Utopiacon isn’t quite like Comic-Con, but if you don’t have the money to travel to San Diego or New York but still want to publicly get your geek on (and we mean that in the most positive sense), Utopiacon could make for a nice alternative.

Cory Tilbrook, co-host of Utopiacon, is one of many sci-fi/fantasy fans who attended similar conventions and came away wishing it had more of this and less of that. Unlike those many fans, she did something about it.

The result will be held this weekend in downtown Cincinnati.

“It (Utopiacon) brings together a lot of the genres that I enjoy,” Tilbrook said. “It has an older feel (than Comic-Con), more like a Renaissance festival. There’s a spiritual aspect to it, and there’s lots of crossover.”

The main subgenres represented at Utopiacon will be gothic, medieval, faerie, Celtic, tribal, pirate and steampunk, which can be either steam-powered technology in a fantasy setting or fantastical steam-powered gadgetry in a historical setting. (Two examples, respectively, are World of Warcraft and “Wild, Wild West.”)

Daily activities will include exhibitor shopping, an art contest, Halloween trick-or-treating for kids, authors, paranormal investigators, workshops and gaming. Of the 5,000 square feet devoted to the latter, there will be several role-playing and card game tournaments, including the classic Dungeons and Dragons and more recent popular phenomena such as Magic: The Gathering, a card game that first rose to prominence in the 1990s.

“(Magic) is hanging in there. It’s still popular,” Tilbrook said. “It’s changed a lot. I don’t think any of my cards are relevant anymore.”

On Saturday night in Fountain Square, Utopiacon will be throwing its Jubilee masquerade ball, featuring fire artistry and scores of costumed revelers. As Tilbrook wanted her festival to emphasize performance, there will also be three stages, occupied throughout all three days of the event.

The entertainment lineup will be diverse, including not only music but also fire hoops, tribal belly dancing and the juggling of sharp, medieval instruments. It will also include one musical group that doesn’t sing in any language on Earth.

Il Troubadore: The Klingon Music Project performs not only in the tongue of Captain Kirk’s notorious nemeses but also in Huttese (“Star Wars”) and Fremen (“Dune”). While it is commonly known that there are experts in the Klingon language, experts in Klingon music is a more recent pop-culture phenomenon.

“There are maybe a few dozen who are fluent in Klingon,” said Jon Silpayamanant, cellist and principal composer for Il Troubadore, “while hundreds more know enough to say, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ One of the reasons we’re doing music is because nobody else is. We’re the first.”

Il Troubadore is typically a four-piece, with a mandolinist, a main vocalist and a drummer to accompany Silpayamanant’s cello. (It was the group’s use of classical stringed and percussion instruments that made them favorable to Utopiacon). Unsurprisingly, Silpayamanant said that Klingon music tends to be harsh and abrasive.

“There are a lot of battle songs and drinking songs,” he said. “The tonal system is a little controversial. They don’t use the same scale as here on Earth. To a human ear, it might sound out of tune.”

Oddly enough, Silpayamanant said he was never much of a Trekkie, generally preferring fantasy to science fiction.

“I liked it whenever I saw it, but it was never something I went out of my way to do,” he said. “I had to do a lot of boning up, especially since I knew I’d be dealing with the fan community, which has been following ‘Star Trek’ for decades. I started re-watching everything and reading the books.”

Silpayamanant holds a bachelor’s degree in music performance, and teaches music and cello. He works a good deal with youth orchestras. “I never thought I’d be a Klingon cellist,” he said.