PulpFest and ERBFest2021 will begin on Thursday, August 19, at 12 PM, as our dealers begin to set up their displays for summertime’s pulp con! The dealers’ room will be open for exhibitors to set up until 5 PM. It will also be open for set-up on Friday, August 20, from 9 – 10 AM. We recommend all of our dealers take advantage of our generous load-in and set-up time on Thursday afternoon.
Access to the dealers’ room for unloading will be through the ballroom back entrance and the nearby banquet dock. Click here for a map showing the loading area of the hotel and here for a map of the Grand Ballroom at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry.
If you need additional help getting to the hotel and/or the loading area, please call or text Jack Cullers at 937.671.1574.
Although the focus of PulpFest is pulp magazines and related materials, digests, vintage paperbacks, contemporary genre fiction and pulp reprints, men’s adventure and true crime magazines, first-edition hardcovers, series books, dime novels, original art, Big Little Books, B-movies, serials and related paper collectibles, old-time-radio shows, and Golden and Silver Age, as well as pulp-related comic books and games, are also allowed.
Advance registrations to PulpFest 2021 are no longer available. Our Paypal page was shut down at 10 PM on Sunday, August 15.
For those who have preregistered, you will be able to pick up your membership material at our registration desk outside the entrance to our dealers’ room at the DoubleTree. To find our registration desk, please look for our “Welcome Banner,” sponsored by Heartwood Books and Art. Please stop by their dealer’s tables to thank them for their generosity.
For those of you who have not yet registered for PulpFest 2021, you will be able to do so at the door. All members — including dealers — will be able to register for the convention from 1 to 5 PM on Thursday, August 19. Registration will take place at the entrance to our dealers’ room at the DoubleTree.
For the remainder of the convention, you will be able to register at the entrance as you are approaching the dealers’ room. Just stop at the registration desk during our dealers’ room hours. You’ll find our hours by clicking the programming button on our home page. Or click here to link to our 2021 mobile schedule.
You will be able to pay for your registration at the door using cash, check, or credit card.
To help our registration proceed smoothly, please bring along a completed registration form. You can download a copy by clicking here or through the link found on our registration page.
A full weekend membership to PulpFest 2021 will cost $40 at the door. Daily memberships for Friday or Saturday will also be available for $20 per day. A Sunday single-day membership will cost $10 to pay for our program book. There will be no single-day memberships available for Thursday. Children who are fifteen and younger and accompanied by a parent will be admitted free of charge. However, they still must be registered for the convention.
As ERBFest is part of PulpFest, there is no extra cost to attend our ERBFest activities.
There will also be early-bird shopping in the dealers’ room from 1 to 5 PM on Thursday, August 19. It’s free for loyal attendees who help to defray the convention’s costs by staying at the DoubleTree. The cost is $70 for those who stay elsewhere. This includes a full weekend membership to PulpFest 2021 and ERBFest.
Following our early-bird shopping, pizza will be served in the Ember & Vine lounge of the DoubleTree. Thanks to the generosity of our dealers, PulpFest will celebrate the convention’s return with pizza at 5 PM on Thursday, August 19. All PulpFest attendees are invited to have a slice or two.
Our dealers’ room hours on Friday, August 20, and Saturday, August 21, will be from 10 AM to 4:45 PM.
Following our dealers’ room hours on Friday, August 20, a buffet meal for all PulpFest members will be available in the DoubleTree’s Ember & Vine lounge. The cost of the meal will be $22 per person. Click here for more details.
PulpFest 2021 will celebrate the anniversaries of two trend-setting Street & Smith rough-paper magazines. Both LOVE STORY and THE SHADOW MAGAZINE played significant roles in the evolution of American popular culture and genre fiction. Please join us for “Love in the Shadows.”
The convention will also host talks on WEIRD TALES cover artist Margaret Brundage, leading women pulp editors, artist model Eva Lynd, and more. We’ll also have a Shadow film festival on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. Finally, as the host of this summer’s gathering for fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his work, we’ll have presentations on the author and his fiction. We hope all Burroughs fans are able to join us at this year’s PulpFest for the one and only ERBFest 2021.
There will be programming during the evening hours on Thursday, August 19, beginning at 7:10 PM and running until after midnight. There will also be programming during the evening hours on Friday and Saturday beginning at 7 PM and running until after midnight.
PulpFest 2021 will also offer daytime programming, including author readings and panels. About thirty writers, artists, and publishers will be attending PulpFest.
Our daytime programming will run from 1 PM until 4:45 PM on both Friday, August 20, and Saturday, August 21.
You can find additional details about all of our programming by clicking the button found at the top of our home page. Or click here to link to our 2021 mobile schedule. Each event on the schedule is linked to a post that provides further information on that event. Just click on the event’s title. Copies of the schedule will also be printed on the back of all PulpFest 2021 membership badges.
Watch for our various PulpFest banners. They will mark the location of all our events.
Friday evening’s events will also include the PulpFest 2021 business meeting, starting at 7 PM. All PulpFest members are urged to attend. The meeting will be followed by the 2021 Munsey Award presentation.
PulpFest 2021 is currently planning to hold one live auction on Saturday evening, August 21. It will begin at 9:30 PM, following our scheduled programming. The auction will consist of items submitted by the members of PulpFest 2021. Catalogs will be made available on Saturday afternoon.
Any member of PulpFest 2021 can submit items to the auction. Your PulpFest badge number will be used as your auction bidder and/or seller number. We will begin taking consignments for the auction when our dealers’ room opens at 10 AM on both Friday and Saturday. Our auction coordinator, Mike Chomko, will be accepting material for the auction at his dealer’s tables. Watch for the auction banner. All auction lots must be submitted by 2 PM on Saturday, August 21.
All lots submitted must have a minimum value of $10. All lots that do not receive a bid of $10 or more will be passed. If you plan to offer an auction lot with a reserve price, your reserve must be $50 or more. No lots with a reserve price of less than $50 will be accepted. PulpFest reserves the right to reject any auction material that is unlikely to meet our minimum bid or reserve price standards, as well as our content standards. The convention charges sellers 10% of the selling price for anything sold in the auction. Our auction rules are included with your registration packet.
If you plan to offer an auction lot with a reserve price, there will be a $5 fee if your item does not meet the reserve. You will be assessed the five dollars to have your unsold item returned to you.
On Sunday, August 22, the dealers’ room will be open to all members from 9 AM to 2 PM as our dealers pack up. If you are coming just for the day, please be aware that buying and selling opportunities may be limited on Sunday. Admission to the convention for Sunday only will be $10, the cost of our annual program book, THE PULPSTER.
For those attendees who would like to ship purchases made at PulpFest to their homes, there is a FedEx Office Print & Ship Center about a half-mile away from the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. Located at 19095 Perry Highway in Mars, Pennsylvania, it is open from 9 AM to 6 PM on Saturdays and from 12 PM to 6 PM on Sundays.
If you would like to lend a hand with the convention, please contact our chairman, Jack Cullers. You can reach him via email by writing to jack@pulpfest.com or by mail at 1272 Cheatham Way, Bellbrook, OH 45305. You can submit your programming items to our programming director, Mike Chomko, at mike@pulpfest.com or via regular mail at 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104.
We are hoping that this year’s con will be one of our best. We have nearly seventy registered dealers and have been receiving member registrations every day, many from people who have never previously attended PulpFest. If you’ve been thinking about attending, but have yet to pull the trigger, please book a room without delay. You can try calling 1-800-222-8733 to reach our host hotel. Perhaps there is a vacancy. By staying at the DoubleTree, you help to ensure the convention’s continued success.
The DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry is located at 910 Sheraton Drive in Mars, Pennsylvania, just outside the city of Pittsburgh. It is easy to find at the intersection of three major roadways: Interstate 79, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and State Route 19. Please click here for a map of the hotel’s location or click the map along the right side of our home page. There is ample free parking surrounding the hotel.
According to the DoubleTree’s website, masks are optional for guests and DoubleTree Team Members who are fully vaccinated. The hotel follows Hilton’s brand standard and asks those who are not vaccinated to please wear a mask indoors and practice social distancing.
With the delta variant taking off around the United States, the CDC recommends that everyone, vaccinated or not, should wear masks in indoor public settings in areas with “substantial” or “high” virus transmission. Currently, the counties of Allegheny and Butler — where the DoubleTree is located — are in these categories.
To keep up to date with Pennsylvania’s coronavirus numbers, click here.
If you are exhibiting any symptoms associated with COVID-19, please stay at home. You should not attend PulpFest or ERBFest. Isolate and avoid contact with others, rest, and drink fluids. If your symptoms worsen, call your health care provider.
If you have other questions, please refer to our FAQ page. Hopefully, we’ll have it covered for you there. If not, there is contact information on the page listing who to ask.
The entire PulpFest 2021 organizing committee – Mike Chomko, Jack and Sally Cullers, Bill Lampkin, Sara Light-Waller, William Patrick Maynard, and Barry Traylor – is looking forward to seeing all of you. Have a safe trip to Mars for summertime’s pulp con.
Although the lovely young lady in Modest Stein’s cover painting for the May 23, 1931 issue of LOVE STORY MAGAZINE is looking forward to PulpFest, we’re not sure if “darling” feels the same way. We suppose that we’ll have to wait a few days to see if he shows up.
We didn’t think it was a very good idea to have someone in a red cowl registering members for PulpFest and ERBFest, so we had to turn away Margaret Brundage’s Doctor Satan, painted for the August 1935 number of WEIRD TALES. Instead of the villainous Doctor Satan, we will have an experienced team of people at our registration desk. So registration should proceed smoothly.
Although the convention’s focus will be on LOVE STORY and THE SHADOW MAGAZINE — both celebrating significant anniversaries in 2021 — we’ll have plenty of other programming.
Watch for our numerous presentations on Edgar Rice Burroughs and his work, taking place during the ERBFest portion of our programming. For instance, on Thursday evening, August 19, Henry G. Franke III will discuss, “The Amazing, Thrilling, and Fantastic Edgar Rice Burroughs,” including the John Carter story, “The City of Mummies,” originally published in the March 1941 issue of AMAZING STORIES, with cover art by J. Allen St. John.
PulpFest is known for its enjoyable auctions. After all, we have two entertaining auctioneers in John Gunnison and Joe Saine. Both may very well be as talented as Norman Rockwell’s barker, originally created for the April 29, 1922 number of THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.
According to the DoubleTree’s website, masks are optional for guests and DoubleTree Team Members who are fully vaccinated. The hotel asks those who are not vaccinated to please wear a mask indoors and practice social distancing. While you can wear any color mask that you wish, it was BLACK MASK for March 1945 that featured cover art by former PulpFest guest of honor, Gloria Stoll Karn. Born November 13, 1923, she is a resident of Pittsburgh.
