From July 30 to Aug. 2, 2026, PulpFest 2026 was held near Pittsburgh, again at the DoubleTree in Mars, Pa. This was my fourth time attending. I again made a point of arriving Wednesday night to be able to experience the con from Thursday through Saturday.
In addition, there were three associated events. There was FarmerCon XXI, Doc Con 2026, and, for the first time, The Shadow Con 2026. The program book for PulpFest is The Pulpster, and I have reviewed the latest one, No. 35.
Again for FarmerCon, the folks at Meteor House put out a program booklet, and I got a copy. It has several short articles, and a FarmerCon tradition is folks signing each other’s programs, which I think is a nice one.
The Doc Con folks had a flyer with events for that, as well as a pin and some stickers. They had shirts, but I’m not sure how you obtained them.
For The Shadow Con, the folks at The Shadowed Circle had a T-shirt you could order, along with a cobalt-blue pint glass and a neat idea with an ID card. Attend several The Shadow Con events, and I guess you get some kind of prize.
Overall, this was a great event. There were many dealers and attendees, almost 500 people, the largest ever. There were several new ones, and a few I wish had been there. I brought several books to be signed by authors there and got several new books there as well. I got quite a few new and used books and fanzines; the biggest was several back issues of Paperback Parade. The PulpFest site lists the many dealers and authors who were there, and there were a lot more this year.
Several BookTube folks were there, and I chatted with a few. They all have several videos on their trip to PulpFest and what they got. Just search for “PulpFest 2026” on YouTube, and you will find them. Several of the BookTubers contributed to a book, which I will be reviewing here: Weird Frequencies: Strange Stories by Stranger Authors.
I plan on attending next year’s event and encourage others to join us.
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