Event Review: Bull City Robotic Rodeo

February 12, 2019February 12, 2019 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

We’re happy to have started our year with an all new adventure in Steampunk, and a new local show! This show had its good and bad, but I hope the team that put it together tries again next year.

First, huge compliments to the organizers of this event. They had all sorts of awesome things going on all hours of the event, and a bunch of amazing creators. Honestly, it was one of the best dealer’s rooms for quality that I have ever seen. We had fun reunions with steampunk creators that we usually see up north.

I even ended up on TV!

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On Wicked, Steampunk World’s Fair, and JME

January 30, 2018 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

Over the last week, serious allegations came out against Jeff Mach and Jeff Mach Events, organizers of Wicked, Steampunk World’s Fair, and several other events in New Jersey. We have taken a few days to consider our response and see how the event company would handle the situation. Last night we received the official response from the new event CEO that Jeff will no longer be involved with any of their events or allowed to be at them.

We’ve been talking about it seriously here, so here is our response for you, our fans and fellow convention goers.

We will still be vending at this year’s Wicked Faire and Steampunk World’s Fair. These events are paid for well in advance and we can not afford as a small business to let that money be a wash or scramble to find another show at this point in time.
While we personally have never had any problems with Jeff or JME, we do not dismiss or disbelieve those who have. You have our support and we wish you had felt more comfortable to speak out sooner.
We will be watching to see how the new management handles this year and evaluating whether we will do these shows in the future.

Conventions, events, and faires are supposed to be places of fun and escape. We all try to watch out for each other, and we hate to see when something like this poisons any part of our greater community.

This is our promise to you:

If you are at any event where we are vending, and feel harassed, followed, or otherwise unsafe, we will happily give you shelter. If you feel ill, we will give you a seat. We will stand by you until you find a friend or a member of event staff who can help you.
If for any reason our behavior ever makes you uncomfortable, please let us know. We want events we attend to be enjoyable and safe for all.

Our sympathies are with all effected, and we hope that we will all be able to move forward to a good year of events.

Thank you.

Catching Up – What a Year It’s Been!

November 21, 2017November 21, 2017 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

Hello everyone! It’s been quite the crazy year and we’re way behind on sharing what we’ve been up to. And there is awesome news to come!

So, let’s start with catching up on a year worth of incredible shows and a huge thank you for everyone who came out to see us.

20170616_130234 — First to kick off the summer was Awesome Con! Cynthia squeezed a lot into one little table. Next year, we have a full booth to share our geeky armor designs!

20170617_125300 — It was the weekend of Wonder Woman! This amazon came back to show off the bracers she bought from us.

20170630_135056 — Blerdcon was a first year convention in DC, dedicated to underrepresented groups in pop culture. It was one of the most welcoming events I have ever been to, and we are happily looking forward to next year.

20170630_135125 — A closeup of our extreme colorfulness for Blerdcon.

20170721_171314 — Scares That Care! This was our third year at this event, one of our favorites every year.

20170721_171340 — Our awesome artist friend Kat joined us in our room this year, and made these awesome signs to help people find us.

20170722_171146 — …and then she became part of the room decor…

20170722_175942_001 — …until we had a little building emergency adventure.

20170723_121423 — But all was well and we kept on having fun for charity!

20170811_141852 — Next was our first time at FanExpo Boston. A decent weekend, though we definitely learned from it if we choose to do it again.

20170811_142643 — Our endcap booth at Boston. The artist section of this one really is print and comic artists, so we’d be better off in the dealer area.

20170831_211250 — Dragon Con! Another crowded tiny table. I am hoping for more space for next year.

20170831_211307 — These bottles continued to be a huge hit – almost all of them sold day one!

20170916_101338 — Entering fall with Frederick Pagan Pride. A beautiful, brightly sunny day.

20170916_101411 — Nathaniel put out a great display of new bone knives for the fall.

That’s it for the shows that I remembered to take pictures of this past year! Check out our show schedule to see where to find us next.

Event Review: Steampunk World’s Fair 2017

July 13, 2017July 13, 2017 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

This was our second year doing Steampunk World’s Fair, and we were happy to move to an inside hotel room space. This set up is unique as far as shows we have done – the first floor hotel rooms become vending space, small boutique shops that have creative set ups. Fortunately a vendor friend pointed out we would need to bring more lights, because hotel rooms are not meant to be bright. We also thought to buy a lot more vertical displays, because this was not a good space to try and bring multiple tables in and have multiple customers at a time.

Only things we’d change for next year? Confirm all details with the hotel so we don’t have any check-in issues like we did this year, get something eyecatching to put outside our room, and make some advertising posters including that we do costume repair.

20170506_111452 — First wall you see when you come in – our refinished water guns, the popular flasks, and more.

20170506_111501(1) — Fully into the room – waist cinchers and masks.

20170506_111543 — The grid wall and extra lighting really made a difference in our display.

20170506_111554 — My first holsters, and a continuation of my leather and lace series.

20170506_111559 — More swords and the giant flask. Our eye catching corner.

20170506_123125 — One of the takers on our repair services. Love to corgi themed costumes!

20170506_181905 — The costumes are definitely one of the highlights of Steampunk World’s Fair.

20170507_134319 — Nathaniel’s plasma caster – huge steampunk mod. Can you guess what this started as?

Show Review: Glimmerdark 2017

June 22, 2017June 22, 2017 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

Yeah, I am way behind. Glimmerdark was in February, a fantasy and dark fairy convention that took over from Wicked Faire. It had it’s issues as a new/revised event, but I look forward to seeing what it becomes.

So to catch up more easily, I’m just going to sum it up in pictures. Enjoy!

IMG_20170203_181000 — All set in the ballroom. We had to be a little creative since our booth opened on three sides.

IMG_20170203_180940 — My new lightup cloak! Playing with sheer materials for the fairies.

IMG_20170203_180920 — Masks and light up blades. The light ups were a hit – one area where occasional darkness was to our benefit.

IMG_20170203_180911 — New sign, and lots of cloaks.

IMG_20170203_180905 — Green fairy backpack flask.

20170205_110847_001 — Happy barbarian fae with her new club!

20170204_204607 — A view down the aisle, for a bit of the show feel. We don’t get out of our booth much.

Show Review: Scares That Care Weekend

November 17, 2016November 17, 2016 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

Hello again! We are entering our slow time between shows, so I’m getting caught up on all of my show photos and such from this past year. Then it’ll be time for year in review and fun planning for next year!

Scares That Care Weekend is one of our favorite events. It is not our most profitable, but it’s a weekend of awesome people who love horror and trying to do good for charity. This year, we got a whole conference room to fill with our stuff however we wanted. Up side – we could show off a lot of stuff and be creative with our display. Downside – the second floor gets less traffic and the room we chose was… well, more hidden than we realized.

20160723_100924 — Come on boney, help us show people where we are…

20160723_101409 — So, leave the haunted house, then take a sharp turn…

20160723_101438 — …down the skinny hidden hallway…

20160723_101446 — … and into room 14! We posted lots of these posters to try and help people find us. Plus, first show with our new logo!

20160723_101453 — Nice and open room to show lots of different products!

20160723_101501 — Room was an unusual shape, but that meant we could set up a nice sales and work table.

20160723_101508 — More shadow box kits! People got a good laugh out of these.

20160723_101517 — Swords, props, bottles… so much to shop through!

20160723_125835 — Costumes around the event were awesome. The Chanels and the Red Devil came for a visit.

20160723_193501 — Even out in the parking lot people were having a silly, fun, horror time.

Huge thanks to all of our helpers who showed people where we were!

We are already paid up for next year. We will be on the second floor again, but in a more obvious room next time. And we’ll go even further on atmosphere and display!

Shore Leave 2016 – After Show Report

July 28, 2016 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

Shore Leave was one of my first conventions I did regularly. I have a lot of early convention memories from this show – volunteering with the art show, hanging out with Klingons, getting some of my first celebrity autographs. But, after a couple of hit or miss years of sales, I hadn’t vended at this convention for a while. Looking for more shows this year, and now that I am selling completely different things than I used to, it was time for another try.

All told, it was awesome to be welcomed back. Sales weren’t amazing but weren’t bad, good staff and fun to see people again.

IMG_20160714_174837 — Getting ready for a show is always interesting. Here is what going through the inventory looks like.

20160715_181054 — No need for a mirror – there’s a huge one behind us! We got creative with splitting a six foot table, which is a small display for us these days.

20160715_181102 — We were given a table by a ballroom door, so we were able to hang cloaks on a chain for people to look through.

20160716_130105 — Light up Death Star fascination with tie fighters! I loved it.

Steampunk World’s Fair 2016

July 13, 2016July 12, 2016 ~ Cynthia Abernathy ~ 1 Comment

Speaking of shows with interesting weather problems…

I can not say enough positive things about the staff of Steampunk World’s Fair. It was everything else that went wrong.

So, first there was pouring rain during set up. Made the traffic to get there horrible, and we showed up just before the show was supposed to open. Steampunk World’s Fair has a vendor set up different from any other show we have done. There were several different places that vendor tables and booths could be set up – ballrooms in each of the two hotels, first floor rooms in the hotels, hallways in the hotels, and the outdoor midway between the two hotels. We were located in the midway. Which, if the weather had been nice, would have been a really neat place. There were a lot of vendors and the main stage, giving the whole area a really festive feel.

Browsing the damp booth on Friday afternoon.

I didn’t have time to catch many costume photos, but I loved this Spidey.

Happy customer! The giant hammer finds a new home.

We were allowed to pull up even though we were late, rush set up in the rain, and were ready to go. The weather cleared, and Friday night was awesome. It also is one of the few shows we do that goes to after dark. That means good booth lighting if you are outdoors is a must.

Friday night at the World’s Fair. The booth lighting and the concerts made this so festive.

Saturday started good, but then the clouds and wind really picked up. Rain is manageable, but wind is complete havoc on an outside show. About 4:30 the clouds got really, really dark and we found out about a lightning storm coming in. So with all of us with metal tents, we were told to evacuate the midway.

This was another time the staff was awesome, as well as the guests. We had so many helping hands to first get our inventory packed up and inside, and then getting the tent taken down and into the van. We waited out the storm from the van, then came back about 7 to set back up. A bunch of other vendors did not return that night… which, since it was also a big concert night, made it the best part of our sales.

Adventurer’s tea sets – one of my big hits of the fair.

Fun Steampunk jewelry, made with pieces of old books, gears, propellers, wings, and crystals.

Plastic refinished toy guns – a lot of these still made the ridiculous sound effects.

For pirates, airship or otherwise, a hand tooled leather water skin.

Unfortunately, setting back up also resulted in a call from the staff at 2:30 in the morning. The wind had picked back up and our tent had tried to make a break for it. The staff was awesome – we showed back up to find everything broken down and anything that might blow away weighted down. We packed up and got what sleep we could.

Which leads us to Sunday. First, the adventure of getting to the show. The convention was right near Rutger’s University, and that day was their commencement. On top of that, the speaker was President Obama, which meant all sorts of road blocks. We got lucky – a cop managing one of the blocks recognized us as heading to Steampunk World’s Fair, and gave us directions that would get us there. Other visitors were not so lucky.

We made it back out the try and set up again to find even fewer vendors outside. The wind was vicious. We and one of our neighbors gave up on attempting tents after they tried to blow away the moment we tried to set them up, and went for just tables and product, yard sale style. About an hour of that, and the vendor coordinator offered those of us who wanted to move tables in one of the hallways.

So, we condensed our 10 ft by 10 ft booth inventory to a single table as best we could, but at least we still had the chance to sell all three days.

Light up knives and whatever we could fit on the hallway table.

What’s left on Sunday – we needed more inventory!

We learned quite a bit with this show. We really hope to do this show again, but any indoor space we can get. And we know better what inventory to bring. For one, we need more of it. My adventurer tea sets, which I launched at this show, almost completely sold out. Nathaniel almost completely sold out of his refinished toy guns and light up knives.

And above all else, we have to say, this staff was awesome.

After Show Report: Madicon 2016

June 15, 2016June 15, 2016 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

Well, I’m definitely a bit behind on sharing our awesome show stories, but we’re in a good catch up time, so here we go!

Madicon is a fun little convention at James Madison University every March. It is one of the smallest events we do, but it’s great for getting our year rolling. Plus, we get to reunite with a bunch of vendor neighbors we meet over the year.

This year they expanded the vendors a bit. I’m not sure how that did for others as far as sales, but I liked the feel of the newly set up room. We did nicely, but partially that’s from a lot having been learned working as hard as we have over the last year.

So, without further ado, enjoy some photos from March’s Madicon!

20160311_150748 — We got a table on the end, so I was able to bring my nice new rolling rack for cloaks. Fleece is so cozy for March!

20160311_154116 — Nathaniel has been perfecting his light up blades. I think these are the second and third versions. Plus, experimenting with a dark box to best show them off.

20160311_154125 — We’ve really figured out how to take a one table space and make a whole little booth.

20160312_131749 — Madicon benefits a local wild bird rescue organization. I love when they show off the birds of prey! Here’s a tiny kestrel.

20160312_131829 — Yup, the leather masks still get to come along. And by request, more bracers!

Show Report: Wizard World Richmond Comic Con

August 3, 2015 ~ Cynthia Abernathy

Hello again! It’s a busy time of year for us, and we just got back from our second convention in two weeks. This time, Wyrd Armouries took our wares to Richmond for Wizard World’s Comic Con. This was our first time doing a comic convention together – I have done several as Wyrd and Wired – and it was interesting to see what people were interested in and what they bought.

Overall, I’d put this convention in the “okay” category. Well, once we got past a few car disasters (the first car we packed decided being in gear wasn’t fun anymore) and horrible traffic to get there. We did alright financially, but it was a lot more work to get there and was not quite as fun overall. Getting people to part with money took a lot more work than we are used to at a convention. If I was looking at this convention as an attendee, it seems to be much more about autographs and photo ops than panels and content. Which, if that’s what you like, was fine and there were good guests.

One of the highlights of the convention was watching all of the costumes go by. From an amazing amazon of a Wonder Woman to a tiny Doctor Who teething on his sonic screwdriver, people watching is fun. And seeing many of our favorite fellow vendors! We were diagonal from our old neighbor, Emizart, doing her second show. So many cute little dragons. After doing conventions for a while, each one is a bit like a reunion with old friends.

Here’s some more photographic highlights from our booth: