The Ministry of Steampunk
The Ministry of Steampunk is a small team of community-focused friends, founded and led by John and Karen Naylor (aka Major Tinker and Lady Elsie Tinker). The group strives to design and create events and activities that celebrate imagination and creativity, where everyone is welcome and treated equally. Their long held maxim is ‘be splendid’, which refers to the attitude and aspirations that they encourage among the steampunk community at every opportunity.
The Ministry of Steampunk is run on a not-for-profit basis, the whole team being unpaid volunteers. It is self-financing and receives no grant support or funding. Money raised from the sale of wristbands etc., is used to make events possible by paying for venues, equipment, performers' fees and expenses etc., as well as those of contributors and volunteers. Costs such as ticketing, insurances, storage fees, websites and radio licences are also covered in the same way.
The society was formed in 2009 and was originally known as the Victorian Steampunk Society. The team's first attempt to gather enough steampunks in one place to create a 'critical mass of creativity’ was known as the UK National Convivial at the Asylum, held on the site of the former Lincoln Lunatic Asylum (later known as the Lawn Hospital). Four hundred steampunks attended that inaugural event, from where it has grown each year into by-far the largest and longest running steampunk festival in the world, attracting thousands of costumed steampunks from over forty countries (according to 2024 ticket sales). This very popular event is now known as Weekend at the Asylum and is usually held over the five days of the Bank Holiday at the end of August.
The Ministry of Steampunk works hard to promote steampunk as a creative community and has previously worked on extended museum exhibitions as well as exhibiting at major events such as the MCM and Megacon Live comicons. As well as Weekend at the Asylum, the team also organises other steampunk events and activities throughout each year, the details of which can be found on their website at ministryofsteampunk.com.
The Ministry of Steampunk prides itself on staying true to its original intentions established in 2009:
- Listen to what people are asking for.
- Set up the best possible events that people may want to attend.
- Run them to the best of the team's ability.
- Try to raise money for charitable causes if possible.
