Clockwork Carnival in Atlanta was Hot, Hot, Hot!

Saturday night The Artifice Club and local DJ and Steampunk personality Doctor Q brought The Clockwork Carnival to local artist colony and event venue The Goat Farm in downtown Atlanta.

The Goat Farm was a great place for a Steampunk event. Steampunk blends Victorian and futuristic elements to create a sort of alternate history based very loosely on the Industrial Revolution and the use of steam power. It provides a great chance to dress up and have some fun, and there's a great emphasis on goggles and gears. The Goat Farm is a series of former warehouses, with old brick, lots of broken windows and a fantastic industrial ambiance. Lots of artists have studios and bands have practice spaces there, and the amosphere was perfect for the Carnival.

And the Clockwork Carnival was a true spectacle and prime entertainment from the start. With great music, a giant ostrich, jugglers, a beautiful aerialist, strolling performers, and lots and lots of acts involving fire, it was both literally and figuratively hot!

With the exception of the aerial work of Sadie Hawkins, who is both beautiful and almost impossibly dexterous in the air, and the hilarious antics of Thimblerig Circus (in which the humor almost made you forget that they were doing real skilled acts like walking on glass, juggling, and lying on beds of nails,) every act involved fire of some sort, from swallowing it to fencing with it to dancing with it, The main fire acts were Burning Desire Fire Theater and Hot Toddies Flaming Cabaret, but even the side acts performed by the Imperial Opa Circus, incorporated fire. Most of the acts were mesmerizing and beautiful to watch even beyond the primal thrill provided by all that flame.

Add to all of this the spinning talents of Doctor Q and The Davenport Sisters, who, along with the Snatchov Orchestra, provided just the right music before, during and between acts, and the Clockwork Carnival was, hands down, the best Carnival entertainment I have ever seen.

Kudos to Doctor Q and The Artifice Club. If you have the opportunity to attend one of their events in the future, or to experience any of the acts mentioned in t his article, be prepared to be thrilled, amazed and thoroughly entertained!