PulpFest 2023 will officially begin today at 10 am, as our dealers erect their displays for this year’s pulp con! The dealers’ room will be open for exhibitors to set up until 4:45 pm. We urge all of our dealers to take advantage of our generous load-in and set-up time.
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 DoubleTree’s Grand Ballroom.
If you need additional help getting to the hotel and/or the loading area, please call or text Jack Cullers at 937.671.1574.
There is ample free parking surrounding our host hotel, the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. The hotel is very conveniently located at the intersection of three major roadways in Cranberry Township. It’s just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate-79. The address is 910 Sheraton Drive, Mars, Pennsylvania. We have a map on our website or click here for a link to a large map of the area.
All members — dealers included — will be able to register for the convention from 11 am to 4:45 pm. Registration will take place at the entrance to our dealers’ room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry. Everyone can pick up their registration packets at this time. To help things move 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. Paper forms will also be available at the door.
A full weekend membership to PulpFest 2023 will cost $50 at the door for those who have not registered in advance. Although there is no daily membership available for Thursday, August 3, daily memberships for Friday or Saturday will be available for $25 per day. Your PulpFest membership also entitles you to membership in both FarmerCon XVIII and ERBFest 2023.
There will be free early-bird shopping today in the dealers’ room from 11 am to 4:45 pm for loyal attendees who help to defray the convention’s costs by staying at our host hotel. The cost is $80 for those who stay elsewhere. This price includes a full weekend membership to PulpFest 2023.
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 comic books, as well as pulp-related comic books and games, are also allowed.
Our daily auction preview will run from 3:30 – 4:40 PM. We’ll be selling over 200 lots of material from the estate of the late Carl Joecks, a consignment from Scott & Linda Edwards of Dearly Departed Books, and member submissions. The auction will take place on Saturday, August 5, beginning at 9 pm. The general public is welcome to attend and bid. To learn more or to download an auction catalog, click here.
Following today’s 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 today. All PulpFest attendees are invited to have a slice or two.
Our full evening programming slate will begin at 7 pm, beginning with 100 Years of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., the first of our ERBFest 2023 panels. It will be followed by Sword and Sorcery in “The Unique Magazine”, the start of our salute to the centennial of Weird Tales. Later in the evening, we’ll have Weird Tales on Radio. Sandwiched between these two presentations on the first fantasy and supernatural magazine, we’ll honor two pulp heroes on their 90th anniversaries — The Spider, Master of Men! and Conan the Multimedia Barbarian.
You can find additional details about all of our programming by clicking the schedule button found at the top of our website. Or click here to link to our PulpFest 2023 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.
Watch for the “panels” banner to find our programming area at the convention. The general public is welcome to attend our programming, free of charge.
If you are not from the Pittsburgh area and have yet to book your room for PulpFest 2023, you can try calling call 1-800-222-8733 or 724-776-6900 to reach the DoubleTree. Although the convention rate is no longer available, there may be some vacancies at the hotel. Other options include the Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, or Home2 Suites. They’re all just a few miles away from our host hotel. Click here to learn more.
Our PulpFest 2023 webcard was adapted by PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin from Margaret Brundage’s cover art for the October 1933 issue of Weird Tales.
Our second image was adapted by William Lampkin from Margaret Brundage’s cover art for the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales, illustrating C. L. Moore’s first Jirel of Joiry story, “The Black God’s Kiss.”
We’ll be celebrating the centennial of Weird Tales and a great deal more at PulpFest 2023. We hope that you’ll join us for “Chilling Sports and Pulp Heroes,” as well as FarmerCon XVIII and ERBFest 2023.
You’ll find our complete schedule for Thursday, August 3, below. You can also access our schedule via your mobile phone or tablet, by visiting pulpfest.com/schedule/.
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Dealers’ Room
10:00 am – 4:45 pm — Dealers’ Room Set-Up
11:00 am – 4:45 pm — Member Registration & Early-Bird Shopping
Auction Preview
3:30 pm – 4:40 pm — Auction Preview (in auction set-up rooms)
Hotel Lounge
5:00 pm – 6:45 pm — Pizza at PulpFest (Sponsored by Select Dealers of PulpFest 2023)
Evening Programming
7:00 pm – 7:10 pm — Welcome to PulpFest — Remarks from Chairman Jack Cullers
7:15 pm – 8:00 pm — ERBFest — 100 Years of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. (Christopher Paul Carey & Cathy Mann Wilbanks with Chris Adams, Win Scott Eckert, and Will Murray)
8:05 pm – 8:50 pm — 100 Years of Weird Tales — Sword and Sorcery in “The Unique Magazine” (Morgan Holmes)
8:55 pm – 9:40 pm — 90 Years of Pulp Heroes — The Spider, Master of Men! (Chris Kalb, Will Murray, & Gary Phillips)
9:45 pm – 10:30 pm — 90 Years of Pulp Heroes — Conan the Multimedia Barbarian (Jim Beard)
10:35 pm – 11:20 pm — 100 Years of Weird Tales — Weird Tales on Radio (Karl Schadow)
