Skip to content
Arts & Culture
Link copied to clipboard

At the Gilded Festival, steampunk turns back the clock - to the future

It's a chance to travel through time as it never was. The second Gilded Festival, a "time-traveling steampunk adventure" Saturday and Sunday will bring all things steampunk to the Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May.

Juggler and fire-eater David Stafford of Philadelphia's Bad Idea Entertainment will perform at the steampunk Gilded Festival this weekend in Cape May. (TIESHKA K. SMITH)
Juggler and fire-eater David Stafford of Philadelphia's Bad Idea Entertainment will perform at the steampunk Gilded Festival this weekend in Cape May. (TIESHKA K. SMITH)Read more

It's a chance to travel through time as it never was.

The second Gilded Festival, a "time-traveling steampunk adventure" Saturday and Sunday will bring all things steampunk to the Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May.

The retro-futuristic fair offers clothing, food, and music vendors and is presented by Storykeeper Events (the Philadelphia organization behind Dorian's Parlor, a series of monthly steampunk nights held at the Doubletree Hotel on South Broad Street).

Unfamiliar with steampunk? Festival director and Storykeeper Events CEO Gil Cnaan described the subgenre as a modern, fantastical twist on Victorian science-fiction.

"The idea is that steam technology remained dominant, and we didn't move to electricity," Cnaan said. "It's an aesthetic movement in literature, DIY, and crafting."

Steampunk pulls influences from writers like H.G. Wells (The War of the Worlds) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes). Think brass trinkets, copper gadgets, elaborate cog machinery, and corsets, top hats, and leather vests. Cnaan said the hybrid genre was gaining popularity - it's even the subject of a new Game Show Network series, Steampunk'd.

Maisha Elonai, Storykeeper Events volunteer, said the family-friendly festival was an opportunity for steampunk and renaissance enthusiasts to "come as you are or as you want to be."

"We're having an entire little world full of people being characters and interacting," Elonai said, "and you can put on your own identity, your own clothes, absorb yourself completely, and forget the rest of the world as much as you want to." The uncostumed can just enjoy being themselves.

Participating vendors include "the time-traveling bard" Captain Zorikh, improv group Cosplay Court Case, "The Wandering Cellist" Luna Skye, Tabletop and LARP game publishers Damocles Thread Development, and Kafé Merhaba, a Near-Eastern-themed cafe. Douglas Stafford of Philadelphia's Bad Idea Entertainment will also hold a 50-minute show, which he said would include fire performance, juggling, and magic.

The 30-acre Historic Cold Spring Village is the site of 26 restored historic buildings, where guides demonstrate such 19th-century crafts as welding and basket weaving, in full character.

The first Gilded Festival, held in 2013 in King of Prussia, attracted 300 to 400 participants, Cnaan said. The switch to an outdoor venue will, he hopes, make for a more immersive atmosphere. "Holding the festival in a historic village with buildings that are, in many cases, older than this country," Cnaan said, "can give us a sense of time-travel in a way that being in a hotel couldn't."

Eli August and the Abandoned Buildings will bring its dark-folk Americana blend to the festival at 6 p.m. both days. The band frequents steampunk festivals. The musicians even prefer them, August said, for their diverse and open-minded crowds. He calls steampunk an "island on the open sea," appreciated by musicians looking for a home.

Tori Tsubaki has been participating in steampunk cosplay for seven years. Tsubaki, 35, often assumes a fantasy character named Mordana.

"Personally, for me, it's about dressing up," Tsubaki said. "As a kid, I never really had the opportunity to play into costumes that much, so I guess I'm kind of living out my childhood dream."

FESTIVAL

StartText

Gilded Festival

10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Historic Cold Spring Village, 720 Route 9 South, Cape May.

Tickets:

1-day pass: $15 Adult, $12 Child

2-day pass: $25 Adult, $20 Child

Information: 609-898-2300 or www.gildedfestival.com. EndText