PulpFest 2025 will officially begin today, as our dealers finish erecting 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.
Dealer setup will begin at 8 am. Registration for all members will also start at this time in the foyer outside the dealers’ room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry in Mars, Pennsylvania.
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.
If you need additional help with directions 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.
The dealers’ room will open for early-bird shopping at 9 am 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.
Everyone can pick up their registration packets from 8 am until 4:45 pm. 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 the one price!
If that’s not enough, New Dimensions Comics, Pittsburgh’s largest retail seller of comics, games, and collectibles, is offering a 10% discount to PulpFest 2025 members from August 7 – 10. Just show your PulpFest badge to the staff when you’re checking out. With six storesin the area, New Dimension’s closest location is just 2.5 miles from the DoubleTree at 20550 Route 19 in Cranberry Township.
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 – 4:45 PM. We’ll be selling over 200 lots of material from a few small estates and lots consigned by members of the convention. The auction will take place on Saturday, August 9, 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 6:55 pm, beginning with Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Ideal Male, part of our programming for this year’s ERBFest.
A showing of the 1933 adventure classic, King Kong, will close our Thursday evening programming, beginning shortly after 11 pm. If you prefer socializing, join us in the Ember & Vine lounge at the DoubleTree for our first Bronze Bash, part of this year’s Doc Con.
You’ll find our complete schedule for Thursday, August 7, below. You can also access our schedule via our homepage 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.
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.
If you are not from the Pittsburgh area and have yet to book your room for PulpFest 2025, 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.
Please travel safely to summer’s pulp con.
Thursday, August 7, 2025
Dealers’ Room
8:00 am – 9:00 am — Dealers’ Room Set-Up (only dealers & helpers allowed entry)
9:00 am – 4:45 pm — Dealers’ Room Open for Early-Bird Shopping
Auction Preview
3:30 pm – 4:45 pm — Auction Preview (in Willow & Walnut Rooms)
Hotel Lounge
5:00 pm – 6:45 pm — Pizza at PulpFest (sponsored by PulpFest’s Generous Dealers)
Evening Programming
6:50 pm – 6:55 pm — Welcome to PulpFest — Remarks from Chairman Jack Cullers
6:55 pm – 7:40 pm — ERBFest — Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Ideal Male (Bernice Jones & Cathy Wilbanks)
7:45 pm – 8:30 pm — Edgar Wallace, Master of Blood and Thunder (Ed Hulse)
8:35 pm – 9:20 pm — Masters of Villainy (Tim King)
9:25 pm – 10:10 pm — ERBFest — Tarzan: Lord of the Merchandising Jungle (Jim Beard)
10:15 pm – 11:00 pm — Masters of Adventure (Ed Hulse, Tom Krabacher, and Kurt Shoemaker)
11:05 pm – 12:40 am — Film Showing — Edgar Wallace’s King Kong
Hotel Lounge
11:05 pm – ?? am — Doc Con — Bronze Bash — Socialize at Ember & Vine
Our featured image is excerpted from Clinton Pettee’s cover for the October 1912 issue of The All-Story, illustrating Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel, “Tarzan of the Apes,” printed in its entirety.
Our lead image was adapted by William Lampkin from Harvey Dunn’s cover art for the March 1915 issue of New-Story Magazine, published by Street & Smith. Dunn’s artwork illustrates Edgar Wallace’s “The Four Just Men,” reprinted in its entirety. Wallace’s novel was originally self-published in 1905 by The Tallis Press.
Released in 1933 by RKO Pictures, King Kong was produced and directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, with special effects by Willis O’Brien. One of the highest-grossing movies of the 1930s, it was based on the ideas of Cooper and that Master of Blood and Thunder, Edgar Wallace. The latter wrote the first draft of the screenplay. The poster artist is not known.
PulpFest advertising director William Lampkin designed the logos used in our post.
Trademarks Tarzan®, Tarzan of the Apes®, John Carter®, Barsoom®, Edgar Rice Burroughs®, Master of Adventure™, and others owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Associated logos, characters, names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks or registered trademarks of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Used by Permission.
