The people behind the Great Dickens Christmas Fair spent two months building 46 period structures in a pair of Cow Palace warehouses, loaded the whole town onto eight semi-trucks, drove it to Pier 35, and reassembled a functioning Gold Rush-era San Francisco on the waterfront. Over 100 costumed performers (miners, sailors, revue dancers, a juggler, a magician), a docked brigantine you can actually board, saloons, a general store, the Alta California newspaper office, and a pan-for-gold station. Today and tomorrow only. If that logistical audacity doesn’t read as Punk, I don’t know what does.

The San Francisco Historium Spotlight runs August 22-23, 2026 at Pier 35 (10am-6pm). Tickets are $40 adults, $20 kids 5-12, free under 5. Red Barn Productions has been doing this flavor of immersive living-history theater since 1961, and it shows: this isn’t a theme park, it’s an argument that the past was more interesting than the present, made entirely out of hand-painted set pieces and sheer theatrical nerve. The Doctor approves. High-5 to the scenic carpenters who built a ship facade out of lumber, because during the actual Gold Rush, abandoned ships were cannibalized to build San Francisco anyway. History, recursing into itself. Beautiful.

Via: SFist

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

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

Houston, your weekend orders have arrived. Delta H Con 2026 is on the ground right now, July 17 through 19 at the Marriott Westchase, and it has a dedicated Steampunk Track that would make the Formulae proud. The centerpiece: a full Steampunk Ball headlined by Aurelio Voltaire and Addisyn Madd, framed as an Un-Birthday Party complete with tea dueling, parlor games, and door mouse prizes. Because of course. The con’s art theme this year is Neuroverse: Code Houston (cyberpunk plus anime plus gaming plus space fusion), which is basically the Formulae running a five-way merge and daring you to argue with the output.

Unwoman is also on the schedule for two evening sets inside the Steampunk Track, which means you get cello-driven industrial folk AND Voltaire doing his delightfully macabre thing in the same building across the same weekend. For a three-day pass that apparently goes for $45, that is a frankly irresponsible amount of value. The Doctor does not make financial recommendations, but the Doctor also is not NOT making a financial recommendation here.

If you are in Houston and you are not at this convention, I genuinely cannot help you. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal. Via: Delta H Con

Twenty editions. Twenty. The Romans would approve of the numerals, and so does the Doctor. Whitby Steampunk Weekend XX descends on Whitby, North Yorkshire, July 24-26, 2026, turning the seaside town Bram Stoker used as his personal horror-writing backdrop into something Stoker himself would have found delightfully unhinged: thousands of costumed steampunks doing costumed promenades along the clifftops, a 70-plus-stall Retail Emporium packed with handcrafted curiosities, live music, workshops, and educational presentations, all inside the Whitby Pavilion. Free daytime entry. Family friendly. The past is always in the future, apparently, and in Whitby it is also apparently wearing a very elaborate hat.

Seriously though: free, accessible, and set in a town with a ruined abbey looming over the harbor and a Dracula connection baked into the postcode? That is either the best-scouted convention venue in the genre or the most [expletive deleted] obvious one, and either way the Doctor gives full credit. If you are anywhere near North Yorkshire in late July and you are not already packing your goggles and your best brass-fitted waistcoat, I genuinely do not know what you are doing with your life. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but Whitby Steampunk Weekend at least gives you something worth staying alive for.

Via: Whitby Pavilion

Mark Twain’s hometown gets taken over by goggle-wearing Victorians every Labor Day weekend, and honestly, that is the most correct thing that happens in Missouri all year. The Big River Steampunk Festival returns to historic downtown Hannibal, September 4-7, 2026, and it is, by most credible estimates, the largest outdoor steampunk festival in the United States. Over 20,000 attendees descend on Main Street for costume contests, Nerf and Tea Dueling, vaudeville shows, workshops, live music, vendors, and a Pet and Human Costume Parade on Monday morning. (Yes. Your corgi can be SteamPunk. The Formula works on dogs. I have tested this.)

This year’s event almost didn’t happen, by the way. The Hannibal City Council nearly tabled the whole thing over one councilwoman’s concern about Friday delivery trucks being blocked. ONE business showed up to complain. ONE. The rest of downtown presumably looked at 20,000+ steampunks and thought, “yeah, we’ll move our freight.” The council came to its senses and approved it. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Hannibal is, as the locals will tell you, “authentically Victorian” and a genuine center of Industrial Revolution commerce: steamboats, steam trains, the whole brass-and-iron tableau. Think Renaissance Faire, except instead of medieval England it’s Victorian America, and instead of turkey legs you’re getting high tea and a duel. Admission to the main festival is free. Some ticketed events cost extra. Your excuses not to go are officially invalid. bigriversteampunkfestival.com

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is already a place where the past refuses to stay dead. So naturally, that’s where the Key City Steampunk Convention has set up shop, and this year they are leaning ALL THE WAY in. The 2026 theme is Worlds of Tomorrow: think Metropolis, think The Rocketeer, think airships over gleaming skylines and a city of marvels where high technology and high fashion collide. August 7th through 9th. The Doctor has circled the calendar in red ink and brass rivets.

They’ve got makers, panels, workshops, tea dueling (yes, tea dueling is a real and legitimate combat discipline, and I will die on that hill), vendors, live entertainment, costume contests, and a guest list that includes a chainmail artist known as Steampunk Boba Fett and a one-man Steampunk musical act named Steamcordia who plays whatever instruments happen to be lying around his apartment. That last one is either genius or a noise complaint waiting to happen. Possibly both. The Formula approves of both outcomes.

If you’re anywhere near the East Coast this summer and you have not yet attended a steampunk convention, this is the one to fix that. Wyndham Gettysburg. Bring your goggles. Bring your airship captain’s coat. Do NOT bring a mundane attitude; it will be confiscated at the door. Grab your tickets before August 6th or pay the at-door premium like a civilian. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Gentle reader, I have been informed that TeslaCon, North America’s largest immersive SteamPunk convention, has chosen its 2026 theme, and that theme is The Wonderful Land of Oz. November 12-15, Middleton, Wisconsin. They are transporting the whole operation back to 1896, complete with Tik-Tok and the Wizard, and I want you to think about what that means for exactly five seconds. Tik-Tok. A clockwork automaton. In a SteamPunk convention. The Formula practically applied ITSELF.

Look: the Tin Man is already a cyborg with existential feelings about his own humanity, the Scarecrow is running on no wetware whatsoever and still outperforms half of Congress, and Dorothy is a small child who defeated a theocratic authoritarian twice using nothing but found objects and sheer audacity. Apply the Omega7Red Formulae and what do you get? Airship Kansas. Brass poppies. The Yellow Brick Road as a literal gear-driven conveyor belt. A Wizard who is, at least, honest about being a fraud (which is more than most). The Doctor approves of this crossover on a molecular level.

If you are within driving distance of Madison, Wisconsin this November and you are NOT going to this, I genuinely cannot help you. Tickets are up at teslacon.com. The hotel fills fast, so don’t be the person who waits too long and ends up sleeping in an airship. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Via: TeslaCon

The good people at Clockwork Alchemy have declared their 2026 theme and it is, frankly, exactly what the Formula ordered: Rogue Makers & Air Pirates. October 16-18, Redwood City, California. Grand Bay Hotel. You show up, you craft wonders that others fear to dream of, you seize the sky by the lapels. That is the entire pitch. That is enough.

If you have been waiting for the universe to give you permission to build a ridiculous aetheric contraption, strap on a flight coat, and demand that the horizon respect you, congratulations: the universe just sent you a formal engraved invitation. Artists’ Bazaar applications are open right now. The Doctor will be watching the attendee photos with great personal interest and mild professional jealousy.

Via: Clockwork Alchemy 2026: Rogue Makers & Air Pirates (theme art by Laura Carns, Gretchen Kisler, Danielle Hill, and Charlie Wong)