Although PulpFest 2025 will not officially begin until Thursday, August 7, dealers who arrive on August 6 will be allowed to set up their displays from 7 to 9 pm. The time is intended for setup alone.
There will be absolutely no buying, selling, or trading permitted during set-up time. If any dealer or dealer’s helper is observed buying, selling, or trading, that person will have to leave the dealers’ room immediately.
PulpFest welcomes dealer banners and other signage. However, such items cannot be attached to the hotel’s walls in any way, shape, or form.
Dealer setup will continue on Thursday, August 7, beginning at 8 am. We recommend that all of our dealers take advantage of our generous load-in and set-up times.
Access to the dealers’ room for unloading and loading purposes will be through the ballroom’s rear 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.
The DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry 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.
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. Sexually explicit material — including Playboy, Penthouse, and Oui — is not allowed.
Registration for all members of PulpFest 2025 will start at 8 am on Thursday, August 7, in the foyer outside the dealers’ room at the DoubleTree. Look for our welcome banner, sponsored by Shasta/Phoenix Art.
For those of you who have not yet registered for PulpFest 2025, you will be able to do so at the door. All members — including dealers — will be able to register for the convention from 8 am to 4:45 pm on Thursday, August 7. Registration will take place at the entrance to our dealers’ room at the DoubleTree. Again, please look for our welcome banner.
For the remainder of the convention, you will be able to register at the entrance as you approach the dealers’ room. Just stop at the registration desk during our dealers’ room hours. You’ll find our hours by clicking the schedule button on our home page. Or click here to link to our 2025 mobile schedule.
You will be able to pay for your registration at the door using cash, check, or credit card.
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 2025 will cost $50 at the door for those who have not registered in advance. Although there is no daily membership available for Thursday, August 1, daily memberships for Friday or Saturday will be available for $25 per day. Your PulpFest membership also includes membership in Doc Con XXI, ERBFest 2025, and FarmerCon XX. That’s four conventions for one price!
Our dealers’ room will open for early-bird shopping at 9 pm on Thursday, August 7. Early-bird shopping will continue until 4:45 pm for PulpFest members who will be staying at the DoubleTree or for those who elect to purchase an early-bird membership if staying elsewhere.
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 7. All PulpFest attendees are invited to have a slice or two.
Our dealers’ room hours on Friday, August 8, and Saturday, August 9, will also be from 9:00 am to 4:45 pm.
PulpFest 2025 will be celebrating the sesquicentennial of the births of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rafael Sabatini, and Edgar Wallace. We’ll also be saluting the 90th anniversary of the villain pulps and the Golden Anniversary of George Pal’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze. You can access our full programming slate by clicking the 2025 schedule button on our home page or via your mobile phone or tablet, by visiting pulpfest.com/schedule/. Each event on the schedule is linked to a post that provides additional information about the event. Just click on the event’s title.
You’ll also find our full schedule printed on the flip side of your PulpFest 2025 badge that is part of your registration packet.
Watch for the “panels” banner to find our programming area at the convention. The general public is welcome to attend all of our programming, free of charge.
Saturday evening’s programming will also include a short PulpFest 2025 business meeting, starting at 6:55 pm. All PulpFest members are urged to attend. Afterward, the annual Munsey Award will be presented, followed by our 2025 Raffle Drawing, sponsored by ERB Books.
We’ll be raffling off a copy of Pirates of Venus — The Illustrators Edition, the first book in the Amtor series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a $350 value. The book features over 100 illustrations by a dazzling array of artists, including Daren Bader, Gary Gianni, Thomas Grindberg, Richard Hescox, Michael Kaluta, Doug Klauba, Mark Schultz, Laurence Schwinger, William Stout, Mark Wheatley, and Thomas Yeates.
Tickets will be available at the PulpFest 2025 registration desk for $5. Buy as many as you want. You don’t need to be present at the drawing to win.
You’ll also be able to purchase PulpFest t-shirts at our registration desk in a variety of sizes. Your choice of black or royal blue with the PulpFestlogo across the chest. Click the link in our top menu to learn more.
PulpFest 2025 will hold one live auction on Saturday evening, August 9. It will begin at 9 pm and feature over 200 lots of items from a few small estates and collectibles consigned by members of the convention.
People who desire to attend the PulpFest auction — but not the convention itself — are welcome to come. If non-PulpFest attendees wish to bid during the auction, they will have to register as bidders. There will be a $5 non-refundable registration fee to bid during the auction.
Non-PulpFest attendees will be able to register to bid during our 2025 auction from 8:30 – 8:50 pm in the PulpFest 2025 programming area, where our auction will take place.
Our daily auction preview will run from 3:30 – 4:45 pm on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. There will be a short preview session immediately before the start of the auction. To learn more about our 2025 Auction or to download an auction catalog, click here.
On Sunday, August 10, the dealers’ room will be open to all members from 9 am to 1 pm as our dealers pack up. If you are looking for bargains, please be aware that buying and selling opportunities will be limited on Sunday.
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 8 am to 7 pm on Fridays, 9 am to 6 pm on Saturdays, and 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. Please enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope.
If you have programming ideas, you can submit them to our programming director, Mike Chomko, by email at mike@pulpfest.com or via regular mail at 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104. Please enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope.
We are hoping that this year’s con will be one of our best. We have nearly 90 registered dealers and have been receiving member registrations every day, many from people who have never previously attended PulpFest.
If you have not yet booked a room for your stay, please call 1-724-776-6900 or 855-610-8733 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 less than two miles away from our host hotel. Click here to learn more.
If you are exhibiting any symptoms associated with COVID, please stay at home. You should not attend PulpFest. Isolate and avoid contact with others, rest, and drink fluids. Call your healthcare provider if your symptoms worsen.
Although we can’t force anyone, we hope that everyone who plans to attend PulpFest 2025 will be vaccinated against COVID-19. Although masked are optional, they are recommended. We have many older members who attend PulpFest. Please keep them in mind. Remember, we’re all in this together.
Please also be aware that our attendees come to PulpFest to celebrate and learn about popular culture, socialize, and enjoy themselves. Therefore, all attendees of PulpFest are asked to keep opinions of a political, religious, or societal nature to themselves.
If any convention attendee seeks to importune a PulpFest member — including the convention’s dealers — with his or her opinions, he or she will be asked to leave PulpFest.
Although you have a right to your opinions, our members — including dealers — are not at the convention to be lectured about politics, religion, and so on.
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 the person to contact with a particular question.
The PulpFest 2025 organizing committee – Mike Chomko, Jack and Sally Cullers, Bill Lampkin, and Craig McDonald – is looking forward to seeing all of you at the convention. Have a safe trip to Mars for summer’s annual pulp con.
Our featured image is excerpted from Bruce Carrington Windo’s cover art for the 1956 Pan Books edition of Edgar Wallace’s The India-Rubber Men, a sequel to the author’s Inspector Elk novel, The Fellowship of the Frog. Bruce Windo was a paperback cover artist who worked for Great Britain’s Pan, Panther, and Arrow Books in the 1950s.
Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from Margaret Brundage’s cover art for the August 1935 issue of Weird Tales. It’s the welcome banner that will lead you to our registration area.
Pulp magazines are not the only collectibles that are featured at PulpFest. You’ll also find Golden and Silver Age comic books, as well as comics featuring pulp heroes at the convention. The 14th issue of Dell’s Tarzan — dated September/October 1959 and featuring cover art by Morris Gollub — is just one example of the kind of comic book you might find at PulpFest and ERBFest 2025.
Come as you are to “Pizza at PulpFest” on Thursday, August 7, after our dealers’ room closes for the day. There’s no need to dress to the nines as the pirate arrayed in his finest silks and jewels in H. C. Murphy’s cover for the September 20, 1923 number of Adventure. However, we ask that you leave your knives, pistols, cutlasses, and rapiers at home.
Our PulpFest 2025 includes a copy of the April 1926 issue of Weird Tales, featuring cover art by E. M. Stevenson. A very desirable issue of the pulp magazine’s run, it includes H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Outsider,” Robert E. Howard’s “Wolfshead” (the cover story), plus stories by Seabury Quinn, Sewell Peaslee Wright, and others. The copy featured in our auction is lot #40.5. It is in good condition.
We hope that you will join us to celebrate the “Masters of Blood and Thunder and More” at PulpFest 2025. Our poster was adapted by William Lampkin from John A. Coughlin’s cover for the April 25, 1931 issue of Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine, illustrating the Edgar Wallace serial, “On the Spot.” Wallace adapted the Chicago gangster novel from his popular stage play of the same name.
