The Asylum 2016.

Over the past year we have been approached by the organisers of a huge Steampunk event in the UK. They like what we are doing and have noticed that Stephenson's Robot (in particular) is quite popular with people wearing Victorian garb and sporting a nice pair of goggles,, amongst other things.
Now that we have three issues of Stephenson's Robot out we decided that this was the year we'd give it a go.
Nearer the event we were advised that we'd do a lot better if we embraced and became part of the event, rather than just stand behind a table.
Hmmmm... a challenge. More so for me as I'm not one for dressing up.
We set to work.
Looking for interesting ways to display comic books and also looking for some Victorian type clothing ... a hat for one.
Fast forward a few months and there we are. In Lincoln. Having a pre-convention pint with Steve Tanner and then wandering around and taking in the sites.

Colin talks to Steve as if he knows a little about Lincoln
whilst Karen looks on knowing better.

 Saturday morning we were quite quickly set up in a room in a room in a building right next to the very impressive Lincoln Cathedral.

A new thing for us. Standing in front of the table. Old suitcases holding a reduced stock of comics.
It was a slow start and I think throughout the weekend we suffered a little from being in a new venue which was a little out of the way of the other attractions and activities.
We decided to put the WesterNoir banner outside, by the gate to the Cafe below us...

I think it helped as we did start to get more customers.

And very splendid they looked.
We didn't get much opportunity to wander around the event, although Colin did make the most of his trips to get cups of tea...

The costumes on display went from the very smart to the completely amazing. It's great to see so much attention going into what people wear, Some of the interpretations of what Steampunk covers were inspired.

They were both quite unaware that their
every word was being recorded....

The event was spread across 4 days, of which the comics were available for 3 of them.
It was a pretty mixed affair really. Saturday and Bank Holiday Monday were quieter than the Sunday. We had a good mixture of normally attired locals and steampunk attired travellers.
All of our books gained a degree of interest but Stephenson's Robot sold best, as expected.

We will return next year and try to put the comics building on the map.
We had a great weekend ... must work a bit on our costumes though as they were quite poor when compared to what other people had created.