Are you Spending Your Vacation in a Windowless Room?

Let's be honest. The idea of spending six to twelve hours in a windowless hotel ballroom for three or more days in a row would send most people running for the hills. It sounds a bit like volunteering for jury duty. But we do it - joyfully! By the thousands, we do it. Flying, driving, sometimes for hours to sit in that hotel ballroom listening to Trek royalty regale us with tales of phasers, spaceships, and Hollywood. How on Earth (literally) did that happen?

Star Trek Lives!

In reviewing early Star Trek convention program books and articles, Star Trek Lives! (always with the exclamation point) is a phrase that appears again and again. The fandom of the early 70s was insistent that the world of Star Trek idealism continue even if the television show itself had not.

Many fans petitioned the network to return the show to the air. Many more carried the torch by producing what would be referred to today as fan fiction. Years before the earliest electronic bulletin board systems (BBS), and decades before the Internet, fans printed, Xerox'd, and mimeographed (and yes, even typed) what became known as 'zines or Trekzines - combining magazine and Star Trek.

What the gorgon does this have to do with Trek Conventions - here's what.

True to the era, connecting with other fans who shared your love of the series meant connecting - face to face. A true fan can't be expected to wait months for the next snail mail delivery of their favorite Trekzine or Starlog magazine to arrive. In true Veruca Salt fashion, we want it NOW. Latest Trek t-shirt, Now, please. Latest Starfleet uniform pattern, yes, Now. The newest novelization, you guessed it, that would also be Now. And if I want to ask my favorite Trek cast member what it was like to be on my favorite television show, and that means going to wherever my favorite cast member happens to be appearing - pack the car we're (boldly) going to a convention.

Set Phasers to Fun

So here we are, on the cusp of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. No longer a canceled series but an even more popular string of television series,' ten feature films based on, what is now the Star Trek Prime universe, and prepping for the third installment of the rebooted franchise. And we're still sitting in that windowless ballroom, anxiously waiting for one more story, one more question to ask. Maybe it wasn't the cancellation of the original series that prompted the need for the Trek Convention (although that certainly helped). In retrospect, maybe Gene Roddenberry's idealism and imagination were never destined to be contained in a single series or thirteen films. Perhaps Star Trek is a truly interactive experience, requiring discussion and an active exchange with other fans, and conventions were inevitable.

Or maybe I'm overthinking things, and conventions are just plain fun.

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