NASHUA – He was audible before he was visible.

The thump of boots and the click of a canes echoed up the hallway as he rounded the corner and made his way to the front desk. He wore striped trousers, a Victorian-era overcoat and goggles. The family of eight sitting in the lobby glanced at him without making eye contact.

The halls of the Radisson Hotel Nashua are more commonly graced by the shoes of businessmen, attending conferences on marketing strategy or the like, while comprising a homogenous sea of gray suits and briefcases.

But this weekend, from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon, the halls and ballrooms of the hotel hosted a more colorful bunch, creating a feast for the senses that bordered on the surreal.

They are known as “steampunks” and on most days, they are members of the community who have professions filling cavities, writing computer code and fixing cars. But at a convention like Air City Expedition 2013, they are airship pirates, Victorian-era inventors and water merchants.

The theme throughout the convention is based upon a subgenre of science fiction known as steampunk, where machinery is powered by steam, and characters are based upon the roles played in a fantasy world where steam in the main proponent of technology.

The attendees join one another to celebrate the culture based around steampunk.

Abigail Beatrix Cormac, known as Meghan Koda at her everyday job as an IT specialist at Fidelity Investments, said that steampunk is a difficult genre to describe.

“It’s hard to define because as a genre it has so many aspects, but at its root, it’s the love of Victorian literary science fiction,” said Koda, who was dressed in “Lolita” fashion dating back a century or more from present day and wearing a glass and copper water transportation device on her back.

Koda said she has been enamored of the Victorian era since childhood. She grew up in an old Victorian house with her mother who was a costumer for a local community theater group. She said she had the roots in steampunk beginning with her interest in Victorian-era literature.

Now that Koda has grown older and found a job in the corporate world, she said steampunk is something that allows those who partake to blow off some steam.

“If you sit at a desk job all day and you’re a cog in the machine, it’s nice to step back and be something else,” said Koda.

“This is who we are, but we work so that we can do this. It’s an escape. You jump into another character and be who you want,” said Koda’s companion, also dressed in period clothing, Phinneus Caractucus Cromwell, also known as Justin Thibault, of Exeter.

Koda and Thibault were just two of 150 attendees of Air City Expedition 2013, a gathering of steampunks from New Hampshire to New Jersey, convening to discuss the politics of steampunk, mingle and hone their craft.

ACE 2013 is the first at the Radisson location and is replacing a canceled steampunk convention held annually in Nashua.

The convention consists of seminars, performances and parties, all while attendees impersonate their chosen character and interact with others, usually to follow a storyline or theme.

Seminars covered everything imaginable in the steampunk realm including Steampunk in the Community, Stereotypical Steampunk, Time Travelers Summit and Lolita Fashion for the Steampunk-Minded.

Alongside panel discussions and performances by vaudeville sideshow group Karnevil was a section for vendors of all sorts. Beside booths selling steampunk attire and accessories, Thee-Gartisan-Works of Torrington, Conn., repaired the costumes and props that many of the characters wore at the convention.

Geoffrey Smith, half of Thee-Gartisan-Works, described the business as their reason for going to conventions six times a year.

“We make or modify anything you want,” said Smith, pointing to the odds and ends spread out on a table in the lounge area of the convention center.

Smith, an employee at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, said he grew up in a workshop and uses the skills he learned as part of the character that he created. “I bring an entire workshop and can fix anything,” said Smith.

But what is the allure of being someone from another time? Why make a world of wonders when one exists already?

Luna Northly, who described her character as “the human guinea pig in the crew,” pointed out that the world she is part of on a daily basis is far less interesting than the one she creates through steampunk.

“It’s another fantasy world that’s different than reality. And anything is better than reality,” she said.

And it was indeed something different than reality. A quick look around the room during the “Lolita Fashion for the Steampunk Minded” panel revealed a colorful array of characters and gadgetry.

Civil War soldiers with futuristic-looking weapons, Wright brothers-era aviator costumes, mechanical arms, a turn of the century doctor and an uncountable number of canes all gathered together in one room for one purpose had the steam-power to boggle the mind of someone outside the know.

William Wrobel can be reached at 594-6573 or wwrobel@nashua
telegraph.com.