Independence Day Weekend (July 5-7)
DoubleTree by Hilton, Portland, OR
GEAR Con is Portland, Oregon’s annual celebration of all things steampunk. Our 2013 theme, Steampunk Americana, explores the history, literature, and technology of an early-Industrial-Age USA that never was.
Leave the Now Behind
The convention takes place over July 5-7, 2013 at DoubleTree by Hilton, Portland. To register and attend, click here. To participate as a panelist or workshop leader, click here. All other inquiries, please email the convention director; please note that dealer space for GEAR Con 2013 is sold out.
Entertainments
- Friday, 7/5, be astounded by The Prestigious Illusionists, a showcase of steampunk stage magicicans with neo-Victorian variety entertainments hosted by the Historical Conjurer, Professor DR Schreiber; DJed dancing to follow.
- Saturday, 7/6, the legendary Abney Park headlines our adventurers’ ball, with guests Good Company, Poplock Holmes, and DJ Dirty Mollie!
- Sunday, 7/7, our weekend-long Victorian Martial Arts Symposium (orchestrated by Academia Duellatoria) culminates in a grand exhibition by visiting bartitsu, pugilism, & swordplay luminaries.
- Special appearances throughout the weekend by performing guests including the incomparable MAD-emoiselle Veronique Chevalier!
Also Featuring
Tesla coil demonstrations ~ our fashion show ~ author readings ~ historical & cultural presentations ~ a fine art salon ~ live-action roleplaying games ~ a War Machine miniatures tournament ~ the return of the Crafters’ Lab workshop space ~ drop-in tabletop gaming ~ Whitechapel Circus live ~ vendor halls full of steampunk clothing, accessories, & media ~ more retrofuturistic goodness TBA.
Professor Gall returns to the entertainment lineup at GEAR Con 2013! From his website:
‘A Tincture of Junkyard Folk and Steampunk Jazz’.
Professor Gall seeks to uncover the contradictions of an ambiguous and native-less society, ‘dreaming the existentialists’ dream’, while at the same time pleading for individualism, peace, and more fun at funerals.
Poplock Holmes, the United States’ delegate to the rarefied company of chap-hop emcees, appears live in performance and throughout the weekend on panels at GEAR Con 2013. Accompanied by theremin-scratching DJ WattsOn and lady adventurer Navi, Sir Poplock Holmes fronts Run DM Steam, bringing the gift of fresh, sweet rhymes & flow to Portland’s steampunk audience. Discover more about Sir Holmes, his companions, and their exploits at poplockholmes.com.
On the evening of Friday, July 5th, GEAR Con presents The Prestigious Illusionists, a showcase of steampunk stage magic and ne0-Victorian variety entertainments! Be astounded and amazed by Master Payne, Professor Algernon, Doc Maverick, and your Master of Ceremonies, Professor DR Schreiber.
Between conjurers & prestidigitators, let us entertain you with bellydance, barbershop quartet, and circus arts, plus comic song by that scintillating chanteuse, MAD-emoiselle Veronique Chevallier!
This is an all-ages event; as with all GEAR Con entertainments, there is no additional ticket price to attend this performance.
Veronique Chevalier, the incomparable comic diva of nouveau-cabaret, returns to Portland for GEAR Con 2013! From her website:
She’s an unparalleled Parodist; a Steampunk-lish Chanteuse, and Spooky Polkanista, who has been described as a twisted incarnation of Edith Piaf from an alternate reality – the one in which her parents are Jim Morrison, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and her godparents are Lucille Ball and Weird Al.
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As a self-proclaimed “Mad Sonictist,” she takes maniacal pleasure in combining previously unrelated musical forms into new, unholy combinations. She vows to leave no genre unadulterated in her quest to create the ultimate Sonic Frankenstein…
Electro-swing national treasure Good Co performs with Abney Park at GEAR Con 2013! From their website:
Good Co isn’t your usual company. Our employees aren’t suit and tie types, they’re raucous jazz musicians. Our meetings are held out on the dancefloor, and our business model isn’t concerned with profits and losses, it’s all about keeping the music swinging and the people dancing!
As the US’s one and only Electro Swing Band, we’re proud to present our debut album, Electro Swing for the Masses. Pounding dance beats are mixed with gypsy jazz guitar riffs, samples from the past turned on their head along with a live horn section blowing down the house! Take it easy ‘cause we’ve got you covered.
Just sit back, order up a stiff one and keep Good Co!
All weekend at GEAR Con 2013, immerse yourself in the world of 19th Century combative arts! Attend classes and panels on bartitsu, pugilism, sabre, jujitsu, and other topics in Victorian self-defense; Sunday the 7th, the Symposium culminates in a four-hour bartitsu seminar and exhibition. Instructors include:
Tom Badillo of Botta Secreta Productions
David McCormick of Academie Duello
Stewart Sackett of Nemesis Brazilian Jujitsu
Symposium orchestrated by Jeff Richardson and Matthew Howden of Portland’s own Academia Duellatoria
Steampunk’s “it” band, Abney Park, is the musical headliner for GEAR Con 2013!
Abney Park comes from an era that never was, but one that we wish had been. An era where airships waged war in the skies, and corsets and cummerbunds were proper adventuring attire. They’ve picked up their bad musical habits, scoundrelous musicians, and anachronistically hybridized instruments from dozens of locations and eras that they have visited in their travels and thrown them into one riotous dervish of a performance. Expect clockwork guitars, belly dancers, flintlock bassists, middleastern percussion, violent violin, and Tesla powered keyboards blazing in a post- apocalyptic, swashbuckling, Steampunk musical mayhem.
Abney Park will play during GEAR Con’s steampunk ball on Saturday, July 6th.
[I hope this got some laughs. Members of The New Vaudeville Band and the Bonzos are still gigging in the UK, and I think they'd be a feather in the cap of whatever European steampunk event snapped them up. Rush's Clockwork Angels tour will be in the Portland area a few weeks after GEAR Con, July 28 at the Sleep Country Ampitheater in Ridgefield, WA. GEAR Con's actual 2013 headliner is the always-amazing Abney Park!]
GEAR Con 2013, Portland, Oregon’s third annual celebration of steampunk creativity, is proud to host The New Vaudeville Band as our featured musical performers, headlining the convention’s steampunk ball on Saturday, July 6th. The UK septet rose to international fame in 1966, beating out The Temperance Seven and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band to become the world’s preeminent Music Hall revival novelty ensemble on the strength of their breakout hit, “Winchester Cathedral”, plus some other songs they undoubtedly must have written and recorded. Their marriage of Edwardian popular songwriting styles with cutting-edge instrumentation and sound engineering technology marks The New Vaudeville Band as legendary pioneers of steampunk music.
The band’s members will reunite for their GEAR Con performance through the modern magic of the World Wide Web, performing live via Skype from their homes and private recording studios throughout the United Kingdom. They will be represented onstage by life-sized, projected pinup avatars designed by “Tea Girls” artist Brian Kesinger and animated by a local creative collective using free, open source tools on a found-hardware rendering farm powered by thermal energy reclaimed from composting.
Opening for The New Vaudeville Band is the Canadian rock trio Rush, whose latest record, 2012′s Clockwork Angels, is a richly-envisioned steampunk concept album. “We’ve been steampunk for years”, says guitarist Alex Lifeson. “Geddy wears those round little goggley specs, and there’s a top hat in the cover art for Presto. Somebody told us that counts.”
“What stadium is this gig at again?” he proceeded to ask.
Cog Collective presents a WARMACHINE/HORDES tournament at GEAR Con 2013. This is a single-day tournament on Saturday, July 6th, using the Steamroller 2013 format; point value to be announced. Space is limited so please sign up now by emailing operations@pdxgearcon.com. Convention registration (day or weekend) is required for tournament admission.
Visit Cog Collective at cogcollective.com. GEAR Con 2013′s game room is sponsored by Guardian Games.
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