Official Creation Star Trek Con Philadelphia 2012 – First Impressions

So, even though, as I mentioned earlier, today is traditionally all about Star Wars, I spent most of my day (the part that wasn’t watching The Avengers. Seriously, how good was that?) over at The Official Creation Star Trek Convention. This is both my first real Star Trek Con, and my first con run by Creation, and let me just say, it’s a lot different than what I was expecting.

Creation touts itself on “The Creation Difference”, with their experience in cons going back 41 years, and it certainly is different than anything I have ever experienced at a con. They use the word “Convention” pretty literally. It’s like a business convention, with sales presentations and meeting halls and whatnot. If you’ve done Wizard World or Comic Con, you know panels have always been a part of it, but here, that is literally it. It’s just a ballroom filled with seats and one panel running. One nice thing is, unlike other cons, they only sell as many tickets as there are seats in the ballroom, so you are guaranteed a seat all weekend long. The only thing is, that’s all their is to do. The vendor room, which is usually the main attraction at any other con, is an afterthought. It’s just half a little hallway, with maybe 15 vendors, half of which are all selling pre-autographed pictures or large print lithographs. I was hoping to buy maybe a new costume or a bat’leth, or just something really old and unique, but was pretty disappointed in the lack of selection in the dealers room (bearing in mind that I do have a lot of Trek Memorabilia already, so new stuff is hard to find). I did however snag a functional Ressikan Flute for $100, but most of the money I put aside for this will be staying in my wallet and transferring to Wizard World in 3 weeks.

So what were my first impressions of the crowd? I spent the extra for the Gold package, which puts me in the first 10 rows. While this con is mostly geared at Next Generation, being it’s 25th anniversary, I would venture that most of the people around me were in the 55+ bracket. That may just be because it is the pricier seats. I didn’t really notice a lot of people younger than me, I saw maybe 3 kids under 10, a couple tweens, and heard a few babies cry, but nothing much of the real “Next Generation” of Trek fans. I also noticed an abnormal number of people in wheelchairs, like 7 people, which for a 1000 person show seems a little high. Of those 1000, so far I haven’t seen a great number of people in costume. I counted 11 people in TNG costumes, only two people in DS9 costumes, myself included, 1 Voyager, 2 Original Series, and a lone person from the new movie, with Enterprise getting no love at all. And while the crowd was very diverse, there were a good deal of the stereotypical “Fat Guy Trekkies”, of which I am one, but am very happy to say I am very much on the small side in this crowd. I am not looking forward to tomorrow and the full theatre, as those seats are tiny, and they have us packed like sardines. Also the guy and his wife directly in front of me are huge.

So what happened at the show? Read on about Friday’s, Saturday’s, and <Sunday’s events

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook