omega7Red Formulae applied to a children’s book character, and it happened in 1900, and nobody gave L. Frank Baum nearly enough credit for that.

Tickets are $80 in advance. That is less than you spent on the last three mediocre games you rage-quit. Priorities, people. Go get a brass gear glued to a top hat and meet me in Oz. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a SteamPunk Scarecrow comes close.

Via: TeslaCon

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. August 7 through 9. The theme is Worlds of Tomorrow, and the mood board they’re working from is Metropolis, The Rocketeer, and airships. If you just read that sentence and felt nothing, I cannot help you. The Doctor, however, felt several things simultaneously and had to sit down.

Key City is one of the premiere steampunk cons on the East Coast, and they do it right every year: makers, panels, tea dueling, live music, a costume contest, handcrafted goods from vendors who actually know what they’re doing, and a hotel (the Wyndham Gettysburg) that sits minutes from a Civil War battlefield. Which means you can spend Saturday in a brass-goggled aviator coat watching people duel with teacups, and Sunday morning standing on ground where 51,000 people became casualties in three days. The Formulae handles both with equal dignity. Online ticket sales close at midnight on August 6th, so don’t be the person who shows up at the door paying the walk-up rate because you forgot. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but forgetting to pre-register comes close.

Get your tickets at keycitysteampunk.com before the clock runs out. High-5 to everyone already packing their goggles.

The Chicago Steampunk Exposition has dropped its 2027 theme and, look, I just want to say: someone in Schaumburg, Illinois is doing the Lord’s work. The 2027 Expo is going full Victorian space travel, drawing its inspiration from H.G. Wells, Georges Méliès, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and anyone else who ever looked at a steam-powered boiler and thought, “yes, but what if we aimed it at Mars.” The convention channels the spirit of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with a retro-futuristic twist, and this year the twist is: the Moon, Mars, and boldly going where no chap (or lady) has gone before. Mark your calendar: June 11–13, 2027, Schaumburg, IL.

This is the Omega7Red Formulae operating at peak efficiency, people. You take Victorian ambition (the kind that built the Ferris Wheel and called it a modest achievement), you point it at the void of space, and you get something that makes NASA look like it’s still loading on dial-up. Méliès shot a rocket into the Moon’s eye in 1902 as a film trick. The Victorians would have called that a proof of concept and started laying track. Three days of panels, costumes, vendors, entertainment, and presumably at least one argument about whether aetheric propulsion counts as hard science. Free parking. Fully air conditioned. The Doctor approves.

Get your goggles calibrated, fire up the brass orrery, and start planning your kit now. Twelve months is barely enough time to properly weather an authentic Lunar Expedition ensemble. chicagosteampunkexpo.com — wait, no. chicagosteampunkexpo.com for all the details. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a steam-powered rocket to the Moon is a solid second place. High-5.

San Diego Comic-Con 2026 wrapped up today, and while the normies were busy losing their minds over Marvel casting news and Blade Runner 2099 (CyberPunk, yes, I see you, it counts), the real action was happening at the back stairs of the Convention Center on Saturday morning. Drake & McTrowell called the faithful: full steampunk cosplay, back stairs, 10am, be there or be boring. And they showed up. Of course they showed up. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Meanwhile, The Steampunk Explorer did what it does best and compiled the steampunk highlights from the whole con floor, because someone has to be the archivist of the aesthetically correct. Between the Enola Holmes 3 news (neo-Victorian, close enough, the Formula approves) and whatever gothic-gear cosplay wandered into frame, SDCC 2026 was apparently a better steampunk con than it had any right to be. The Doctor is grudgingly pleased. High-5, San Diego.

Via: The Steampunk Explorer / SDCC Unofficial Blog