Whilst the attendance of the Five Captains was clearly the central selling point of Destination Star Trek London, they were by no means the only thing there. Dozens of other cast and crew members were present, signing autographs, doing photo-shoots and giving talks.
There were also many debates, panels and discussions taking place over the weekend from “Best Star Trek Movie” on Friday night to “The Evolution of The Fan” and “Creating the Enterprise”. No matter how well you planned your schedule, you simply could never see everything the convention had to offer.
All the talks barring those by the captains had been made available free of charge, including those by popular Trek actors like Brent Spiner (Commander Data) and John de Lancie (Q). This was both a blessing and a curse and it seemed the organisers had massively underestimated interest in these talks and had located them inside a tiny stage area; subsequently the ticket organisation became farcical over the weekend for anyone wanting to attend.
On the Friday free tickets were handed out for that afternoon's talks and the Alternative Opening Ceremony but these were never checked by the crew so guests just walked in freely and scrums of people stood by the entrances once every available seat and inch of standing room had been packed out. On Saturday therefore, many people never bothered picking up the free tickets only to be turned away at the stage entrances.
Guests with gold passes were supposed to have access to all talks included with their passes but the system of entry for these was confused as well, with some staff admitting anyone with a gold pass and others turning them away unless they had queued separately for free talk tickets which had all been handed out early in the day. The system for picking up the free tickets also changed each day, adding to the general confusion. On the Sunday, I found myself present at one talk where the guest, John de Lancie, was brought on-stage before almost half the ticket holders had been admitted to the room. This resulted in people rushing and grabbing seats in an occasionally dangerous manner and forcing others to climb over chairs to take spare seats. Just a few minutes delay in beginning the talk would have prevented this. The organisers have posted their comments on the fan feedback and much of those centred on the small talk stage and ticket organisation, whether a better system is introduced at the company’s next event remains to be seen.
The bad organisation is a real shame as once you were seated in your chosen talk or other session, each one was interesting and engaging.
John de Lancie talked about working on his forthcoming documentary on BronyCon and about working with his son on Star Trek when Keegan de Lancie played Q Junior on Star Trek Voyager. "Working with my son was strange as an actor because I was more concerned about his job than I was about mine,” he told us.
Brent Spiner’s talk also involved children, mostly because of the number present in the audience asking him questions. He talked about Spot the cat, “the worst actor I ever worked with,” and about spending the previous night with several friends at Patrick Stewart’s London apartment - his Patrick impersonation is excellent. Brent also won the award for “weirdest question I have ever heard asked at a convention” when someone asked, “if you ever found yourself mutated into a hideous arachnid but with your own head, would you do the decent thing and change your name to Brent Spider?" After getting past his initial confusion, Brent confirmed that indeed he would.
One of the most interesting talks I attended was on “Female Star Trek Fans” hosted by the Trekkie Girls; indeed I found it interesting that the subject warranted its own discussion, there didn't seem to be any call for a talk discussing male fans.
The audience for this talk was made up mostly of women and to begin with the discussion focused a lot on the representation of women on the show and how that has evolved since The Original Series. On TOS after all, the role of the majority of female characters seemed to be to “get” Kirk whereas later series have women in all manner of powerful positions on the ship from engineering to medical right up to the Captain.
It was also pointed out that, setting aside TOS for a moment, the 24th century has room for all kinds of women. Dax and Kira both had one night stands but were not judged by the other characters including males, and on Deep Space Nine, female characters would have families without sacrificing their careers. Of course there’s a certain factor of art imitating life going on with Star Trek; the original pilot for TOS had a female First Officer but audiences couldn't stand the idea, calling her character a “bitch” and a male was brought in for the role when the show was recast.
The latter half of the panel had the audience discussing themselves as fans and the difficulties they've faced. Social media in particular was touted as having been a salvation for many who considered themselves isolated as the only female Trek fan they knew. Finally one of the panel hosts told us of an encounter she had with a male fan earlier in the convention, he had asked how much research she had needed to do in order to host debates. When she told him that she hadn't needed to do any research as she was a Trek fan herself, he had refused to believe her because of her gender. So maybe we did need this panel after all, it’s just a shame it wasn't better attended.
The evenings after the convention shut down were given over to two parties; the Klingon Monster Ball on Friday and The Next Generation 25th Anniversary party on Saturday night. I attended the latter and found myself, as did many, totally underwhelmed by the experience.
No theming had been attempted in the room whatsoever and the entertainment was severely lacking; a tiny stage that very few could sit around, an inflatable LaserQuest maze and dodgems. Considering that the event had been advertised as a TNG party rubbed salt into the wound as nothing TNG themed happened all night; the celebrity guests for the evening were from the casts of Deep Space Nine and Enterprise.
The fans who attended made the best of the situation and made sure they partied hard until the small hours, but for the enormous price tag ($40 a ticket) and the ludicrous bar charges ($8 for a tiny glass of “Romulan Ale”) a lot more should have been included.
Overall, Destination Star Trek London was a mixed bag of success with general organisation being the key thing that let it down.
Once you found yourself inside a talk or panel, each was excellent with interesting, funny hosts and fans willing to engage with the discussion. I also heard good things about the organisation of queues for autographs and photo shoots, certainly whenever I passed those areas they seemed well run with no scrums of people pushing around.
I saw countless families in attendance with all ages of children - many in costume, and all ages of fans in general, from young teens right through to an elderly couple I saw shuffling their way into William Shatner’s talk on Sunday. The organisers say they have learnt from their mistakes and I certainly hope they have as with a few tweaks (better parties, more merchandise and sort those free talks out) London could soon become a name in great conventions.
GeekMom attended Destination Star Trek London free of charge (excluding The Next Generation 25th Anniversary Party) courtesy of Media 10/Showmasters.
