Convergence XXII New Orleans

Conceived in the dim ASCII past of the internet on alt.gothic, born into the world in Chicago in 1994, Convergence is North America's annual net.goth meetup and reunion, with bands and dancing. Convergence XXII will take place in New Orleans on March 25-27 of 2016, for the festival's third time in this city. As were C5 and C12, C22 in New Orleans will be held on Easter weekend, entirely avoiding the heat and humidity of summer in the South. Convergence's nighttime entertainment will be two nights of bands combined with net.goth and local DJs, a third night of simply DJs, and during the day we'll show off the beauty, magic and weirdness of the city during a very few planned daytime events (not so early you can't pry yourself out of bed yet).

Ticket prices are $43.50 including handling fees. Click the handy link to the left.

Hotel

You may lay your weary head down with the rising sun at the Astor Crowne Plaza, at the edge of the French Quarter on Canal St. between Royal and Bourbon. Built in the early 1900s, the Crowne Plaza is steps away from both the Canal St. and St. Charles streetcar lines. The link for C22 hotel reservations is below.

Rates at the Astor Crowne Plaza for our room block are, available only until Wednesday, March 2:
For single and double rooms: $149/night
Triple rooms: $169/night
Quad rooms: $189/night
The rates apply from March 23-March 29.
Until you arrive, please have a look around the hotel's web site. If you should have any difficulty booking through the Passkey system, please call the hotel's reservation desk directly at (877)408-9661.

C22 Block at Hotel

Venue

The main Convergence XXII nighttime events at Siberia, a rising institution in the St. Claude Avenue arts and entertainment district about a half mile outside the French Quarter.

Siberia has hosted - among many others - Velvet Acid Christ, Nekromantix, Voltaire, Ego Likeness, Jello Biafra, De/vision, Seabound, Covenant, Ayria, Android Lust, Haujobb, Projekt Pitchfork and too many other bands to list here.

It lies across the street from the All Ways Lounge (where we are pretty sure Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer met) and, in addition to being known as one of New Orleans' favorite live music venues, serves Slavic soul food until midnight. It has hosted most of New Orleans' gothic/industrial club nights and concerts for the last few years. For bar crawlers, we are working on adding concurrent and after-party space to C22 elsewhere on St. Claude as well as in the French Quarter.

Learn more

Committee

Here's some information about your C22 members:

Frank Schmidt

Frank is originally from - er - Cleveland, but has lived in New Orleans for the last nineteen years. He was a member of the Convergence 12 committee and has attended fourteen C*s so far.For the past ten years, he has been DJing in and around New Orleans and is one of the founders of Shadow Gallery, a more or less monthly club night since 2006. He is fond of both the Dark and Stormy and the Mojito. He was a scavenger hunt winner at C4, played the Cantina Band song on a kazoo from the main stage by particular invitation at C11, and DJed at C20.

Matthew Checki

Hailing from New York, DJ Sneauxball became professionally involved in New Orleans dark culture as a bartender at the Whirling Dervish at the age of 21, 8 years ago. Since then he co-founded Attrition Productions, the city's leading promotion/production team in the industrial genre. Throughout Attrition's 5 years of regular club events, he has also booked/produced shows including VNV Nation, Covenant (once during a hurricane), Projekt Pitchfork, Voltaire, De/Vision and My Life With the Thril Kill Kult. He has also spun shows including KMFDM, The Genitorturers and Chant.

Joanie Boucher

DJ Klaxon has been involved in New Orleans Alternative Nightlife since she moved to the city in the summer of 2000. Primarily working as a resident DJ at different clubs and events in New Orleans, she has also supported bands such as Das Ich, Assemblage 23, and played at multi-band local festivals and parties, including Convergence 12. She has also made guest appearances at events in various other cities. She began her involvement with live music promotion in 2004, booking bands such as the Cruxshadows and Haujobb. In 2010, she joined the Attrition team, New Orleans' largest promotional team in the Goth and Industrial genres, helping to host bands like Covenant, VNV Nation, Project Pitchfork, and many others. She enjoys travel, dining, and dystopian fantasy.

MattVaughn Black

A native and life long resident of New Orleeans, Mattvaughan is a 20 year veteran of the city's nightlife and entertainment business and is also the creator and leader of the Noisician Coalition.

Schedule

Date and Time	Description
Thursday, March 24
10 P.M. to very, very late:	unofficial pre-party at '80s night at One Eyed Jack's, 615 Toulouse
Friday, March 25
5:00 - 8:00 p.m.	Registration and laminate collection in the 2nd floor gallery area of the Crowne Plaza or, if available, the St. Charles Ballroom. Concurrent drinks at the hotel bar will be conveniently available.
9:00 p.m. - 4:00 a.m. (or later)	Pub crawl followed by dance party.
Saturday, March 26
Noon	Board streetcars and head uptown on the St. Charles Avenue line to Z'Otz Cafe for the formal mad tea (for those who are planning on attending the tea; tickets are in the tickets section for $25). Z'Otz is two blocks from the former Jimmy's, the venue for the Friday night events of the long-ago Convergence V. Those who made the trip then will recall the Streeetcar Named Despair.
5 p.m.	Guided liquor shopping excursion. It's not as though booze is hard to get in the French Quarter, but with our hard-won local knowledge we'll show you the best places.
9:00 p.m. - 4:00 a.m. (or later)	Goth/Punk live band karaoke by the Tomb of Nick Cage, The Sioxusie, The Smithsfists and Voltaire, followed by more dancing, at Siberia.
Sunday, March 27
Noon	Board a streetcar and go all the way up Canal St. to Metairie Cemetery for walking, picnicking and generally being people in (usually) black wandering around one of the Western Hemisphere's most spectacular necropolises. On your way back, stop at the Mortuary (4800 Canal St., a short walk from the cemetery) to get caught in the escape rooms. Drinks may be head across the street from the mortuary at a bar called the Beachcorner, which is neither on a beach nor a corner. Discuss. As this is Easter Sunday, you'll really want to catch your streetcar on time - one will not be along in another ten minutes - or get a cab.
9:00 p.m. - whenever	The Tomb of Nick Cage, Shock Patina and DJs at Siberia. Your tacky things, you put them on for the Stardust Moondog Ball. Wear your sleaziest, finest and/or classiest David Bowie-related outfit and dance until you can't to close out this year's Convergence.
Monday, March 28
9:30 p.m. - whenver	After-party in the front lounge of One Eyed Jack's, 615 Toulouse St.
Subject to change as Convergence XXII gets closer

Performers

Entertainers so far confirmed to perform at Convergence XXII include:

Voltaire - the renowned Aurelio Voltaire will be MCing the entire event as well as performing.

The Tomb of Nick Cage - a local death rock band hellbent on exposing the Illuminati conspiracy surrounding the pyramidal tomb of Nicolas Cage (we think), which may be visited in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 on Basin St. The Tob of Nick Cage will also be kicking off the weekend with you - if you're up to it - fronting the band while singing death rock and gothic favorites. Please email your requests to convergencexxii@gmail.com

Shock Patina

The Siouxsies - a five-Sioux tribute to Siouxsie and the Banshees

Tickets

Click the red pill to purchase tickets:

Prices are $35.00 for the entire weekend plus $8.50 in venue and handling fees. We're also selling Friday and Saturday-only tickets.

Tickets for the formal Mad Tea Party

...are closed. You're late! We'll see you there.

The CXXII formal tea party will be held at Zotz Cafe, 8210 Oak St. on Saturday, March 26 at 1:00 p.m. Zotz is a goth-owned business one block from the St. Charles Ave. streetcar line, so going to tea will also be the perfect reason to ride a 93-year-old streetcar down the most beautiful street anywhere. Zotz' full menu of green, black and herbal teas will be included along with tea sandwiches, pastries and other refinements.

Shirts

Sales for shirts are closed, however we'll still be able to take orders for them (cash only) at the event to be delivered to you on Sunday. Prices will be $17 for black and white shirts, $19 for color shirts with a $1 upcharge for sizes over XL. We're out of women's blank shirts, so any printed over the weekend will be unisex style.

DJs

Batty von Bats is the alias of Toronto based DJ and Promoter Ryan Cameron-Clark. Ryan has been promoting and DJing since 2007. He began in Ottawa, ON where he founded Death Disco which became the first and only weekly, weekend goth and industrial music night in the city's history. In 2013 he moved to Toronto and has worked as a special event DJing, spinning in support of a number of live bands while continuing to play special events. Starting in 2016, Batty von Bats has become a resident DJ at Coalition:TO for their Thursday night event Darkness Forever.

DJ Axis has been involved in the Tulsa local and regional scenes for 15+ years. He has been a part of several monthly events including Roadkill ('99), DYM ('02), Extinction ('04-06), Aftermath ('06-'09), Assimilation ('07-15), Resurextion ('14-present). He has done guest spots regionally at Darkness Resurrected and The Dark Room (Fayetteville, Ark), Assimilation OKC (Oklahoma City), and Hex (Springfield, Ms). He has spun at several conventions Tokyo In Tulsa (6 years), Sci Fi Horror Weekend (Tulsa-2 years), Horror Con (Tulsa-2 years), Drake Con (Rogers, Ark),

Heaven Malone has DJed a wide variety of events including Chicago's Bowie Ball, of which he is the foudner, Chicago Suicide Club (of which he is also the founder), Neo and Exit in Chicago, in support of Ministry, Daniel Ash, Echo & the Bunnymen, Philadelphia's Dracula Ball, and many others in the United States, Europe and India.

Edminister has been Djing nightclubs for nineteen years in Austin, Texas and surrounding areas, with a weekly residency for most of those years at Elysium (in Austin) and before that anywhere from 2-4 nights a week at Atomic Cafe where he was mentored by Billboard 100 DJ Randall Goodwin. He currently DJs at Elysium's Haven, a night focused primarily on industrial synthpop music and before that Elysium's Midwave, an oldschool mix of goth and industrial music.

Nephri began DJing at New Orleans' 'The Dungeon' and elsewhere in the city in 2005 and, after moving to Austin, began working at Elysium doing spots at Haven, and later her own event Dark Circles and her yearly Nightmare Before Christmas Ball. Among her other pursuits, she is a belly dance performer and teacher, having performed with Stoneburner and Voltaire in that capacity, and is currently producing a darkwave belly dance compilation CD. She is also the Seniorn Operations Manager (daytime) for DragonCon, is an Assistant Producer for the Austin Belly Dance Convention and also active with the New York Theatrical Belly Dance Conference.

LostTwistedSoul began spinning at the fetish event Elise’s Playground in 2005 at club Twiropa New Orleans playing retro, Gothic rock, industrial, synthpop, and EBM. After Hurricane Katrina, he relocated to Baton Rouge and began spinning with the local club night The Industry at the L-Bar. In 2010, The Industry moved to a new location and changed names to The Chamber, where he Currently DJs and co hosts alongside DJ FLYHAED (Hans Wax). Since then, he has spun at various events in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette, Shreveport, Pensacola and Chicago . He has supported Combichrist, Aesthetic Perfection, iVardensphere, Bella Morte, The Ludovico Technique, FaderHead, Assemblage 23, Christian Death ,69 Cats and Cyanotic.

voodoo (Hollywood/San Francisco/Seattle) has been spinning records since 1985 when he created the first Gothic club night in Santa Barbara CA. In addition to being the “voodoo” in popular San Francisco monthly House of Voodoo (1999-2010), he has entertained at major international festivals including Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Whitby Gothic Weekend, Black Sun, Dracula’s Ball, and of course, Convergence ((10, 12,14,16,18,20 & 21), and as a guest DJ at clubs all over the world. Currently based in Seattle, voodoo can be found at his weekly Glam Punk and Metal night, Burn, and at Goth/Industrial nights around town. voodoo had the pleasure of serving as committee chair for CXXI Hollywood and as chair for the ill-fated C8/SF bid, voodoo spins a mixture of gothic rock, classic industrial, deathrock, tanzmetal, darkwave and eighties, with a twist of glam thrown in for flava.

Schadenfreude has been DJing in New Orleans' clubs since 2004, driven by a pathologically tenacious desire to keep the gothic aesthetic in the goth scene and a total disinterest in what they've been calling EBM since about 1999. In 2006 he co-founded Shadow Gallery which, like V's underground home, attempts to keep alive the beautiful things that the soulless world outside forgets. The modern dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his reflection in a mirror. He has been been invited to spin at several other events in Louisiana and at Convergence 20. He has attended fourteen Convergences and has made a number of mash-ups.