Community Corner
Watch City Steampunk Festival To Go Online Because Of Coronavirus
Organizers said they didn't think they would be able to get permits in time to organize a live event this year.
WALTHAM, MA — This year the Watch City Steampunk festival will most likely be held virtually.
"While we'd love to be able to host a live event for you all in May, we think it's unlikely that we will get from where we are right now to having permission from the authorities to host a large outdoor event in time to put a good festival together," organizers announced recently on Facebook.
Instead, organizers are working to put on a virtual Watch City Steampunk Festival on May 8.
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Almost every year for the past 10 years, the Waltham Common has filled with people with top hats and corsets and quirk as folks from near and far come to celebrate the mix of imaginative steam-powered technology, Victorian-era history and science fiction that is steampunk.
But last year, amid the pandemic, organizers canceled the in person annual festival —one of the largest in the country of its kind.
Find out what's happening in Walthamfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Steampunk can be loosely thought of as the literary mix of Victorian-era history and fashion with a bit of modern technology and the fantastical brought to life. There are robots and gears and top hats galore and lots of steam-powered gear.
The Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation founded the event back in 2010 as a way to raise money for repairs following a bad flood. Since then, aside from a brief break in 2014, it's kept going. The first year organizers thought maybe a few hundred would show up. But 1,000 showed up, and each year the number has grown with as many as 10,000 estimated in recent years.
The Downtown Waltham Partnership, a Waltham-based nonprofit along with the Waltham Tourism Council, Waltham Cultural Council, Mass Cultural Council and Hobbs Brook Management sponsor the event.
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Jenna Fisher is a news reporter for Patch. Got a tip? She can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna). Have a something you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how.
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