[Man opening gate of the Steampunk Festival]
[Co-founders of the Steampunk Festival Iain Clark and Helen Jansen opening the event as people start walking through the gate]
Graeme Clark (announcement): “The theme this year, Frontiers of Steam, is very appropriate considering the looming fuel shortage. Steam power will be the way to travel in the future. As we all know, SPVs, steam powered vehicles, will be the ‘trump’ card and will dominate world travel and industry.”
[Bagpipe band playing and marching at a parade]
[People marching in the parade, driving a tractor, and a vintage car]
Juliet Thorn (interview): “The first time you dress up and go out in public is really scary. And then people get such a buzz out of it, they love it, and they come up and they go, ‘you look amazing.’ It’s so cool that you take on a different personality.”
[Attendees participating in a parasol dueling contest]
[Attendees outside a cafe competing in tea dueling contest]
[Attendee racing a motorized teapot through an obstacle course]
Ross McKay (interview): “You set up an obstacle course with various things that can be knocked over. There’s the Bridge of Doom. There’s all sorts of things. And you have three minutes to get your teapot around the course. There’s a boundary, too. If you go out of bounds, that’s a disqualification. And it’s lots of fun. And the judges will take bribes.”
[Attendees at a market stall]
[Market stall salesperson with attendees]
[Attendees singing, another group dancing in the street]
Iain Clark (interview): “Steampunk is a retro futuristic science fiction genre which is based on the Victorian era as if steam technology had continued to the modern age. And what would your cell phone look like, how would it be powered, what would the computer look like? Everything. It might be brass, copper, dark wood, rich leather. And of course dressing well and dressing like gentlemen and ladies of course.”
[Pianist playing piano]
[Couple dressed up at the festival]
Helen Jansen (interview): “It’s Victorian aesthetic, and how you play with that Victorian aesthetic is completely up to you. So you, and the other thing is you can be whoever, whatever, and however you wish to be.”
[Attendees completing a jigsaw puzzle]
[Rose McKay helping fashion show participant with an outfit]
Michele Cotton (interview): “People here are much more hardcore, they’re much more hardcore here than you know people were more laid back about in the states (US) but it’s because Ōamaru is the Steampunk capital of the world most rightly so. And it’s, this is only my second year competing here but it’s like I look around I see some amazing talent and it just makes it that much better and you know I get to talk shop and see how other people do things.”
[Attendees drinking around a table]
[Attendees walking through Victorian street]
Nicolas Vortemann (interview): “I heard that (there) was a Steampunk town and I was (like), ‘OK, I want to have a look.’ I didn’t know the festival was coming this weekend. So I talked with the people in the shop, the (inaudible) shop, everything. And they told me, ‘you have to see that. You have to stay.’ They sold it so well to me. So I was ‘OK, I have to see that.’ And I continued to talk with them so I tried to find a costume, they helped me to make it and so I was (like) ok, ‘now I want to become Steampunk.'”
[Exterior of the Steampunk New Zealand Headquarters art gallery]
[Ōamaru town center]
[Ōamaru and coastline from the Ōamaru Lookout Point]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.