Amazing Weekend at The Brass Screw Confederacy

What an incredible idea. Take the entire Victorian town of Port Townsend, Washington and turn it into a Steampunk haven. The place is so awesome. Almost everything in the downtown area is of Victorian nature. The buildings are old and authentic, the art is awesome, (they have a huge cog statue in the middle of a park.) and the people are wonderfully eclectic. They have several steampunk stores, even the thrift stores advertise their steampunk goods. But none of it is Victorian stuffy at all. There is plenty of punk in their steampunk. They have a volunteer run Food Not Bombs coffee house called The Boiler Room, tons of book stores, unique antique shops, and awesome places to eat and drink.

The Brass Screw Confederacy is not exactly a con but more of a complete invasion of steampunk goodness in many of the buildings. The museum, the VFW, the rental halls, everything had something going on of the genre. They even had tin plate photographers and roving musicians dressed in appropriate garb on the streets. Port Townsend is to Steampunk what Port Royal was to pirates. Complete immersion with something awesome happening around every corner.

The crowds were awesome and we had a great time vending. Even the restaurants were fun. We had dinner at the already steampunk flavored, Cellar Door which is in the basement of a huge Victorian building and another at Sirens, an upstairs gastro-pub overlooking the ocean.

We stayed at two different places. The Manresa Castle, an old haunted place where priests once roamed the halls (we got one of the three haunted rooms) and The Belmont, a five room hotel smack in the middle of the action with bare brick wall and twenty foot ceilings.

In addition to vending, they had several things going on in the evening with bands, bars, after parties, and on Saturday night we attended the Hootenany, which took place in a real World War 2 barracks building. They had burlesque, bands, more bars and even an absinthe room. We partook in all of them and it was glorious. Jody Ellen performed as well as the Nathaniel Johnstone band and my favorite steampunk band, Marquis of Vaudeville from Texas.

Sunday we took the morning to properly explore the shops. The World's End is a steampunk/pirate shop that was too cool. Highly recommend you check that out if you get the chance to visit. We had the honor of vending across from Otherworlds, which is a steampunk/fantasy horror brick and mortar store in Edmunds Washington who now carry all the current single issues of our Dreadfuls!

Liz and I can't say how excited we are to get back their next year. It was such a great experience!

Our table in the vending room

The passionate Marquis of Vaudeville

The haunted Manresa Castle. It's said that a woman jumped out of the top floor window above the door. 

Lizzie with our table assignment

This is what happens when you sit at a table all day. 

In the absinthe room at the Hootenany.

Just one of the awesome buildings. 

Quick shot inside the steampunk store, The World's End.