The Chicago Steampunk Exposition 2026 wrapped up today at the Hyatt Regency Schaumburg, and if you were not there, I cannot help you. The theme was “Adventures in Wonderland” (technically the 1893 Chicago Exposition-through-a-looking-glass, which is the most SteamPunk elevator pitch since someone strapped a pressure gauge to a corset). Gail Carriger was on hand, UnWoman provided the soundtrack to your brass-and-velvet fever dreams, and the Hall of Curiosities was presumably full of things that would have gotten a man arrested in actual 1893. Three days, four exhibitor halls, and approximately one metric ton of top hats. The Doctor approves.

If you missed it: the Underground Market, the Midway Market (Artists/Writers/Musicians), the Hall of Curiosities, AND hallway exhibitors across the entire atrium. That is not a convention, that is a siege. They rolled dice (a d20, a d30, a d60, AND a d100) to determine badge prize winners at Opening Ceremonies, which is the correct way to run any gathering of human beings. Why is every awards show not doing this? I ask because I genuinely want to know.

Mark your calendar now: same Hyatt, same interdimensional time portals, and presumably a new theme that will be equally unhinged in the best possible way. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a weekend in a parallel 1893 with several hundred gear-wearing lunatics comes close.

Via: Chicago Steampunk Exposition

Right now, as you read this, the fine citizens of Port Townsend, Washington are three days deep into the Brass Screw Consortium Steampunk Festival (June 12–14), a “chronologically discontiguous” weekend where Pirates, Aetherists, Outcasts, and Bodgers settle their differences via games of skill, wit, and an alarming amount of brass.

This year’s plot: a stray Plague Rat has caused a power vacuum in Consortium leadership, and attendees are invited to weigh in on the new regime. Naturally, nature abhors a vacuum, but the Aetherists love one; it gives them something to aetherify. Honestly, “power vacuum caused by a rat” is the most accurate description of several real governments I could name, but the Doctor doesn’t do American politics, so moving on.

The real highlight is the Bodgers’ Grande Exhibition, a maker showcase that is, in essence, a county fair for people who build steam-powered nonsense in their garages and then bring it to a seaport to show off. This is, and I cannot stress this enough, the single most respectable use of a garage in human history. Forget the lawnmower. Build a brass octopus that dispenses tea.

If you’re anywhere near the Olympic Peninsula this weekend, go pay your respects to the rat. Tell them the Doctor sent you, and that the rat has my full endorsement; unlike most candidates, it has never once promised me anything and then failed to deliver.

Via: Brass Screw Consortium

Apparently, this won the Marvel Costume Contest at New York Comic Con 2010.  Good job, high-5!