This review is going to be a lot less detailed than my Tesla Con review since I was only at SteamCon for one day. Also, a lot of this is going to be a comparison between TeslaCon and SteamCon.
I was only able to attend SteamCon on Saturday, November 20th, as my trip to Seattle was primarily to visit family.
The Costumes:
SteamCon definitely out shone TeslaCon in terms of the variety of tech and dress that the patrons were sporting. It was truly amazing to see what people had come up with and my inner techgeek was incredibly happy throughout the Con.
Some of the highlights were:
SteamStilts,
A person riding a SteamOstrich
Queen Victoria
the army of Dr. Steel toy soldiers
someone with a brain in a survival tank
the list goes on into awesome infinity.
I also saw some costumes there that confused me. Don't misunderstand, I'm all for freedom of interpretation and I completely understand that some people just like to dress in costume and will use any occasion as an excuse.
However, there was someone dressed as an elf. As in a LoTR elf. I didn't get a picture of their costume, so I don't recall if they had any tech or nods to steampunk in their outfit (but if they did I have no recollection of it) but as it looked to me they were dressed as an elf.
I saw another person dressed in leaves and vines and fairy wings. As a sort of woodland fairy. They topped their costume with a pair of goggles. Again, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
To my understanding Steampunk can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and I love it when people think outside of the box when putting together Steampunk paraphernalia. However, Steampunk and Magic do not go together. The technology may be outlandish and explained with only a thread of scientific credibility, but it still is set in the age of invention.
While I'm sure that some people will disagree with me on this distinction (and if you have a good counter example where magic is used with steampunk please send me a link!) this is where I draw the line between Steampunk and general fantasy.
(And to possibly confuse you even further, I would have no problem with a steampunk elf costume where the elf ears are mechanical add-ons. I also don't have a problem with the myriad of steampunk fairies I saw where the wings were mechanical masterpieces.)
I also did not see that much of a nod to the theme. There were maybe 10 Native American costumes, and maybe 150 other Western affiliated costumes. Some of the Native American costumes made me cringe. I saw one where it appeared to be just a feather and face paint. I did see some other costumes that were truly awesome imaginations of what Steampunk Native Americans might have looked like.
The Con Itself
SteamCon was spread out between two hotels. In one hotel there was registration and the seminars. The other hotel had the mercantile rooms, game play, music, food, and photography.
I would recommend that the con have registration at both hotels, or that next year they move the entire con into one large conference center. Having to move between the two hotels was tedious, and if there was an hour where you didn't want to go to a session there really wasn't enough time to go to the mercantile room, or somewhere else in the other hotel.
There was a very good selection of sessions, however I think that TeslaCon was a better balanced Con in terms of variety of sessions offered. One of the things I really liked about SteamCon were the tech and construction sessions. Those were informative and fun to attend.
There isn't really that much more for me to say. I enjoyed SteamCon quite a bit, and my cousins want to go back next year!
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