star trek convention dc

2024 Star Trek Conventions Dates & Schedule

The Star Trek fandom is strong and you can find Trekkies, cosplay, actors and toys at every almost every comic con. You are also very likely to run into William Shatner as he is super active in attending Star Trek events.

Upcoming Star Trek Conventions

Star trek day, star trek set tour trekonderoga event (ticonderoga, new york), star trek: the cruise, past star trek cons, *cancelled* star trek: mission seattle (washington), st-sf: trek to san francisco (california), stlv: 58-year mission tour / star trek convention (las vegas, nevada), about star trek.

Where is the biggest Star Trek convention? STLV: The 58-Year Mission is the biggest Star Trek convention. It is produced by Creation Entertainment and held annually in Las Vegas.

Is there a Star Trek Day 2023? Yes there is! Star Trek Day is September 8th every year. That day was chosen because on September 8, 1966, Star Trek debuted for the first time on television with “The Man Trap,” the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series .

Who is the most popular Star Trek character of all time? Here are StrawPoll’s top 5 ranking of Star Trek characters, based on thousands of fans from across the universe to vote for the most iconic Starfleet officers, beloved aliens, and unforgettable heroes. 1. Spock 2. Captain Kirk 3. Jean-Luc Picard 4. Data 5. Worf

Sci-fi Convention Schedule

• SciFiCons.com
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List of 2024 Worldwide Sci-Fi Conventions

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All events about Star Trek

Find all events with the cast or crew of Star Trek, classified in chronological order.

• Aug 29th 2025
• Destination (2025)
• Aug 6th 2025
• ST-LV: Trek to Vegas (2025)
• Las Vegas (NV)
• May 30th 2025
• Smoky Mountain Terror (2025)
• Multi-Fandom
• Mar 15th 2025
• Comic, Film & Manga Fest Rotterdam (2025)
• Feb 28th 2025
• Nerdi Gras (2025)
• Feb 23rd 2025
• Star Trek: The Cruise (2025)
• Feb 14th 2025
• Pensacon 2025
• Pensacola (FL)
• Feb 5th 2025
• Comic-Con: The Cruise (2025)
• Jan 17th 2025
• Albuquerque Comic Con (2025)
• Albuquerque
• Dec 14th 2024
• Anime 405 (December 2024)
• Oklahoma City
• Dec 13th 2024
• Christmas Con – New Jersey (2024)
• Edison (NJ)
• Dec 7th 2024
• German Film & Comic Con Winter Edition – Dortmund (2024)
• Dec 6th 2024
• GalaxyCon Columbus (2024)
• Columbus (Ohio)
• The Nostalgia Con – Houston (2024)
• Houston (TX)

Popular Series / Movies

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Popular Celebrities

• Steven Cree
• Lana Parrilla
• Richard Rankin
• Mark Sheppard
• Rob Benedict

Popular Locations

• United Kingdom
• Online / Virtual Convention

Conventions FAQ

What's a tv show / movie convention .

A convention is an event that usually takes place during two or three days and is dedicated to one or more anime, TV show(s), comics or movie(s).

Organized mainly by fans associations, conventions give fans the opportunity to participate in Q&A with the actors, take pictures with them, get autographs or spend a moment with them during a Meet & Greet.

A TV show, anime, comics or movie convention, is also the opportunity to participate to many activities during the event : quizz, lottery, karaoke... while meeting new people.

They also allow fans to chat with one another about a same center of interest and to return home with a lot of unforgettable memories.

How to participate in a convention ?

To attend a convention, you must purchase a pass from the convention organizer's ticketing website. Passes can give you access to one or more days, depending on which one you choose.

It's important to remember that you can't enter the convention without a pass.

In addition to passes, organizers sell extras for activities with guests. These may include photo ops, autograph sessions, meet and greets, and so on. These must be purchased in addition to the pass. If you bought extras without a pass, you won't be able to do them, and you've wasted money.

Star Trek Conventions

(See Star Trek for more on the show itself.)

Star Trek Lives! was one of the earliest and most influential Star Trek conventions . It was fan -run, with many members of the committee also active in the Lunarians and working on Lunacon . The convention was also known as the Star Trek Con , the Committee Con and as the International Star Trek Convention .

• 6.1 New York Star Trek '76

1969 [ edit ]

The first Star Trek convention we have a record of was a one-day affair announced by Brian Burley to be held Saturday, March 1, 1969 at the Newark Public Library in Newark, NJ .

1972 [ edit ]

The first convention by this group was held January 21–23, 1972, at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Manhattan and included as guests Gene Roddenberry, Majel Barrett, Isaac Asimov , Hal Clement and D. C. Fontana. The organizers expected 500 people, but 3,000 showed up leaving the committee alive, but overwhelmed.

The committee was:

• Al Schuster , Co-ordinator
• Elyse Pines , Program
• Joan Winston , Dealers Room , NASA Display, Signs
• Eileen Becker , Registration
• Allan Asherman , Art Show
• Deborah Langsam , Costume Call
• Joyce Yasner , Displays
• Devra Langsam , Slide Shows, Program Asst.
• Regina Gottesman , Hospitality
• Steve Rosenstein , Auctioneer , MC
• Stu Hellinger , Program Assistant
• Chris Steinbrunner / Chester Grabowski , Visuals

1973 [ edit ]

In 1973, the convention moved to the Commodore Hotel and attracted approximately 10,000 people to its convention on February 16–19.

Members of the committee for the 1973 convention were: Joan Winston , Elyse Rosenstein , Allen Asherman , Eileen Becker , Steve Rosenstein , Dana Anderson , Thom Anderson , Renee Bodner , Stu Hellinger , Devra Langsam , Deborah Langsam , Eileen Becker , Maureen Wilson , Joyce Yasner and Al Schuster . In later years, Barbara Wenk , Wendy Lindboe , Louise Sachter , Stuart Grossman , Claire Eddy , Diane Duane and David Simmons joined the committee.

1974 [ edit ]

International Star Trek Convention On February 15–18, 1974, the convention attracted between 10,000 and 14,000 people ( Locus reports 8,000-12,000) to the Americana Hotel, and and had to turn people away each day due to Fire Marshall concerns — causing at least one small riot in front of the hotel. There were complaints about the crush and the bad attitude of some committee members (a walk-out from the costume ball was triggered by a committee member cursing at one of the invited guests).

The problems in New York caused Equicon in Los Angeles to impose a membership cap.

The committee fissioned, leaving records in disarray. Shortly after the convention, the committee announced that they no longer had any connection with Al Schuster and "and and all future debts he may incur in the name of the Convention will not be paid or honored, and he no longer has any authority to incur expenses, arrange contracts or conduct business in the name of the convention." They also distinguished themselves as __The__ Star Trek Convention as opposed to Schuster 's __International__ Star Trek Convention . They also reported that they had "misplaced" their list of non-attending members in the 1974 convention and pre-registered members of the 1975 convention.

1975 [ edit ]

The 1975 convention at the Commodore Hotel was held February 14–17 and was chaired by Devra Langsam and was now called the Star Trek Convention . (Former chairman Al Schuster had started a rival convention running a month earlier which kept the name International Star Trek Convention .)

1976 [ edit ]

In 1976, the giant Star Trek conventions seemed to hit a wall: The Chicago Star Trek/Space Spectacular, "The Greatest Show Since Earth" was held in June. The committee did heavy advertising including TV spots, and had rented the Chicago Amphitheater, which seats 13,000. The got 200 people on Friday and 800 on Saturday and then cancelled the convention. They did not pay the stars who came and the convention was reported to have lost multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Other Star Trek conventions that failed in 1976 included the Boston Star Trek convention in April, a Tampa convention in June, and a Toledo Star Trek convention . The Toronto Star Trek convention lost money and the New York Star Trek Roast was cancelled "for lack of interest".

New York Star Trek '76 [ edit ]

New York Star Trek '76 attracted between 20,000 and 50,000 people according to the New York Times with many ticket holders being turned away when the facilities were completely swamped. (Its committee seems to have been entirely unprepared and quite disorganized.) The New York Attorney General investigated and both fan -run conventions ended.

Fanlore entry .

This had a fortunate side-effect in that it probably helped to kill the SF Expo , a convention planned for June of that year at the New York Hilton which was an attempt to create a regular SF convention on the scale of the Star Trek conventions.

If applicable, please include category Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Ireland, NZ, UK, US, ROW or World.

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Star Trek Lives! (convention)

Star Trek Lives! was a early and influential series of Star Trek conventions held in New York in 1972-1976.

These cons were created by "a small group of die-hard fans who were tired of being ignored and/or patronized at the regular science fiction conventions and decided to have one of their own. The rest is history." [1]

The first convention was held January 21-23, 1972 at the Statler Hilton and featured guests ( Gene Roddenberry , Majel Barrett , Isaac Asimov , Hal Clement and D.C. Fontana ), an art show , a costume call , NASA space displays (moon rocks and an astronaut suit), and a hospitality room . Episodes were also screened from 16mm prints, including the original pilot The Cage and a blooper reel . Devra Langsam , a member of The Committee wrote about this con extensively in Star Trek Convention, or, how I spent my vacation, or What would I have done for aggravation if I hadn't been helping run a convention? .

The phrase "Star Trek Lives!" was used on the flyers advertising the first convention in 1972 and was part of the Star Trek revival campaign undertaken by fans in the early 1970s.

The Individual Cons

Subpages for Star Trek Lives! (convention):

Quick Guide to Titles and Dates

• In the summer of 1971, the committee organized a meeting in "Brooklyn Collage's Gershwin Auditorium, which could barely house the turnout." [2]
• The International Star Trek Convention/Star Trek Lives! at the Statler Hilton Hotel, New York (January 21-23, 1972)
• The International Star Trek Convention at the Commodore Hotel. This was Leonard Nimoy's first convention appearance. (February 16-19, 1973)
• February 15-18, 1974 at the Americana Hotel, New York
• The Star Trek Convention at the Commodore Hotel, New York (February 14-17, 1975)
• The Star Trek Convention 1976 at the Commodore Hotel, New York (February 12-16, 1976)

For many years the event was simply referred to as "The Star Trek Convention" or the "Committee Con," the latter in reference to The Committee .

While Al Schuster was chair of The Committee (1972, 1973, 1974), it was also called the "International Star Trek Convention." Schuster took the name "International Star Trek Con" with him when he broke away to create Schuster Star Trek Conventions .

This con was also commonly referred to as FebCon .

As more conventions popped up in other cities and as the New York convention group split into two groups, the name "Star Trek Convention" became less unique. To avoid confusion with the overlapping names, "Star Trek Lives" has been selected for this article on Fanlore to refer to the series of New York Star Trek conventions before the split with Al Schuster.

Early, But, Not the Actual First

It is commonly believed that the 1972 convention was the very first Star Trek convention, but that honor goes to a smaller convention in 1969 held in Newark, New Jersey: Star Trek Con (1969 Star Trek con) . However, the 1972 convention was the first convention that had guests.

In the Planning: Late 1971

From an early flyer:

Make all checks,and money orders payable to Albert Schuster . Please do not send any Klingon Koins . Included in the program will be a talk on Mr. Spock by Dr. Isaac Asimov, and a discussion by members who have had the opportunity to visit the STAR TREK set, and watched the actual filming of the series. We have also approached several of the original cast and crew, and have invited them to attend. The regular program will include several slide shows . These will be based around various episodes of the show, as well as general information. Some of these have been presented in the past, and have been quite successful. We are still looking for additional items to include in the program. If you have a poem, story, essay, or idea which may apply, we would appreciate hearing of it. Please contact Devra Langsam ... We are hoping to obtain a number of STAR TREK episodes which will be shown as part of a film program, with the generous cooperation of Paramount Pictures Corp. Other items will include a display of two uniform shirts, a phaser, and several of the original tribbles. There will be a fairly comprehensive fanzine display, including ones both currently available, and discontinued. Some of these will be on sale at the convention. Also on display will be pieces of STAR TREK, and related jewelry crafted by individuals. For additional information, please contact Elyse S. Pines... The Art Show will be open to all areas of science fiction . The deadline for submission of material for display and/or sale is December 31, 1971. All inquiries and material should be directed to Allan Asherman ...Please do not send us any material until you have contacted us first. We are planning to have several industrial displays. We already have a tentative commitment from NASA to provide us with one. We are in the process of contacting severed, other companies in this regard. Any interested parties should contact Elyse S. Pines. All inquiries concerning any aspect of the program, displays, and the convention in general should be directed to Elyse S. Pines ... All specific questions and comments pertaining to areas outlined above should be addressed to the committee member named. We are looking forward to seeing you at the STAR TREK CONVENTION!

From a 1974 mainstream press article:

At the first New York based convention three years ago... the fans only totaled a paltry, by comparison, 2500. No one had counted on such a turn-out. Al Schuster, the organizer of the convention, and an entrepreneur, hadn't even originally planned on a "Star Trek" convention. "I did it for ego," he said. "You see, three years back I bid on the World Science Fiction Convention . A number of people bid on it, and my bid was too low, so I lost. But to prove I could do it, I had a "Star Trek" convention. It was supposed to be perhaps two hundred and fifty people, and instead 2500 people came. Since then, I couldn't care less about the Sci-Fi conventions because this is bigger than that ever was. [3]

The organizers of "Star Trek Lives!" anticipated only 500 attendees. When 3000 fans showed up, by the final day of the event registrars were issuing ID cards made from torn scraps of wrapping paper and some fans were let in for free: "We ran out of everything," Devra Langsam remembers. "We were cutting and sticking labels and pinning them on with straight pins." [4]

"....[They] had expected about 500 to attend the convention. But, four hours before it was officially due to start, [Al Schuster] looked around at the mob scene on the 18th floor [of the Statler Hilton Hotel] and said, 'It's wild. We're going to have at least 3,000 people here. They're coming in from all over, Arizona, California, Canada. There's a whole busload from Toronto.' [5]

An article in the Village Voice in 1972 describes the first convention:

"The convention was dreamed up and organized by three adult sci-fi freaks and show buffs, but it seemed to have been taken over completely by kids -- they manned most of the tables and did most of the trading. Few people over 16 were in sight, but there were plenty of 10- and even eight-year-olds lugging around huge suitcases crammed with treasured nuggets of Startrekia , and they approached the business at hand with the same circumspection that's evident at a big Parke-Bernet event. One pale, serious kid who looked about 11 approached another -- 'Aren't you that " Dark Shadows " freak?' 'Yeah. Got anything?' 'Some early glossies, to trade for Shatner shots only.' 'So, let's have a look." [6]

In spite of what the outside world thought about fandom , fans were ecstatic to be gathering:

"The auditorium had seating for 500 - and 1500 crowded in to hear Roddenberry speak. Yet the event never got out of hand; Trek fans have a reputation for being well behaved, if exuberant, and this proved that it is one they deserve. The mood was exhilarating, and when Roddenberry spoke, the crowd exploded. Even he was surprised at the amount of love and appreciation for the series that the fans gave him. At one point, the fans even burst out chanting “Star Trek lives!” Suddenly it seemed possible that the series wasn’t dead after all." [7]

One of the highlights of the convention was the fan built life size bridge of the Starship Enterprise. In his book "Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History", Robert Greenberger describes how fans disassembled the bridge, which was housed in update New York, and transported it down to Manhattan to be reassembled for the Committee conventions . Fans would photograph themselves on the bridge often wearing costumes.

The history of the convention was detailed in Joan Winston's 1977 essay So you want to have a "Star Trek" convention which was printed in the Starlog magazine. More history can be found in her New York Times Obituary in 2008. [8] Others have blogged about the convention here [9] and here . [10]

Even though the 1972 convention netted the organizers only $92.36 each (after expenses) [11] the organizers assembled for another, larger convention in 1973 and over 10,000 fans registered to attend. The Committee planned better in 1973, picking a larger hotel, The Commodore, and this second event was the first one that actors James Doohan and George Takei attended. Mr. Spock, aka Leonard Nimoy, made a surprise appearance - he happened to be in town - and was almost mobbed. [12] One fan has blogged about his recollections of attending the 1973 convention here . [13]

"The '74 con was too crowded - 10,000 to 14,000 attendees - the exact number is unknown as the Committee split off its Chairman after this one and the one who ran registration took the records with him. But, the crowding was so bad that Fire Marshalls became involved. The Committee was soon nicknamed The Coping Committee - they coped." [14]

Photos from the 1974 convention convention are archived here [15] and for the 1975 convention here . [16]

Renaming, and a Split

In 1973, the convention was retitled to the "International Star Trek Convention." This name would move on with Al Schuster when he split with the rest of the Committee in 1975.

After Schuster's departure, the convention was held three more times in 1974, 1975 and 1976.

In a flyer advertising the 1974 con, Al Schuster addressed attendance and financials:

This annual event has grown tremendously. Convention attendance in 1973 was more than double that of 1972. In order to serve the thousands of fans who wish to express their devotion to Star Trek, we have booked one of the largest, and certainly one of the best, hotels in New York - the fabulous Americana. Room rates are $21.00 for singles and $29.00 for doubles. Additional beds are $7.00 per night. Room reservation cards will be mailed out 3 months prior to the convention. Unfortunately, the large fee required to reserve this space, as well as other rising costs, necessitates raising advance convention membership to $4.00 as of June 20, 1973 to January 20, 1974. Convention membership will cost $7.00 after the latter date. The convention has not broken even for two years. We must make our expenses this year or face bankruptcy. [17]

In 2017, Devra Langsam , one the con's founders, commented on Schuster's divergence:

After the fourth year, we split. Renee Bodner went with Al Schuster , and all the rest of us stayed together and put on the one last convention. We knew at that point, we knew that it was going to be the last one because with two other competing conventions, we knew we couldn’t keep on. Aside from the fact that people had developed other interests and were not willing to devote the enormous amount of time that it required. [snipped] It was a financial discussion. There was a lot uncomfortable feeling about it, but at the time, we were all very angry, but we worked it out. We managed. We did the one last convention, and then we stopped. Airing dirty linen from 45 years ago never works. [18]

from Space-Time Continuum #5, 1974 statements by fans

The February 1975 convention returned to The Commodore Hotel with a new chairperson Devra Langsam under the name: "Star Trek Convention". Guests included William Shatner , Isaac Asimov, Majel Barrett , Hal Clement, David Gerrold , Devra Lansing, Gene Roddenberry , George Takei , and Bill Theiss, costume designer who brought with him costumes that he had fans model. This convention "was also crowded, more so because some sneaky kids teamed with a dishonest printer to sell counterfeit tickets."" [19] Al Shuster, the former "Committee" chair put on his own Star Trek convention a month earlier under the name " The International Star Trek Convention " at the Statler Hilton after having a falling out in 1974 with the original organizers which led to at least one lawsuit. [20] Al Schuster was able to secure William Shatner's attendance even though the 1975 Star Trek Convention had booked him to appear at their event one month later. Luckily, both events did well. [21]

The February 1976 convention was the last organized by 'The Committee' and opened at the Commodore Hotel under Thom Anderson as chairman. Over 5,000 fans attended and the overflow had to be turned away. [22] The Committee event faced stiff local competition with Al Schuster's International Star Trek Convention taking place in mid January 1976 and Lisa Boyton 's highly commercial event only two weeks later. [23]

Also by 1976, the 10th anniversary of the airing of the show, many more conventions began appearing across the country. [24] And, that year, Al Shuster put on his own 10th Anniversary convention held at - yes again - the Statler hotel in New York. Another fan led group, Tristar Industries based on Staten Island, sprang up and continued hosting Star Trek conventions in New York. They continued organizing conventions until 1982 when commercially run, for-profit conventions began taking over:

"The price of hotel space skyrocketed to the point many organizers couldn't afford "big city" hotels space anymore. Also, after 1979 and STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE, Trek became "hot" property again and Paramount Pictures, wanted a piece of the action in terms of licensing the very name "Star Trek" to a convention-which became an expensive proposition. Also, major "A" list guests started wanting astronomical fees for their appearances at such events, and many also declined going to them....it was around 1982, that Creation Conventions actually made a somewhat exclusive deal with Paramount to hold "Star Trek" conventions, much to the chagrin of the smaller local conventions which were being told by lawyers to no longer use "Star Trek" in their promotions or convention names. Creation went onto well into the 80's and 90's securing many if not all of the biggest names in all of the varying "Star Trek" series." [25]

In 1976, Gene Roddenberry commented on the "Star Trek Lives!," similar cons, and of profit:

SS: What kind of money is being transacted here at these conventions? GR: I understand that quite a lot of money has been made at the conventions. At Equicon , however, and the February "Committee" Convention, really with the amount of money that group who puts them on make, they could have done much better going out door-to-door to sell vacuum cleaners during the same amount of time it took them to put the whole thing together. [26]

Comments by Devra Langsam: 2016

In 2016, Devra Langsam said:

The fact that the conventions grew bigger and bigger was shocking. We had about fifteen people working on the Committee, of whom only five actually did most of the work. That's the way that goes—we had help from a friend who had access to a real computer, so we were able to computerize our mailing list long before anybody besides big companies ever dreamed of that, and we sent out a progress report, which is what the Worldcons do, saying, "Hey, look at this. We've invited this person to come, and he says he's going to come." We didn't say how much we had to pay him. The first convention was such a success, in terms of reaching people, that when we started to do the second one, we got a lot of people coming back. So it was like you had three weeks off and then you started all over again for the following year's convention. [27]

Comments by Devra Langsam: 2017

In 2017, Langsam said:

Elyse Pines and I were in one of our homes, looking through out slide collection, because I was going to do a slide presentation at the library to amuse the kids, and I wanted good shots of this and that. I had a poem that we were illustrating so we wanted to get good pictures that matched the poem, and we were going through hundreds and hundreds and thousands of slides in little cardboard folders, and one of us says to the other, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a convention like LunaCon that was only about Star Trek so we invite all of our friends, and we can talk about Star Trek, and nobody would look at us funny and say, “That’s not real science fiction ,” or “Why aren’t you talking about Asimov ?” And I said, “Well, yeah, that would be nice.” That was on the weekend, and on the following Thursday, Elyse called me and said, “We’ve got a printer and a hotel and everything,” and it just sort of grew from there. We got Joan Winston who was working for one of the networks in a secretarial position. We got Allan Asherman who was an artist, who was supposed to do the art show. We got Hal Clement to come and give a science talk. Hal liked Star Trek a lot. He was a professional author, a well-known and respected professional author. He was also an artist, and he was a science teacher. The man was a real triple threat person, and we got Isaac Asimov to come down and do a talk, and Joan contacted NASA and got us a real space ship, a real spacesuit, and a big exhibit with panels, showing different things about it, and we got Roddenberry . I don’t remember whether he brought the films that we showed, or whether they just came from Paramount, but we got actual film copies of the episodes, including the blooper reels , which I think that was the first place it was ever shown. And we got Phil Seuling who was a comic book seller to run the dealers room . He contacted people who had Star Trek stuff to sell. I think they must have been comics, hand-made phasers, and that kind of stuff. So we modeled it basically after the other conventions we knew, which were the science fiction conventions, so we had an art show , a dealers room, and a costume ball , and Linda Deneroff did a trivia contest, full of unspeakable questions I couldn’t answer because they were so tiny and specific, and had Al Schuster , and he was a professional printer, and he did the pocket program. And, as I said, at that time, it was very hard to get good pictures of the show, so we went through our slides, and he printed up a book that was entirely pictures from slides. There were the actors and some of the good shots from episodes. That was, of course, part of your loot when you became a convention member. You got the trivia questionnaire. You got the copy of the schedule. You got this beautiful book with a full-color cover, and you got a bumper sticker that said “ Star Trek Lives .” I think we must have gotten those from Roddenberry. And, so we did it. We rented the top floor of the Statler Hilton, which is currently the Hotel Pennsylvania, opposite Penn Station. It was rated for 1800 people. I think we had 32-3,400 people in there. We don’t know because on the last day, we stopped taking money at about 1:00 in the afternoon. We just said, “Write your name down and your address and put it in this box,” and somebody stole the box, so we don’t really know, but we had told all of our friends [inaudible] Lewis. “So you want to come to our convention.” “Yes!” Well, it so much in advance, and we had 800 advance registrations. I don’t remember who did the registration at the moment, but anyway, we thought probably the attendance would double because that’s what LunaCon usually did, so that we prepared for 2000, and we got somewhere between 32-3400 people. Just lucky that the Fire Marshall didn’t come because he would have closed us down in a heartbeat. And, afterward, we said, “Oh, this was wonderful! Let’s do it again!” Very stupid, but we did. We did it four more times.

A the end of the fourth convention, we had a big fight with Al Schuster , and we decided to split up, so he did his own convention the last year, and also a person named Sandra Boynton [ed: Lisa Boynton ], no relationship to the artist, did a convention, so there were three Star Trek conventions in New York City within three months. We still had 6000 people, and the second year we hired convention ladies to handle registration. That was a mercy. Wow. The first year, the actors came for nothing . After that, their agents said to them, “This is your job. You must get paid for it.” So, gradually, we started paying them, and what they wanted became bigger and bigger, and eventually, we were priced out of the market. We couldn’t handle it. We learned to print over what we thought we would get. We learned to have security guards so the actors were not overwhelmed by fans. Umm, we had enormous, long committee meetings where we screamed at each other, and then we all went and did the work anyway. We had parties where people came and stuck labels onto forthcoming convention booklets that we mailed out, and you had to sort them by zip code. This was—you could get it printed by the computer, but the computer wouldn’t sort it by zip code. You had to do that by hand. Arg. To be on the floor of Elyse’s house, surrounded by piles of stuff, sorting them into all the same zip code, the same first three, bundle it, put a label on it. That was a lot of work. And in the end, I think people had a pretty good time, but in the end, it was getting to the point where it was more work for us and less fun, and people were getting interested in other things, and it was too much work to be a hobby and too little money to be a job. There were 15 of us, and the amount of money we made, if you count all the hours I spent going through the mail and typing things into the computer, and all the hours that Joyce spent writing out registrations and stamping them with invisible ink and all the hours we spent stuffing the freebies, it was like five cents an hour. (laugh) Really not much money, and as I say, it wasn’t fun anymore. We had a good run, though. We did it

[The actors] came to our first convention, and I think we may have given them hotel rooms. After that, we started paying them a speaker’s fee and hotel room, and eventually, someone like Mr. Shatner would get his hotel room, a per diem, first-class airplane ticket, a limo to pick him up at the airport, and really, it just became uneconomical. There is kind of a catch-22 in this. If you want to have a big-name guest , you have to have a lot of money. You have to have a lot of attendees. If you have a lot of attendees, you need a large hotel room, a large hotel space, which is expensive, so you have to have a lot of attendees to pay for the hotel, to pay for the guests, and if you don’t, then you’re going to be in a bad way. So, you see what I mean? It just goes around and around and around, and you’re stuck. It comes down to that, yeah. We were a corporation, but we were supporting the corporation in some ways. At one point, I put up money for the hotel deposit because we just didn’t have it, because every year the money was just fed back into the next convention, and we just didn’t have it. At least [the actors must not have] hated it terribly because they kept on doing it, but um, I don’t know whether they enjoyed it. I really don’t. The first year, I think they were just overwhelmed that people were still interested in this show that they had done, that had been off the air for several years. It never was that popular in the Nielsen ratings, and they just couldn’t believe that there was so much interest, and that people had memorized all the dialogue, and I think that they were very pleased by it, but after a while, I think, after they done several conventions and other conventions in different parts of the country, it got to be sort of, “Well, this is just another gig.”

One year we had a song contest. We had a production of “ H.M.S. Trek-A-Star ,” which was done by a Dover High School group, and they were very good. We got them hotel rooms, and we paid for their costumes, and they came up and did the show. Before the show came on, we had a song contest, which had lots of entries. I don’t remember who played the piano and sang them, but some of them were very funny.... we didn’t have a lot of filk. At that point, filk, I think, was in straight science fiction. People were probably writing it, but we were not, it wasn’t part of the convention except for that one song contest. I think we printed the words of the winning songs and put them into the goodie bag , but I don’t remember entirely.

There was a costume ball . People came and presented their stuff, and there were some really, really good costumes. Amazing. Some people were just great copies of things that had been on the show, and some people — one person, I think it was Fern Marder — came as one of those spore plants from the episode where Spock falls in love. She came in, in this plant outfit. She stood on stage and she spat out a mouthful of confetti kind of stuff to imitate the plant throwing its spores at people. There was a boy, a young boy in a wheelchair, and his parents made him up as Captain Pike after he had been injured. That was tremendously effective. Then there were a million Mr. Spocks, and some of them were really, really not very well done, but that was—And we had a number of the actors as judges of the costumes, and I think that some of them were very fair, and some of them just were not, but... [snipped] There was a lady named Monica Miller who specialized in Vulcans, and she made ear tips that fastened on like an earring. She slid them over her ear and would squeeze them on at the bottom, and then she did the outfit, and she did ancient Vulcan priestesses. She was a very slender woman so she got away with somewhat revealing garments. They were really excellent designs. She was also an artist.

Nancy Kippax Remembers

Nancy Kippax has blogged extensively about her experiences at the series of New York conventions:

• Reminisce With Me/Conventions
• The Big New York Cons, Part I
• The Big New York Cons, Part II

Shirley Maiewski Remembers

From a 2000 letter to the Canadian zine Trexperts , Shirley Maiewski says:

It is hard to believe that it has been twenty-eight years since the very first all STAR TREK convention was held!... Since then there have been literally hundreds of them, all over the world. I was fortunate to have been one of those who went to that first one... The con, as they have been known ever since, was held on the top floor of the hotel— eighteen stories up. The Committee thought there might be about 800 people attend, but when they stopped counting on Sunday afternoon, there were over three thousand! And they realized they had something! Yes, it was crowded! The guests at the con were Gene Roddenberry , Majel Barrett Roddenberry, D.C. Fontana , Bjo Trimble , Richard Arnold and an exhibition of NASA material ... Others there were sci-fi writers Isaac Asimov and Hal Clement— both STAR TREK fans. One of the main attractions was the Dealers' Room , where one could buy all kinds of Trek mementos. One of the tables was run by Bjo Trimble. I had corresponded with her a couple of times and was so pleased to actually meet her at last. You may remember that Bjo was the one who started the letter-writing campaign that saved STAR TREK after its second season. I went up and introduced myself to her and before I knew it, I was helping her run her table! That's how things go at cons! Later on, Bjo closed her table and we went walking through a hall, when Bjo said, "There's Isaac Asimov. Want to meet him?" Of course I did and she introduced me to him. I had read his books for years and it was a great thrill to meet him. Not only meet him, but get kissed as well! Seems he always kissed ladies when he met them. Back to the con— D.C. Fontana gave a talk on how it was to write for the show and answered questions. One question asked was "What does the T stand for in Kirk's name?" That was never explained in the original series, you know. Dorothy came right back with "TIBERIUS!" Seems it was a nickname they used for Shatner on the set! Now you know! Another first at that con was the showing of the Blooper Reel — the out-takes from the shows. They played to a packed house, and you could not hear a line of dialog because of the screams of laughter!... The great thing about conventions is that you meet so many great people! ... Times have changed, of course— prices for one thing. As I recall, our room at the hotel cost something like $27 a night that time. The last con I went to in New York about three years ago I had to pay $127 a night! The tickets for that first con cost i3S0> [28] Nowadays they can run almost $100 if you want reserved seats. I seldom go anymore, Much as I'd like to, unless they are close to home. I do recommend them, however, go if you can! You will have fun. [29]

Attempts at Replacement

The cessation of "Star Trek Lives!" and Equicon created a hole in many fans' lives, and they either turned to the Schuster Star Trek Conventions , quit going to cons, turned towards smaller regional cons, or, in the case of the chair of August Party , attempted to created a new series of Star Trek cons. From a January 1978 appeal:

From Kolker's description in Ambrov Zeor #6 (January 1978):

Every year, science fiction fandom holds a World Science Fiction Convention . The site and committee for these conventions are picked by the fans themselves from among bids submitted by various groups in different cities. No matter how many other conventions are held through the year, this is the one central gathering for fans of science fiction and fantasy. There is no such gathering in STAR TREK fandom. In past years, fans east of the Mississippi routinely went to The Convention in New York while those west went to Equicon , but neither of those early conventions exist any more. Moreover large conventions have become almost the exclusive preserve of large commercial outfits, not connected to fandom other than in the fact they make money from it . Therefore I propose that fandom begin working on plans to take control of at least one convention back into its own hands. That we begin work on the World Star Trek Convention. Although details, of course, have to be ironed out, Washington's Birthday weekend has a certain amount of connection with fannish tradition and should be ideal for the convention. [30]

Articles, Meta, Further Reading

• Fantasy Boom: The Profits Are Real , Archived version by Paul Grimes, "New York Times" (May 30, 1976)
• So you want to have a "Star Trek" convention , by Joan Winston (January 1977)
• Memory Alpha Wiki's entry on the convention
• Joan Winston: Recollections and Tributes which discusses the convention
• Star Trek Lives! Star Trek convention timeline with photos [31]
• Newsweek's Collection of Photos from Star Trek conventions in the 1970s
• clipping from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune , February 29, 1976
• Star Trek Conventions in the Seventies posted on April 15, 2010 at the Base of Galactic forum (many photos) [32]
• Fanac's TrekCon Photo Album - Master Index (history and photos)
• 'Star Trek' fans eye convention by David George, The C-W  ?? 1973 (University of Alabama student newspaper)
• New York's Star Trek convention shows it's never been cooler to be a fan , Archived version , article about Star Trek: Mission New York con, includes recollections and photos of the "Star Trek Lives!" organizers (2016)
• The Early Days of Star Trek Conventions , Archived version , Robert Greenberger, unknown date
• Episode 71: Women of the First Conventions – Women at Warp , Archived version (2017)
• "Star Trek" enthusiasts also defined modern fanfiction and fan culture. Photo - Women who love ‘Star Trek’ are the reason that modern fandom exists , Archived version (2017)
• ^ from Star-Borne #5 (Jan/Feb 1973)
• ^ HISTORY-THE BEGINNING OF STAR TREK by Fraser Stone; reference link .
• ^ from "Making a Trek to See the Stars", an article by Peter David for "Philadelphia Inquirer," reprinted (with the content that was edited out of the mainstream press publication) in Space-Time Continuum #5 (April 1974)
• ^ True Trekkie: Joan Winston tribute unsigned and undated; WebCite . See also NPR's Star Trek Present At The Creation dated May 20, 2002.
• ^ TrekCon Photo Album - Master Index , Archived version .
• ^ Reprint of the January 27, 1972 article by Howard Smith & Sally Helgesen; WebCite .
• ^ 'Die Geschichte von Star Trek und den Fans' , dated 2001 by Frances McStea; WebCite .
• ^ Joan Winston Creator of the First 'Star Trek' Convention Dies at 77 , Archived version .
• ^ '1972 ST Convention Report' WebCite ; WebCite of pre-con article ; WebCite of the Monster Times post-con article .
• ^ STAR TREK - THE SEVENTIES: THE CONVENTIONS, THE FANS WebCite by BoG, April 15, 2010. Another fan has written up her recollections of the 1972 convention here ; however, she may be remembering a later event as she described the actors being present, which they were not at the 1972 convention; WebCite .
• ^ Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History By Robert Greenberger page 67.
• ^ Star Trek Conventions in the Seventies by BoG, April 15, 2010.
• ^ The First Star Trek Convention, or How I Got my Geek Cred WebCite , January 3, 2009.
• ^ Fanac's Star Trek Convention 1974 WebCite
• ^ Fanac's Star Trek Convention 1975 Page 2 WebCite here.
• ^ from an ad in James Doohan International Fan Club Newsletter (Oct/Nov 1973)
• ^ from Media Fandom Oral History Project Interview with Devra Langsam
• ^ Star Trek Conventions in the Seventies by BoG, April 15, 2010. See also Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History page 70 By Robert Greenberger.
• ^ Fanac's International Star Trek Convention 1975 ; see also an article detailing the fall-out and subsequent lawsuit in These are the Voyages newsletter.
• ^ Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History By Robert Greenberger.
• ^ magazine article about the 1976 convention .
• ^ Star Trek Promoters Out To Make A Fast Buck in the Lakeland Ledger dated Feb 22, 1976; reference link ; reference link .
• ^ Chicago hosted its first Star Trek convention in August of 1975, at the Conrad Hilton Hotel; 15,000 fans were estimated to show. Video footage can be found here . Read also Bob Eggleton's account of the 1978 Star Trek convention held at the Statler hotel here , Archived version .
• ^ STAR TREK 1978 posted dated December 20, 2008; reference link .
• ^ from Trek Times #2
• ^ from "The Fifty Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History" by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, published in 2016 by St. Martin's Press
• ^ Typo. If someone has this zine, will you correct it?
• ^ from Trexperts #91
• ^ from Rich Kolker in Ambrov Zeor #6
• ^ Timeline WebCite .
• ^ reference link .
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Star Trek convention

A typical Star Trek convention

Star Trek conventions are organized gatherings of Star Trek fans . The larger ones usually have stars and production staff speak or at least sign autographs. It is also common for there to be booths where vendors will sell Trek -related merchandise or collectors will sell and trade. Most of the formerly Trek -only conventions of the mid '90s have now expanded to include other sci-fi and fantasy series.

• 1.1 The first Star Trek convention
• 1.2 Star Trek 30: One Weekend On Earth
• 1.4 Creation conventions
• 1.5 Destination Star Trek
• 1.6 Vulkon conventions
• 2 Further reading
• 3 External links

Notable conventions [ ]

The first star trek convention [ ].

James Doohan speaks to the crowd at an early Star Trek convention

The convention held in New York from 21-23 January 1972 is often recognized as the first true Star Trek convention, even though Star Trek: The Original Series had already made its presence felt at earlier (as early as its second season , then still being in production, and ultimately leading up to the establishment of Lincoln Enterprises ), more generic science fiction conventions. The earliest known such presence was the 1–5 September 1966 " Tricon World Science Fiction Convention " in Cleveland, Ohio, where Gene Roddenberry promoted the new Star Trek series, slated to start airing the subsequent week, as well as presenting the audiences the first two pilot episodes for the series, " The Cage " (uncut original version) and " Where No Man Has Gone Before " (revised version, as this episode was already slated to air). ( The Star Trek Compendium , 1993, pp. 1-3) To this date, the franchise continues to make its presence felt outside the specialized Star Trek convention circuit as well, such as the hugely popular ComicCons .

The specialized "true" Star Trek conventions were started by a small group of Trekkies , commonly referred to as " The Committee " – not to be confused with the similarly named one, organized by Roddenberry and several science fiction writers in 1967, for the very first "save Star Trek " letter campaign ( not the famed 1968 one) – , who combined their money, and rented a hotel ballroom, in the hope of getting a group of like-minded fans together. Committee member Joan Winston , whose main responsibility was that of the dealer's room, gives a detailed account of the first convention in Star Trek Lives! . Other members included Allan Asherman , Eileen Becker, Elyse Pines, Steve Rosenstein and Al Schuster.

Although the original estimate of attendees was only a few hundred, several thousand had turned up before the end of the convention, which featured a program of events of an art show, costume contest, a display provided by NASA and a dealers room. Episodes were also screened from 16mm prints, including the original pilot " The Cage " and blooper reel. A number of Trek -connected guest speakers also attended including Trek 's creator, Gene Roddenberry, Majel Barrett , D.C. Fontana , as well as science fiction author Isaac Asimov . One of the most surprising guest speakers, had been former Desilu executive Oscar Katz in his one and only public Star Trek appearance, recounting the days when Roddenberry made his Star Trek is... pitch to him and his colleague Herb Solow and the subsequent efforts to sell the series to the networks. ( Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program , 2014, p. 3)

After this gathering, a series of annual events was organized, which soon included regular cast members, of which DeForest Kelley , Nichelle Nichols , Leonard Nimoy , George Takei , and James Doohan give their own account in the film Trekkies .

Star Trek 30: One Weekend On Earth [ ]

Star Trek 30 : One Weekend On Earth was held 7 September 1996 – 8 September 1996 in Huntsville, Alabama at the US Space and Rocket Center and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The event was attended by each of the casts and crews, including the entire cast of The Original Series – the last time they all appeared on stage together. This convention was also the last such event Star Trek 's licensing arm, then Viacom Consumer Products , directly produced. [1] (X) [2]

Denise Crosby speaks to the crowd at FedCon XI

FedCon, short for Federation Convention, is Europe's largest annual sci-fi convention, held in Bonn, Germany (occasionally it was held in Düsseldorf and Fulda). It started in 1992 as a pure Star Trek convention, but has expanded to include various other film and television series. The film Trekkies 2 visited FedCon XI (2003), and FedCon XV (2006) was also a stop on the international tour of the 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection exhibition. Attendance at FedCon XI averaged 5,000 per day.

Creation conventions [ ]

The Christie's auction exhibit at the 2006 Official Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas

Creation Entertainment was founded in 1971, and has been producing "traveling" Star Trek conventions for many years in cities all over North America and Great Britain. At the height of Star Trek 's popularity in the early to mid '90s, Creation was organizing 110 conventions per year, sometimes three in one weekend. They have a long licensing history with Paramount and Viacom Consumer Products, and have sold nearly US$12 million of official Trek merchandise. Creation started its association with Star Trek in 1991, when it attained a license from Paramount "for the production of film stills", encompassing a landmark agreement for the entire franchise that covered photos as well as a wide range of collectible souvenirs. [3]

The company became hosts of the annual Official Star Trek convention – first with the "Grand Slam" event each spring in Los Angeles and then Pasadena, California, which ran from 1993 to 2008, with a revival in 2013. A segment of Journey's End: The Saga of Star Trek: The Next Generation was filmed at the 1994 Grand Slam.

Beginning in 2002, Creation started a second annual convention at the Las Vegas Hilton (in conjunction with Star Trek: The Experience ) in August. By 2005, 15,000 people bought tickets to the convention. The event, often abbreviated to "VegasCon" or the hashtag #STLV, moved to the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino in 2011, two years after The Experience closed.

The 2006 40th anniversary convention was held in Las Vegas on 17 August through 20 August . It was a stop on the international tour of the 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection exhibition, and featured in the documentary Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier produced by The History Channel . For the 2011 45th anniversary , the 11 through 14 August Las Vegas convention [4] was preceded by two smaller ones in San Francisco (11-13 March [5] ) and Boston (15-17 [6] ). Five years later, the 50th anniversary convention was a complete sellout for the first time ever, and had expanded to five days, from 31 July through 4 August. [7]

The 2013 Vegas convention saw a world record attempt for the largest gathering of people in Star Trek costume. 1085 attendees, including guest Terry Farrell , beat the record established at Destination Star Trek London the previous year. [8]

Destination Star Trek [ ]

Running since 2012 on a biennial basis (with two events in 2014), Destination Star Trek is the official European Star Trek convention. The convention has taken place in London (twice), Birmingham (twice), and Frankfurt.

The 2012 event saw all five (at the time) TV captains appearing on stage together for the first time in Europe, [9] and was attended by 12,000 people. [10]

Vulkon conventions [ ]

Chris Avilla displaying some of his props at a Vulkon convention

Vulkon began running conventions in 1987 in places like Orlando, Cleveland, Houston, and Atlanta. Vulkon featured a banquet with the stars, a live DJ and dance on Saturday evenings, and a costume contest. Normaly two Vulkons were held each year in Orlando, Florida – one in the spring and one in the fall – with an average attendance of between 1,500 and 2,000 people. In late 2008, the company filed for bankruptcy and subsequently dissolved.

Chris Avilla was a Vulkon convention staffer before he became a prop maker for several Star Trek productions.

Further reading [ ]

• "The Conventions as Asimov Sees Them", Isaac Asimov , Starlog , issue 1, August 1976, p. 43
• "The Star Trek Bi-centennial-10 Convention" (Special section), Starlog , issue 3, January 1977, Joan Winston , Jim Burns, et al ., pp. 24-39
• The Making of the Trek Conventions , 1977
• "A Trek Cruise Down Memory Lane", Sue Uram, Cinefantastique , Vol 22 #3, 1991, pp. 19-22

External links [ ]

• Star Trek Conventions in the Seventies at Base of Galactic Science Fiction
• DestinationStarTrek.com - official website
• FedCon web site
• Vulkon Entertainment
• 1 Bell Riots
• 3 Daniels (Crewman)

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While the las vegas convention is over (and i'm still unpacking), it's time to look forward to the next thing., and while fan expo - canada wraps up aug 25, la comic con is rapidly approaching., do you have a genre con you want to promote, use the event calendar form to let me know, and i'll do my best to get it posted, be sure to check the events calendar for a curated list of upcoming events. i'm a bit behind, but updates are happening constantly..

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Published Jan 20, 2012

Celebrating 40 Years since Trek's 1st Convention

Where were YOU from Jan. 21-23, 1972? This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of what is considered the first-ever major convention devoted to Star Trek , the one that set the stage (and the bar) for everything that followed. It was held in New York City, at the Statler Hilton Hotel (now the Hotel Pennsylvania), spearheaded by a core group of devoted and ambitious fans dubbed The Committee, and far more people than anyone ever imagined turned out for the event. The legend goes that 500 people were expected to attend and more than 3,000 arrived to share in the fun, which included a dealers' room and appearances by Gene Roddenberry and Isaac Asimov. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of that landmark Star Trek convention, StarTrek.com invited two now-very-familiar Star Trek figures who were there to recount their memories of the experience: Howard Weinstein and Robert Greenberger.

HOWARD WEINSTEIN

Nope. I was not at Woodstock. But I was at that very first Star Trek Convention in 1972. Really. Honest! I don't recall how I even knew about it – probably from TV commercials I'd have seen during Channel 11's week-nightly Star Trek reruns in New York. Which means I probably didn't even hear about the convention until I came home for my college winter break a month before the convention would happen on January 21-23 in Manhattan. Luckily, my Christmas vacation included that weekend, and I decided I could not miss this event. I mean, it would probably be the one and only Star Trek convention ever held, right?

Since I lived on Long Island, I was just a 45-minute train ride from the city. And the convention would be at the mid-town Statler Hilton Hotel, across the street from the Long Island Railroad terminal at Penn Station. So getting there would be easy. But who'd go with me? Nobody, as it turned out. By the time that weekend rolled around, most of my friends were already back at school or not interested. Well, dammit, Jim! I wasn’t going to miss it, even if I had to go by myself – which I did on Sunday, the convention’s final day. By that time, the committee had famously run out of badges – and space: they’d expected a few hundred fans and stopped counting at around 3,000!

I think the con was on the hotel’s 18th floor, and Star Trek fans filled every square inch up there. I made one round of the dealers’ room, which was packed like a rush-hour subway train. As for the ballroom where the guests spoke and films were shown, I’m sure I never got a seat through the hours of listening to Gene Roddenberry and Isaac Asimov, and watching the infamous blooper reel (which was hilarious, and the first time I’d seen anything like that).

My specific memories of that day are fairly hazy, and influenced by reading accounts of the convention in TV Guide and books by the late Joan Winston, a funny lady who helped run all five original New York Trek cons and was a welcome fixture in fandom for decades after. And I didn’t get to another convention until 1976, when I began my own long run as a guest speaker after writing a 1974 episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series .

Little did we know what would follow that first organized outpouring of love and loyalty for Star Trek , which was nothing less than a revelation of epic proportions. I think that ‘72 convention – and the intrepid fans who conceived it – literally changed the face of television and how fans interact with (and influence) programs and movies they love. Even though I did nothing more than enjoy the fruits of their labor, I’m thrilled that I was present at the birth of something special.

Howard Weinstein is a longtime Star Trek writer and fan whose credits include the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode " The Pirates of Orion " and many Trek novels and comic books. He’s now a co-founding member of www.crazy8press.com , an Internet-based publisher selling new books directly to readers. You can find his blog HERE .

ROBERT GREENBERGER

Forty years later, I can’t recall how I first heard there was going to be Star Trek -specific convention. Being a part of New York fandom, I presume I heard about it from someone, most likely at the very first Creation con the previous November. Regardless, there was nothing stopping me, at 13, from taking the train from Long Island to Manhattan for the con. Accompanying me that Sunday was my cohort Jeff Strell and we were stunned. Previously, we walked across the street from Penn Station to the slightly run down Statler Hilton Hotel, home to the July 4 weekend Phil Seuling-run comic conventions, and had little trouble navigating our way. This was clearly something different.

It was packed. The corridors and programming room were jammed with people of all ages, sizes, and shapes. We paid our $2.50 and managed to join the throng and were able to make our way around. The NASA exhibit was kind of cool but I was there for Star Trek and was far from disappointed. We somehow managed to get seats and in my mind’s eye, we were far back and stage right, but could make out the speaker. He was talk, stocky, and soft-spoken, but I recognized Gene Roddenberry. He talked, answered questions and made us laugh. Then we saw some of the episodes Paramount had kindly sent along. Did I see the Blooper Reel for the first time? I know I saw it repeatedly during the five years The Committee ran those first cons but couldn’t swear it was at the first.

I do know I brushed close to Roddenberry in passing, but it was also the first con where I actually met and spoke to Isaac Asimov, who was always counted on to appear at NY-based events. He couldn’t have been friendlier even if I wasn’t a pretty girl.

It amazed me, like it did everyone else, that there were these many people interested in the television series. At the time, I was hooked thanks to the reruns on WPIX, but this was at a time where it was not unusual for most everyone in attendance to have actually watched the original airings. Like the few other cons I had been too, people were friendly, regardless of age or gender, and we could recite favorite lines, crack jokes, and share our passion without any consideration of negative reaction. It was festive and the high volume of people was a positive we all embraced.

The experience certainly hooked me and when I heard there was to be a second such show a year later, I made a point of going back, swearing to never miss a single day again. Nor did I, going on to volunteer for the final three of The Committee cons where I got to meet many people who became friends and colleagues I still talk to today.

Robert Greenberger went from con attendee to editor of DC Comics’ licensed Star Trek comic for eight years in addition to writing several Star Trek novels and short stories for Pocket Books.

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Conventions and Events

The annual Star Trek-themed convention returns to the Las Vegas Rio with William Shatner, Sonequa Martin-Green, George Takei, Anson Mount, Jeri Ryan & many more.

More than 160 cast and crew members from every iteration of Star Trek are set to warp into Las Vegas later this week for the largest annual convention of its kind — Creation Entertainment’s 57-Year Mission (formerly known as Star Trek Las Vegas ) kicks off this Thursday, August 3rd and runs through Sunday, August 6th. This year, the convention returns to its longtime home at the Rio All-Suites Hotel for four days of Star Trek panels, celebrity signings, and photo ops. Due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, the experience at this year’s event may be a bit different, with union actors and writers having some restrictions regarding the discussion of struck work.

This year’s headliners…

This year’s event will be headlined by William Shatner , George Takei, and Walter Koenig from The Original Series , Zachary Quinto from the Kelvin Timeline trilogy of Star Trek films, along with Anson Moun , Ethan Peck, and Paul Wesley from Strange New Worlds , Sonequa Martin-Green and Doug Jones from Discovery , and Jeri Ryan from Voyager and Picard .

Special events

In addition to the celebrity panels and vendors, this year’s convention will include a special Star Trek: The Next Generation reunion with Jonathan Frakes , Brent Spiner , LeVar Burton , Michael Dorn , Marina Sirtis , Gates McFadden , Denise Crosby, and John de Lancie . The TNG Reunion will be a separate ticketed event.

A Saturday Night Gala — featuring Greg Grunberg and Scott Grimes , along with special guests Isa Briones, Todd Stashwick, Anthony Rapp, Chase Masterson, and Tim Russ  will be included for Gold, Captain’s Chair, and Copper ticket packages but will also be available as a separate ticket for other convention guests.

Other events include a Thursday night dinner and comedy show with Rick Overton, Garrett Wang, and Bonnie Gordon, a discussion about the resurrection of the Enterprise-D bridge set for the third season of Star Trek: Picard with Dave Blass and Liz Kloczkowski , a Q&A session with Star Trek: Prodigy creators, Kevin and Dan Hageman , an update on the upcoming Star Trek: Voyager documentary To The Journey with director/producer David Zappone , editor Joe Kornbrodt , producers Lolita Fatjo and Ryan Husk , Thursday night karaoke hosted by Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating from Enterprise , Friday night karaoke hosted by Robert O’Reilly , a Star Trek art gallery showcasing the work of Kavita Maharaj, and free screenings of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , Star Trek: First Contact and Galaxy Quest .

More than 160 Star Trek guests

In addition to the headliners noted above, the 57-Year Mission will also include panels, photo ops and singings with Jonathan Frakes , Brent Spiner , LeVar Burton , Michael Dorn , Marina Sirtis , Gates McFadden , Denise Crosby, and John de Lancie from The Next Generation , Terry Farrell , Nana Visitor , Nicole de Boer , Armin Shimerman , Casey Biggs , Penny Johnson Jerald , Chase Masterson , Cirroc Lofton , Andrew Robinson , Max Grodenchik , Hana Hatae from Deep Space Nine , Robert Beltran , Tim Russ , Robert Picardo , Garrett Wang , John Billingsley from Voyager , Connor Trinneer , Dominic Keating , Linda Park , Anthony Montgomery , and Gary Graham from Enterprise , Doug Jones , Wilson Cruz , Anthony Rapp , Mary Wiseman, and Mary Chieffo from Discovery , Celia Rose Gooding , Jess Bush , Melissa Navia , Bruce Horak from Strange New Worlds , Todd Stashwick , Michelle Hurd , Jonathan Del Arco , Isa Briones , Ed Speleers from Picard , Tawny Newsome from Lower Decks , and more.

We are delighted to welcome to the STLV: 57-Year Mission Convention one of our favorite actors on the scene — Zachary Quinto! Zachary will be appearing at STLV 2023 on Sunday, taking photo ops – including a duo with Ethan Peck! #STLV https://t.co/eJoiATTiUK pic.twitter.com/Qb3b4qmCmh — Creation Entertainment (@CreationEnt) July 28, 2023

While Gold and Captain’s Chair tickets are now sold out, Copper, weekend general admission, and single-day tickets are still available. Ticket options are expected to be available at the door as well.

For more information along with a full list of guests, visit CreationEnt.com .

Be sure to follow TrekNews.net on  Twitter ,  Facebook , and  Instagram as we’ll have boots on the ground in Las Vegas and will be bringing you live updates throughout the four-day convention.

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We’ve heard from several sources that CBS has long been interested in taking Star Trek conventions in a new direction, and after their first trial run with ReedPop in 2016 — and after Star Trek convention licensee Creation Entertainment’s rights to the “Official  Star Trek Convention” title expired in 2019 — it seems the new  Trek convention experience will make its splash next year.

There’s no word on ticket pricing or availability yet — it is a year away, and subject to (potential) changes due to any lingering pandemic issues at that point — but as soon as more news about the second  Star Trek: Missions convention is available, you’ll find it here at TrekCore.

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New Official Star Trek Convention Announced For April 2022 In Chicago

| April 5, 2021 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 16 comments so far

Today CBS and Paramount+ turned First Contact Day into a big virtual event with a series of panels, announcements and events. But they have something even bigger in mind for next year.

Star Trek: Mission Chicago 2022

The final announcement coming during the virtual First Contact Day event was for the return of the official Star Trek convention as a live in-person event. ReedPop, one of the world’s leading producers of pop culture events, announced today that they are joining forces with ViacomCBS Consumer Products as the official convention partner for the Star Trek franchise. The partnership will kick off in 2022 with an all-new event – Star Trek : Mission Chicago, a three-day “immersive experience” that will take place at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center from April 8 – 10, 2022.

Star Trek: Mission Chicago will feature celebrity guests, interactive exhibits, exclusive merchandise, photo opportunities, costume exhibits, autograph sessions, gameplay and other “special surprises.” Reed Pop promises “Mission Chicago will give fans the opportunity to boldly explore the past, present and future of the franchise, while embracing the ideals of a diverse and inclusive future that remains at the center of Gene Roddenberry’s beloved creation.”

McCormick Place Convention Center

New cities every year

Following the inaugural event in Chicago, future “Star Trek: Missions” will travel to a new city each year.

“The Star Trek franchise has one of the most passionate and spirited fan bases out there, and we at ReedPop are excited to welcome them and ViacomCBS Consumer Products into our family,” said Lance Fensterman, Global President of ReedPop. “Together we plan to give the fans an incredible experience to remember and I speak for all of us at ReedPop when I say that we can’t wait to experience the energy that Star Trek fans will bring to Chicago next April.”

Veronica Hart, executive vice president, global franchise management, ViacomCBS Consumer Products added, “As the Star Trek franchise continues to grow and evolve, so too is our convention business evolving. We are excited to partner with ReedPop as our official Star Trek convention partner to take this next step in creating an event that will introduce the Trek experience to loyal and new fans alike each year.”

Reed Pop previously ran the official Star Trek Mission: New York convention in 2016. Other pop culture events they manage include Star Wars Celebration, New York Comic Con, Emerald City Comic Con, and Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo.

Rene Auberjonois, Terry Farrell and Michael Dorn at the DS9 Panel at Mission: New York 2016

For more information and updates on Star Trek: Mission Chicago, please visit www.startrekmissions.com .

First Contact Day wraps up… for now

This is the final First Contact Day official announcement. However, TrekMovie will have more coverage of today’s panels along with analysis of the new trailers and more. We will also dedicate this Friday’s episode of our All Access Star Trek podcast entirely to discussing everything from today. So stay tuned to TrekMovie for our full First Contact Day coverage .

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Chicago is a nice town and loads of fun, but not Vegas. Oh well we shall see how it goes. SPOILER FREE – As for all the news today, hope Trekmovie will soon be reviewing all the latest from Picard to Discovery. LLAP everyone.

It’s closer to the center of the country and has more culture and less glitz than Vegas. I’d MUCH rather go to Chicago!

I live in chicago. I’ve been to Vegas. I’d rather be here.

Chicago produced the best actor to play Kirk ever… John Belushi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0xOgFDXFg

From this summer onward’s, looks like there will be star trek every week, back to back starting with Prodigy/lower decks S2 followed by Discovery S4, Picard S2 and Strange New Worlds.

That’s a whole year of trek

And a whole Yr of people paying for Paramount+

A whole year of me HAPPILY paying for Paramount+ :-)

I feel similarly. If my year-long subscription helps enable them to make year-round Trek, then frankly I’m honored to do my part haha. It’s so much more of a direct consumer-producer interaction than what aired television allows for.

I’m (mostly) thrilled by all the First Contact Day announcements. I’ll hope to be able to get to Chicago next year. All the trailers looked great. I’m just a little disappointed we’ll have to wait until August for new Star Trek. I was kind of hoping they would announce a new run of Short Treks to tide us over until the next season of Lower Decks.

No doubt Reedpop gets a big boost because of the partnership with CBS/Paramount so that means they have all the exclusive props, costumes, displays, etc for use rather than Creations Ent once they lost the licencing for Trek. Thus the reason the current 55 year Mission shows photos of the actors out of costume. CBS-Paramount controls all Trek characters, but not the actors. Moving around the country, is not a bad idea but it comes with its own issues. Vegas has the advantage (IMO) that there are thousands of hotel rooms varying in price, fans and actors like to go there, gambling if you are into that, those pool parties and great food choices. Having it in other cities will give a lot of local fans a chance to attend who may not or could not go Vegas. The only disadvantage, if you can call it that, is it will be 3 days instead of the 5 day Creations has been doing since 2015 due to the massive amounts of things to see and do. But on the other hand Creations started out with 3 days with the Grand Slam’s in Burbank, CA we went to. While I am happy to see any Trek Cons, we will have to give it a chance and see how this works out. At least in Chicago it will allow me the opportunity to see my cousins.

Another big advantage of Las Vegas is that the actors really like going there. Most of them are LA based, so Vegas is easy to get to. And for the bigger names, it is easier for them to head out to restaurants and nightspots without being recognized in Vegas.

However, an April convention works well for those actors who are in regular network shows. Filming is usually done for the season by the end of March. Perhaps this is not as big of an issue with more television production occurring at more times of the year (and in different countries).

The 2016 ReedPop convention in New York was not as well attended as hoped. But now there is far more Trek in production, so that will make the new Chicago con an interesting test case.

I am curious why CBS/Paramount decided to pull the license from Creation. While not perfect, Creation has kept the Trek convention experience going for decades.

I’m sad they haven’t repeated the Mission New York form of this… but with how small the turnout was compared to NYCC I can see why they would move to a different city to try the format again.

One of the big challenges for Mission New York was the timing. It was announced several months before the actual convention date. It was also scheduled just four weeks after the big Vegas con. Further, it was scheduled on the same weekend as several other bigger conventions in Toronto and Atlanta. So there was too much competition.

By announcing this a year in advance and not scheduling it when other big conventions are happening, it will have a better chance to differentiate itself.

CBS/Paramount wants to have this be the big, official Trek convention for the year. And it plans to move it around like the Star Wars Celebration convention does. So it is likely that it will be back in New York at some future date.

Like Star Wars Celebration, I expect all future Trek announcements will be made at this convention instead of STLV and SDCC.

New York is also just a tough market to break into financially. Wizard World (known for their touring) Comic Con did a New York stop and have not been back since because the cost of space VS attendance is not sustainable now when starting out.

NYCC lucked out getting sponsored by AMC/The Walking Dead at a time when they could still continue to grow. I’m guessing ReedPop thought the same type of rapid growth might come with Star Trek when they did Mission New York. But Mission NY was kind of depressing to go to knowing what NYCC is like- NYCC is so packed that it fills Javits entirely + takes up half the west side of Manhattan at various other venues including MSG… Mission NY was half the main floor of Javits + a handful of rooms downstairs… which were empty along with the halls… that honestly surprised me at the time.

Have the prices been posted, and do we know when the tickets go on sale?