After a successful stint in Liverpool last month, the David Bowie World Fan Convention has announced it will come stateside in 2023 - setting up shop at the New York City venue Terminal 5 on June 17 and 18, 2023,
Details are still TBA, but the Liverpool edition featured story telling with multiple Bowie collaborators, live Bowie tribute sets, the Bowie Ball, and more.
The event's press release reads:
The next convention coincides with both the 40th Anniversary of the release of Bowie’s transformative album Let’s Dance and half-century since the release of the equally iconic, Aladdin Sane. Organizers are planning for both albums to get star treatment over the course of the weekend.
Hell’s Kitchen’s Terminal 5 venue has been confirmed as the setting for the next convention, utilising the innovative, multi-level and multi-environment venue for the convention’s range of talks, meet-and-greets, live performances and, of course, the showstopping Bowie Ball.
Limited VIP Tickets will afford fans the opportunity to visit key New York City locations linked to Bowie’s work and his life living there including Andy Warhol’s Factory, CBGB and Max’s Kansas City venues and Bowie’s apartment with more to be announced.
A specially-published #BowieCon23 map also puts attendees in charge of their own route around the city.
[...] Dave Pichilingi, Co-Founder of the David Bowie World Fan Convention, says: “Taking the David Bowie World Fan Convention to New York is to take the story to the heart of his story, with the recording of albums including those later-life classics, The Next Day and Blackstar, as well as Let’s Dance and Never Let Me Down all being rooted in the city. This year’s event proved the status of musicians, photographers, filmmakers, and other high-profile Bowie collaborators that this event can attract and New York will certainly be no different.”
A sell-out success in its first year, the convention, a collaboration between the Sound City music festival and the influential David Bowie Glamour fanzine, brought together an enviable list of participants, including (but not limited to) guitarist, Carlos Alomar and Young Americans vocalist, Robin Clark. Amongst their incredible stories, told to a packed room of hundreds, was the tale of their first meeting with Bowie in New York itself, the home-cooked dinner for the emaciated star that followed, and Bowie’s later return for the 'Fame' sessions with John Lennon in tow.
Celebrating the news that the convention is to visit his home city next time around, Alomar said: “The British are coming!!! The British are coming!!! Yes, indeed, they are. The David Bowie World Fan Convention 2023 is coming, and there’s no better way to celebrate the life and works of David Bowie than to get together in New York City, a place where David and I recorded so much great material and a place we both called home. This couldn’t be more appropriate or exciting. This thing just gets bigger …and better.”
Further, prestigious guests included bass player, Gail Ann Dorsey, Blackstar collaborator Donny McCaslin and the last surviving member of the Spiders from Mars, Woody Woodmansey. They joined fans, panel moderator and author, Nicholas Pegg, as well influential photographers, video makers and artists known-by and inspired-by Bowie in Liverpool for the three-day celebration of the legendary musician’s life and work.
The scenes witnessed in Liverpool did justice to the memory of the man everyone had gathered to celebrate, with bands including Rebel Heroes and The London Boys lining up for faithful live recreations of his most famous recorded work, while a carefully curated selection of performance artists made wild and wonderful interpretations come to life at the dress-up-and-dance Bowie Ball. Taking place at the ornate St George’s Hall in the center of Liverpool, the ball – which will return to the NYC event in 2023 – saw face-painted Aladdin Sanes, hair-streaked Let’s Dance-era Bowies, and more than one Ziggy Stardust in attendance.
