Conventions

Salt Lake Comic Con 2016 Recap

This year’s Salt Lake Comic Con opened in the Vivint Smart Home Arena with Mark Hamill. Traditionally celebrity panels are held in the Grand Ballroom of the Salt Lake Convention Center, which accomodates around 5,000 people. This year two events (Mark Hamill and William Shatner) were moved to the Arena because it allows for up to 20,000 attendees and is located just west of the convention center.

Nothing definitive yet for the ongoing lawsuit between San Diego Comic-Con and Salt Lake Comic Con. The latest news reported in May says they are working towards a settlement and that a decision is expected to be made by mid-October.

Mark Hamill

There weren’t 20,000 people in attendance, but the lower bowl and the floor around the stage were almost completely full, with some people bleeding into the upper bowl. I heard one estimate that 10,000 were in attendance for Mark Hamill. Had the event been on Saturday instead of Thursday at 11:00am I’m sure it would have completely filled up, but as it was Mark Hamill had only one day in Salt Lake City before leaving to attend Fan Expo Canada the same weekend.

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Coverage of Salt Lake Comic Con 2016

It’s that time of year again (that time being all the time, it seems). Where 120,000 attendees will come out of the woodwork for Salt Lake Comic Con.

As always I will be attending the convention and checking out the panels and reporting back to you.

This year sees the introduction of the what I’m calling super attendance panels in the Vivinent Arena, allowing up to 20,000 participants to see Mark Hamill and William Shatner. In the past, the Grand Ballroom within the Salt Lake Convention Center was the largest panel space available, offering around 5000 seats. Whereas in the past people have had to stand in line for hours and sometimes still not get in to a particularly popular guest panel, the expectation is that anyone wishing to attend either of those panels should be able to.

The list of attendees is very broad (a full list can be seen here). If you have questions you might want addressed or specific celebrities or fandoms, please see my meta question. If they attend the press conference or I attend their panel, I might get a chance to ask them something.

Salt Lake Comic Con runs from Thursday September 1st through Saturday September 3rd.

Star Trek 50 Day 5: Getting deep into DS9, Star Trek writers reflect on the TNG era, and the Star Trek Rat Pack steals the show!

Star Trek 50 in Las Vegas!

Sunday, August 7th was the fifth and final day of the Star Trek 50th Anniversary Celebration here in Las Vegas. After the previous day’s three captains — Shatner, Bakula, and Mulgrew — in addition to Walter Koenig, Michael Westmore, and the crowd-pleasing Star Trek The Concert, one might wonder how Day 5 could hope to top all of that.

Quark's Bar

Upon arriving at Quark’s Bar this morning for some much-needed tea and coffee, it was clear that some of the festive spirit of the first four days had succumbed to the realization that the celebration was nearly over. There were hugs and even tears as some convention-goers were saying goodbye to friends, old and new, before rushing off to catch flights. The crowd of more than 6000 people who jammed themselves into yesterday’s Shatner session and last night’s Nevada Pops concert had been whittled down by Sunday travel plans (and perhaps also by raging hangovers), but it was nice to see that the Leonard Nimoy Theatre was still at near-capacity for the morning panel sessions.

Vendors' Area at Star Trek 50
Last chance to grab memorabilia or autographs from the Vendors’ Area!

Today’s programme had fewer items on it, but it was still an amazing day with some of the most candid and intense panel sessions of the entire convention — especially the incredible six-person DS9 session! You can read all about it below.

R2D2 at Star Trek 50
Characters from other franchises wishing Star Trek a happy 50th birthday…

(Coverage of previous days’ events can be found here.)

Day 5 Round-up

Q&A and Music with Casey Biggs (Damar, DS9) and Vaughn Armstrong (Admiral Forrest, Enterprise)

The day began with an energetic session with Casey Biggs and Vaughn Armstrong! Regarding Damar’s drink of choice, kanar, Biggs had this to say:

BIGGS: I want each of you to go home and pour yourself a two-and-a-half ounce glass of carob syrup. And pretend that you like it.

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Star Trek 50 Day 4: Captains Shatner, Bakula, and Mulgrew, Bakula’s talking to Fuller, more TNG stars, Walter Koenig, and Star Trek The Concert!

Today was one of the most anticipated days of the Star Trek 50th Anniversary Celebration here in Las Vegas!

Why? CAPTAINS! We had William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Scott Bakula (Captain Archer), and Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway) — not to mention Walter Koenig (Chekov, TOS) and Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Michael Dorn (Worf), and Marina Sirtis (Troi) from TNG!

The evening entertainment was provided by the The Nevada Pops performing Star Trek The Concert, a programme of instrumental music from TOS to the reboot films and everything in between!

It was a crazy, jam-packed day and you can read about it all below! The sessions were spell-binding for the most part, although I do take issue with the Jonathan Frakes / Michael Dorn / Marina Sirtis session, which I felt was unnecessarily combative with the audience. My recap of that is also below.

The sessions with Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula were fantastic, and there’s even a little something for Babylon 5, Quantum Leap, and Star Wars fans below!

(Coverage of previous days’ events can be found here.)

Star Trek 50 in Las Vegas!

Day 4 Round-up

Costume Parade / Contest!

We finally made it to the Costume Parade, where hundreds of cosplaying Star Trek fans, some in incredibly elaborate costumes, marched around the convention centre in the early morning and arranged themselves for a massive photo-op in the Leonard Nimoy Theatre.

One awesome costume I spotted today was a fan dressed up in a homemade but extremely accurate white engineering suit from the TOS films. Later, I saw a group of fans dressed as a Minions version of the TOS crew!

Later in the day, the Costume Contest took place, during which Terry Farrell (Dax, DS9) was a guest judge. Here are the winning efforts:

  • 4th Place: a pair of space jellyfish from TNG “Encounter at Farpoint”Space Jellies from "Encounter at Farpoint"!Jellyfish Aliens at Star Trek 50
  • 3rd Place: a TholianTholian!Tholian at Star Trek 50
  • 2nd Place: a couple of guys with phaser rifles dressed in the spacesuits from First Contact
    Assimilate This!
    “Assimilate this!”
    First Contact Costume at Star Trek 50
  • 1st Place: a little more obscure, the aliens from the end of TOS “Catspaw”Sylvia and Korob from "Catspaw"(Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to snap a photo of these costumes, but they were a nearly exact replica of the ones seen in the screenshot above.)

Michael Westmore Borgification Demonstration!

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