EVENT REVIEW - Destination Star Trek London
the past few years. The organisers needed to pull something truly amazing out of their bag of tricks and they succeeded by getting all five captains of the TV series in the UK for the first and possibly last time ever. This was a huge draw for Star Trek fans all over the UK and the rest of Europe. William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula have appeared on stage a few times before but only in America. This was only the beginning of the guest list which contained cast and crew from all over Trek.
Geek Syndicate
Andrew Robinson, Anthony Montgomery, Martha Hacket and more! With the above in mind, the venue used a varied option of prices ranging from £29 for just basic entry to the event, to over £2,000 for VIP tickets and a range in-between. The packages allowed a broad range of options that started with the entry and entry to free talks and then as the price goes up you could get autographs and photo shots with the stars. As with a lot of conventions there is always queuing and it seemed that the system was working well at DSTL as I did not hear many complaints from the attendees about the queues. The talks themselves were split into three areas, with the main stage reserved for the opening ceremony and the five captain’s talk and also the solo captains talks over the Saturday and Sunday. Then there was Stage B where the cast were giving talks in either solo acts or as groups from shows. The lastly there was Stage C which was for other topics including the costume parade, a make-up demonstration and a “creating the Enterprise” panel. The main stage was a paid ticket entry only and hosted by another famous Captain. Jack Harkness or rather, John Barrowman was on fine and cheeky form throughout, even making Scott Bakula sign his bum to make up for Scott never having been asked any strange request by fans! The rest of the talk was a dream
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The Review:
“It’s been a long road, getting from there to here” are the words that open the Star Trek: Enterprise theme tune and in this case they seem most fitting as it truly has been a very long time since the last official Star Trek Convention. The last two I can remember are the Star Trek Nemesis event in Hyde Park but not really a convention as such and before that was Voyager The Return in Blackpool celebrating the end of the Voyager series of which I attend both. Although there have been a lot of conventions that have featured the cast and crew of the various Star Trek incarnations, Destination Star Trek London was the first official convention in the UK for a decade. The expectations for this event were set very high by the fans and also the event organisers as no one really knew if there was still a market for a Star Trek only convention. The venue wasn’t a hotel up north somewhere or near Heathrow as many seem to be but rather this one was located in London at the Excel Centre which has been home to lots of multimedia conventions or EXPO’s covering various genres over
To give you an idea of the guest list attending over the three days were Walter Koening, Brent Spiner, JG Hertzler, Robert O’Reilly, Dominic Keating, Connor Trinner, Robin Curtis, Chase Masterson, Casey Biggs, Jeffery Combs, Marc Alimo, Denise Crosby, John De Lancie, David Warner, Rene Auberjonois, Nana Visitor, Ronald D Moore, Brannon Braga, Ira Steven Behr, Michael Dorn,