Steampunk festival creates an unlikely capital for Victorian style and sci-fi oddity in New Zealand

ŌAMARU, New Zealand (AP) — The woman in the pink frock coat announced herself as steam curled from a strange brass contraption on her back.

“I am Lady Sarsaparilla Ovabyte, of the Coventry Ovabytes,” she said. “We are purveyors of fine cordials.”

Her companion peered through glasses made from fused-together forks.

“Captain Bob McSpoon, inventrepreneur,” he said.

On a Victorian-era street in rural Ōamaru, New Zealand, Ovabyte and McSpoon, who usually go by Juliet and Greg Thorn, weren’t the only ones wearing goggles or forks, or emitting steam. They were in the small town to attend the annual steampunk festival, a four-day love letter to being as odd as possible, which draws thousands of visitors from around the country and abroad.

Steampunk fuses Victorian aesthetics and mechanics with a science fiction twist to create a parallel universe imagining what the age of steam might have produced if it had continued to the present day. The genre is limited only by imagination, and the weirder the better.

Steampunks pride themselves on a knack for recycling and DIY, honing skills in sewing, metalworking, hat-trimming and steam mechanics as they dream up fantastical personas with outfits to match. During the year, attendees are bricklayers, engineers, artists and farmers, with many describing themselves as normally shy or reserved. But they had come to the festival to be seen.

“The first time you dress up and go out in public is really scary and then people get such a buzz out of it,” Juliet Thorn said. “It’s so cool that you take on a different personality.”

In its 17th year, whole traditions and sporting codes have sprung up around the steampunk festival, which is among the world’s best-known.

Hundreds crowded into upstairs rooms and old community halls for steampunk-themed contests. They raced to dunk cookies in cups of tea and cram the soggy results into their mouths before their competitors. A parasol-dueling contest looked like competitive vogueing judged on speed and style.

Michele Cotten won a fashion show displaying wild and upcycled outfits that participants spent months finessing. Cotten fused steampunk with the Star Trek universe to create a hooped dress made in the style of a navy Starfleet uniform. It was rigged with Christmas lights to evoke a galaxy and Cotten, a crowd favorite, strutted and posed to whoops from onlookers.

Then there was the teapot racing, in which competitors sent remote-controlled vehicles mounted with teapots around a fiendish obstacle course to the gasps and groans of a watching crowd.

“If you go out of bounds, that’s a disqualification,” said Ross McKay, one of the sport’s creators, who dreamed it up with his late wife and a friend. He has since introduced teapot racing to other steampunk events worldwide.

“It’s lots of fun and the judges will take bribes,” he added.

When McKay’s wife showed him pictures of steampunks, he recalled thinking, “What a bunch of weirdos," but the self-confessed “history geek and science fiction nerd” found plenty to love about the genre. The retired banker was soon enrolled in night classes for sewing.

Now he is Captain Roscoe Dangerfield, Inspector of Nuisances to Her Majesty Queen Victoria III, which combines the historical element of a real Victorian job with the fiction of a monarch who never lived.

The steampunk community had become his tribe, he said.

Ōamaru is the placid home to 14,000 people and 3,000 endangered native penguins, the latter of which live at the far end of town in a colony so pungent it can be smelled from the hill above. The town on New Zealand’s South Island doesn’t feature the sweeping vistas popularized by the Lord of the Rings films, which bring tourists to nearby regions, and for years was mostly seen as a stopping point between the cities of Christchurch and Dunedin.

An architectural quirk has put Ōamaru on the map as what locals call the steampunk capital of the world. The town features a completely preserved Victorian street by the harbor, a legacy from the 19th century days when Ōamaru was a commercial and mercantile powerhouse as a departure point for meat, wool and grain exports from New Zealand to Britain.

The cream-colored stone buildings now form the backdrop for the festival's steampunk adventures. Later in the year the town also hosts a Victorian festival celebrating a historically accurate version of the era, with the events coexisting peacefully after the steampunks and Victorians decided the town was big enough for everyone.

Steampunk, a term coined in the 1980s, gives participants an opportunity to rewrite Victorian-era social conventions on the basis that if you are flying on a magic carpet or traveling through time, it doesn’t matter if you make the rest up.

“We’re an equal opportunity society,” said Iain Clark, who co-founded the festival and is widely known in the community as Agent Darling. “Women, unlike in Victorian times, can be anything. We have female engineers, captains of industry, captains of airships, adventurers, explorers, scientists.”

Sometimes all in the same week. Bringing a different outfit for each day of the event is common and fitting rooms at the festival’s headquarters allow for quick changes, with nothing strange enough to raise eyebrows.

In the street, a Star Wars trooper trudged past, followed by a pack of wolves. A French tourist nervously adjusting his crocheted and leather gloves was introduced to steampunk only three days earlier and immediately fell in love with the genre.

“You can be creative and you can be somebody else and no one cares,” said John Syben, who was attending his fourth festival.

His partner, Chris Sinclair, said the pair previously had been “far too tame, so we’ve gotten more and more outrageous every year.”

“There’s always someone who’s more nuts than you," she said.

Participants march in a parade at the Steampunk NZ Festival in Ōamaru, New Zealand, on May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

Steampunk NZ Festival attendees Fiona Hilton, left, Sandy Jones and Priscilla Martin, right, pose for a portrait during the annual event in Ōamaru, New Zealand, on May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

A participant rides a tractor during a parade at the Steampunk NZ Festival in Ōamaru, New Zealand, on May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

Steampunk NZ Festival attendees Juliet Thorn and Greg Thorn, dressed as their steampunk personas Lady Sarsaparilla Ovabyte and Captain Bob McSpoon, pose for a portrait during the annual event in Ōamaru, New Zealand, on May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

A participant reacts as he marches in a parade at the Steampunk NZ Festival in Ōamaru, New Zealand, on May 30 2026. (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

COLUMBIA, S.C (AP) — A South Carolina jury on Monday found a store owner not guilty of murder in the 2023 shooting of a Black 14-year-old.

The jury returned the verdict for Chikei Rick Chow. Chow, 61, who is Asian, shot Cyrus Carmack-Belton in the back after chasing him from his convenience store in Columbia. He maintained he acted to defend his son.

The killing sent waves of anguish and grief through the African American community in Richland County, where nearly half the population is Black.

After the verdict was read, sobs and cries of distress could be heard coming from Carmack-Belton’s family seated in the gallery. Chow sat silently frozen before slowly bowing his head onto his interlocked hands.

Defense lawyer Jack Swerling said they're very pleased with the verdict but also feel for Carmack-Belton's family.

“My heart goes out to them, but 14-year-old kid should not be roaming the streets of Columbia or South Carolina with semiautomatic pistol loaded and ready to fire,” he said.

Todd Rutherford, an attorney and representative in the South Carolina Legislature, stood next to Carmack-Belton’s father as he told reporters that they don't agree with the verdict.

“This makes us feel as if our children don't matter and they do,” he said. "This makes us feel like Cyrus' life didn't matter and it did."

Rutherford announced they will pursue a civil lawsuit.

“I've been practicing law for almost 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. I don't understand it,” he said.

Prosecutors and a defense lawyer in closing arguments painted different pictures of the 2023 shooting. Prosecutors said Chow acted in anger because he wrongly thought the teen had stolen four bottles of water from the store. A defense lawyer said Chow fired to defend his son only after the teen pointed a gun at him.

“This case is not about a shoplifter. This case is about a father who sees a gun pointed at his son and had to make a decision,” Defense attorney Shaun Kent told jurors during closing arguments. The defense attorney said Andy Chow testified that Carmack-Belton pointed a gun at him.

Prosecutors acknowledged Carmack-Belton had a semiautomatic pistol, but they say it fell on the ground during the chase, and he never threatened anyone with it. Prosecutors said Chow chased the teen more than 130 yards (119 meters) from the store.

Gipson told jurors that Chow “chased a kid down, shot him in the back.”

During closing arguments, Gipson placed a bottle of water before jurors. Gipson said that Chow “at the end of the day, believed that a human is not more than that.”

Gipson said multiple witnesses testified that they didn’t see anything in Carmack-Belton’s hands and didn’t see him point a gun as he ran from the store.

“Nobody testified that happened that doesn’t have the last name Chow,” Gipson said.

The fatal shooting prompted vigils and protests outside the store. Empty water bottles were arranged to spell out “Cyrus” at one 2023 vigil.

Defense attorney Shaun Kent speaks during closing arguments in the murder trial against Chikei Rick Chow, accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of a Black 14-year-old, Monday, June 1, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Chikei Rick Chow, a convenience store owner accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of a Black 14-year-old, is escorted out of the courtroom during closing arguments in his murder trial, Monday, June 1, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Solicitor Byron E. Gipson speaks during closing arguments in the murder trial against Chikei Rick Chow, a convenience store owner accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of a Black 14-year-old, Monday, June 1, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

An image of Cyrus Carmack-Belton is displayed in court during closing arguments in the murder trial against his shooter, Chikei Rick Chow, a convenience store owner accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of the 14-year-old, Monday, June 1, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Chikei Rick Chow, a convenience store owner accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of a Black 14-year-old, appears in court during closing arguments in his murder trial, Monday, June 1, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Andy Chow testifies as a defense witness in the murder trial against his father Chikei Rick Chow, accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of a Black 14-year-old, shown in the screen above, Friday, May 29, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Chikei Rick Chow, left, accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of a Black 14-year-old, is escorted in the courtroom during his murder trial, Friday, May 29, 2026, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)