June 28, 1990
Dear Everyone:
Well, “Jeannie” and I went to the big Star Trek
Convention at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton last weekend.
Now I remember how much I don’t like airports.
The hotel was fine, although it did not have a blow drier in the
room like “Jeannie” assured me it would (note and file for future
reference). But, with short
hair, it doesn’t really matter.
Besides, you don’t actually spend that much time in the room
itself.
Having the room was very handy.
We’d go to the Dealer’s Room, which was
huge, the biggest I’ve every
seen, then take stuff back to the room and dump it.
No having to drag it everywhere with you.
I definitely recommend this approach.
Because the room was so big, they were able to
spread the tables along the walls and still have space for a ring of
tables in the center.
Everyone was there:
Star Trek (Trek Classic),
The Next Generation (Diet Trek),
Star Wars,
Dr. Who,
Beauty and the Beast (B&B), the guy who makes etched glassware
to order in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, B&B, or whatever,
Buckaroo Bonzai
and (inexplicably) Bambi.
I’m not at all sure what Bambi was doing there; there were no
other Disney characters and I can’t quite imagine little Bambi
hot-rodding around the galaxy with all the others.
Maybe he took a wrong turn on Sepulveda Avenue.
Lots of T-shirts.
The Hard
Rock Café, Vulcan seems to have been the most popular.
By Sunday morning only one of the dealers still had any and only
in children’s size 6-8.
Interestingly, not one, but two, computer companies had tables (a table
cost $250 with two “memberships” – whatever that means) to show off
their PC’s. I told “Jeannie”
that this was a sign that we’re becoming legitimate.
Trekkers aren’t just slightly-crazy-people anymore; now they’re
slightly-crazy-people with money,
a fact that the dealers have always known, but the rest of the world is
only just catching onto.
Another unusual entry (which is to say, I’ve been
to a frighteningly large number of these “cons” and this is the first
time that I’ve seen it) was Amnesty International which took a table in
the Dealers’ Room. This was
very smart of them since Trekkers are, by definition, people who want
the world to be a better place.
They collected hundreds of signatures, helped along by the fact
that the first major guest speaker,
Marina Sirtis, started
her speech by announcing that she had signed a petition (there were four
in all) and “I want all of you to go down there and sign it, too, or I
shall be very cross.:
Marina, who plays Counselor Deanna Troy on
The Next Generation for those
of you who don’t know, is a charming speaker with a Liverpool accent you
could cut with a knife. She
has a brother who plays soccer for Greece which suggests a Greek
background, which fits her name better than it does her accent.
Someone asked a question about a rumor (apparently started by
TV Guide) that she had had her breasts enlarged.
(People do ask strange questions at these things, but they often
lead to hilarious answers.)
Spotting the wardrobe mistress from the show in the audience, Marina
rang out, “We’re talking about my underwear again, Mandy!”
It seems that during the hiatus between the first
and second seasons, Marina did some working out and actually lost some
weight. This concerned the
powers that be and they put her into a corset (“There are no wrinkles in
the 24th Century, you know”) which had the virtue of “pushing
things up”. So what if the
actress can’t breathe.
We actually arrived Friday night and had dinner and
breakfast the next morning at the Café LA (such an imaginative name for
a coffee shop) after which “Jeannie” decreed no more eating in the
hotel. During the morning,
we saw several people with bags and paper cups with the
Carl’s Jr. logo on them, so
during a break (we took a break, the con went on without us) we went for
a walk and did, indeed, find Carl’s Jr. up a block from the hotel.
Encouraged by this, we went another block and found (we’re
saved!) a Dennys.
We were able to do all this wandering around
because we had purchased “preferred seats” with numbers on them which
were ours for the whole con.
Usually, you just grab a seat and hold onto it for dear life because if
you leave it, you lose it.
But Creation (the company that puts on these cons) was experimenting
with assigned seating and advertised that the first 100 seats would be
“preferred seating”. They
must have gotten quite a response because the “elite” section consisted
of seats 1A through 21Z, considerably more than 100.
In fact, this was such a hit that when they
announced that they would be selling assigned seating for
next year’s con on Sunday a
line immediately formed that went down the hall and out the back door.
Clearly, they were sold out by afternoon.
No, we didn’t buy any.
Next year is the silver anniversary of
Star Trek.
That con is going to be like feeding time at the London Zoo.
Two days spent on a narrow chair, sandwiched in with 1200-1300 of
my closest friends, is enough to hold me for a while.
“Jeannie”, too.
Then things began to wind down Sunday afternoon,
after Gene Roddenberry, the creator, did his talk, we went out to look
for food again. “Jeannie”
now put her foot down and said she was tired of
Dennys, so we walked another
block or two and found (saved again!)
Taco Bell. When we came
back, the ballroom had cleared of people although the room was still set
up. So we went through,
counting chairs to find out how many Trekkers had actually showed up for
this event, and figured that there was seating for just over 1100
people. Add the ones
standing against the back wall and sides and we guesstimate 12-1300 hard
core fans. Presumably, the
Fire Marshal didn’t have a problem with this.
While we were in there, we noticed Adam and Gary,
the two guys who founded Creation 20 years ago, wandering around the
room with tape measures.
They were trying to figure out how they could fit
more chairs into the room for next year.
Live, love and perspire.
Love, as always,
Pete
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