I’ve just finished the third day of my 5-day mission to bring you the best of the Star Trek 50th Anniversary celebration in Las Vegas!

Things are really heating up here! The festivities started early today with the Starfleet Academy Cheerleaders who gave us a pep rally as the crowds shuffled in for the morning programme. The Leonard Nimoy Theatre in the convention centre was bursting at the seams as attendees with weekend-only passes began to show up. At the high point, more than 5000 fans were packed into the theatre!

And today’s programme was nothing short of stellar, including:

• An announcement of a project that will release long-hidden missing footage and audio from The Original Series
• A deeply personal session with George Takei
• A rare convention appearance by Kirstie Alley
• A bunch of stars from TNG and Voyager with some hilarious interviews!
• An announcement of a forthcoming DS9 documentary with a plot for Season 8, Episode 1!

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

Day 3 Round-up

Costumes

My favourite costumes today were:

• A pair done up as the Borg Queen (complete with tubes in her occipital and parietal lobes and flashing LEDs embedded in her chest and abdomen) and the human skin-job Data from First Contact
• A fan costumed as Armus from TNG “Skin of Evil” (the black slime creature who killed Tasha Yar) — I’m not sure how this fan was able to breathe with the full-body shiny black plastic encasing him and so he gets extra kudos!

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The Star Trek 50th Anniversary Celebration continues in Las Vegas with Day 2 (Thursday)! On today’s menu were

• panel sessions featuring prominent guest stars from various Star Trek television incarnations over the years
• Michael and Denise Okuda, who were promoting a soon-to-be-released massive update of the Star Trek Encyclopedia
• Whoopi Goldberg, undeniably the highlight of the day!

The festive spirit was even more palpable today than yesterday, with participants continuing to arrive, bringing with them an increasing number and complexity of costumes, and musical acts such as The Roddenberries treating fans to impromptu gigs in the corridors! Not to mention the copiuous amounts of Romulan ale flowing at most times of day from Quark’s Bar….

Below, I’ll fill you in on what went on during the panel sessions and on some generally interesting things I spotted during the convention.

(For coverage of yesterday’s events, click here.)

Day 2 Round-up

Costumes

The concentration of costumes is increasing with each day as we approach Saturday’s Costume Parade. While I saw many notable ones on Day 2, the one that struck me the most was a fan done up as the injured Christopher Pike from TOS “The Menagerie”. Not only were his facial wounds a perfect match for those on Pike, the individual was confined inside a 23rd-Century wheelchair exactly like that seen in “The Menagerie”! The wheelchair was mobile and he was accompanied through the convention halls by a Talosian in equally perfect costume.

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As promised, here begins our coverage of the Star Trek 50th Anniversary Celebration in Las Vegas!

To ensure smooth access to the panel sessions and special events on Day 1, we took advantage of pre-registration the previous evening. Despite this, we were still faced with a depressingly long queue. We were rewarded for our wait with a surprise in our registration packs: a Star Trek 50 commemorative coin. This was a nice touch!

I rounded out the evening with a preview visit to the Vendors’ Area. Although the convention hadn’t officially begun, Garrett Wang (Harry Kim, Voyager) was already there manning his own table. I happily purchased a Captain Proton t-shirt from him while he complained at fans about not being promoted from ensign. Clearly, time doesn’t heal all wounds. He bid me farewell by offering me a “sci five” (a high-five in the shape of a Vulcan salute).

What struck me upon arriving at the convention centre is how broad the appeal of Star Trek is. People from all walks of life were lining up for their registration packages. I couldn’t count the languages I was hearing. There were couples, families, groups of friends, and (c’mon, it’s Star Trek) distinguished loners. There were elderly folks and children. There were Klingons and Romulans, Bajorans and Cardassians, all brought together in a mutual love of all things Trek.

Day 1 Round-up

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We’re in for an exciting five days: the Star Trek 50th Anniversary Celebration in Las Vegas!   Organized by Creation Entertainment, the fun starts on Wednesday 3 August and continues until Sunday August 7.

I, Praxis, will be your (un)official SFF:SE correspondent. That’s right: I’m here in Las Vegas and will be reporting on each day’s worth of Romulan Ale-fuelled debauchery. I’ll endeavour to deliver any juicy morsels of little-known Star Trek lore that happen to be uttered in the panel sessions and generally report on the goings-on in this sea of special guests, rabid fandom, costumes, and merch.

Speaking of guests, the list is nothing short of incredible. Apart from a few notable absences (Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks, unfortunately), nearly every living Star Trek actor will be present, including the indomitable William Shatner. We even have that poor guy who played Apollo in TOS whose nipples were taped over!

The full guest list is here.

I’ll also report any stray details regarding the new Star Trek TV series and upcoming films, should they be revealed.

So stay tuned over the next week as I provide your daily feed of Star Trek mania live from Las Vegas!

In the meantime, you can read about how a full-scale USS Enterprise had almost been built in downtown Vegas:

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