Past Events

Past Events

In keeping with our ongoing mission to preserve the history of our Leather culture, and to promote the multiple, diverse voices representing the many paths of Leather, we strongly feel that we should record our own history of events and activities as the Foundation grows.  On the following pages you'll get at least a brief glimpse of what we've done and who we've shared our stories with.

Leather History Conference 2016


The Leather History Preservation Foundation was created to produce Leather History Conference 2016.  While the event was a success, it was to be the last Leather History Conference the Foundation would produce.

LHPW 2019 was moved back to October, this time the 25th through the 27th.  We moved to the Crowne Plaza - Atlanta Airport where we were greeted with smiles and open doors.  We lost attendance from 2018, with the change in location, but still more registered than for our inaugural 2017 event.  The event was cozy, and amazing!

Even though there were hopeful signs during 2021 that the COVID-19 pandemic was easing it's grip on the world, the Foundation Board did not feel it was safe to move forward with an event.  So many of our historians and attendees were in high risk demographic categories.  Age, immuno-compromised, underlying health conditions...  The risk of losing someone was too high.  Another year without LHPW.

LHPW 2020 was in the works, contract for the hotel was signed, historians were lined up, and then the worst pandemic in a century struck.  We hope and prayed for a miracle to happen, but it wasn't in the cards.  To keep our community as safe as possible, the Foundation board made the responsible decision to cancel LHPW 2020.

In 2022, we saw increasing rates of COVID-19 vaccinations and reducing numbers of cases.  The outlook was favorable for our event being late in the year.  After SELF and other events moved forward, and developed attendance polices requiring vaccinations or proof of negative test results within 72 hours of the event start, we felt the risk was acceptable, and LHPW 2022 happened.

And, we are incredibly proud that due to our No Vaccine, No Entry, No Exceptions policy, not one, single case of COVID was reported by any attendees following our event!

Leather History Preservation Weekend 2017 was held October 20 - 22, 2017.  It was a small, intimate event, and was a success by almost every metric we could measure.  It was the inaugural event for our vision, it won't be our last.

LHPW 2018 happened November 2 - 4, 2018, and returned to the same venue under new branding - the Red Lion Hotel High Point.  We grew our event in attendance and fun.  After three years at the same hotel, we had hoped for a long term contract.  But 2018 was to be our last event there.  2019 is bringing changes!