Las Vegas convention 2009!

[Linda]

It is a year off, but I am shooting for this one. Anyone else? This is supposed to be the 'official' Star Trek con and I think it is the biggest one, right? I am enjoying the reports here, about the 2008 con which just ended. Since I have never been to Las Vegas, so this will be an adventure. Creation has an emailing list you can get on to receive information about this con as it becomes available.

LAS VEGAS, NV
Wednesday - Sunday August 6 - 9, 2009
Las Vegas Hilton Hotel
Home of Star Trek: The Experience
3000 Paradise Rd.


Creation web site link for info on the convention:
http://www.creationent.com/cal/stlv.htm

[justTripn]

Hmm . . . I should start checking into that . . . I am intrigued by the reports and seeing as I have never been to Las Vegas, it sounds like guaranteed fun no matter how many people show up. (Assuming at least Linda.)

[Elessar]

Hmm . . . I should start checking into that . . . I am intrigued by the reports and seeing as I have never been to Las Vegas, it sounds like guaranteed fun no matter how many people show up. (Assuming at least Linda.)

I'll be full time on duty by then, but if I can get leave - I'll go if you'll go

[Linda]

Hey JT and Elessar, I am really planning on going. Got to get hubby committed (to the idea of going to the convention, I mean). He seems to enjoy ST conventions too.

Gold package for the 2009 Vegas convention is now for sale - $689. Ouch. I will wait to see what the silver and bronze packages are going for. I'll have to look into airline tickets, another bite out of the old checking account, I'll bet. And then there's the hotel cost, which is not posted yet. Good thing I plan a year ahead for these things!

[Elessar]

Hey JT and Elessar, I am really planning on going. Got to get hubby committed (to the idea of going to the convention, I mean). He seems to enjoy ST conventions too.

Gold package for the 2009 Vegas convention is now for sale - $689. Ouch. I will wait to see what the silver and bronze packages are going for. I'll have to look into airline tickets, another bite out of the old checking account, I'll bet. And then there's the hotel cost, which is not posted yet. Good thing I plan a year ahead for these things!

I suppose if I'm willing to spend $700 on a rifle or $1100 on a pistol, I ought to be willing to spend $689 on the awesomenest trek experience EVAR. . We'll see.

[justTripn]

Well it doesn't conflict with my nephew's wedding. That IS our timeshare week, but I can always trade that week for something else, or give it to my kids.

[evcake]

I'm shooting for this one too...never been to one.
Making earrings like mad.
What is a "gold weekend package?" quoth the noob.

[Alelou]

I'll just enjoy being there in spirit. I have a personal pact with myself to never to go to Las Vegas unless I absolutely have to, and a Star Trek convention just doesn't fall into that category.

If there's ever one in reasonable driving distance, though, I'm definitely interested.

[Elessar]

I'm shooting for this one too...never been to one.
Making earrings like mad.
What is a "gold weekend package?" quoth the noob.

It's the "Holy Crap" package. They are probably sold out, but it is the package that is supposed to hook you up with a big bundle of special passes and stuff. Well, first off, whenever there is an event in the auditoriums (in Vegas there are like a dozen HUGE areas, at a normal convention there's 1, maybe 2), there will be seating arrangements in the mail hall. The main hall is where all the stars will give their little talks, followed by Q&As, and also it's often where they do autograph lines and sometimes photo op lines. Anyway, off topic, at Creation Cons, and particularly Vegas, basically the hall is very large and it's divided into seating: Gold Package, Captain's Chair, Preferred, and General Seating. There's a science more complicated than warp physics to explain exactly how the seating works depending on who is talking. It used to be that Preferred tickets got you decently close, even at the big convention, but in the last 2 years I have seen it start getting kind of ridiculous. Basically, Gold Package reserves like the first 15 rows. Captain's Chair reserves like the next 20. Preferred gets like the next 30, and then General Seating is everything behind you. Gold, Captain's, and Preferred have specfic seat assignments - General does not. It's like "first available".

It used to be (first Vegas Con I went to) that you could actually get General, and for 70% of the speakers in the main hall, you could sneak up and sit in Preferred or even Captain's Chair. However, it seems like the 1st year I went was the last (or maybe the only?) year this was possible because that 1st year, basically all General and Preferred folks got a sticker on their shirt of the same color but different words on it. This meant that at a distance, Creation folks wandering the hall couldn't tell you were cheating. But it's not REALLY hurting anybody because we're talking about speakers that only have a niche fanbase like... Mark Alaimo (Gul Dukat), or Alexander Siddig (Dr. Bashir), or... Tim Russ (Tuvok), or smaller stars I can't even think of. Or, the people they often have like writers, producers, makeup people, TOS stars nobody remembers, one-time-appearing Admirals and such. Those people. But, after that 1st con I went to, they changed it so that everybody gets this big thing that goes around your neck like a Press Pass or a Backstage Pass at a concert, and they're all big bright different colors so they're real noticable from a distance and they've gotten tough on enforcing it. I think it's stupid, but they ARE the ones losing money if people like me learn they can stump for $35 instead of $65 for General instead of Preferred.

Long story short, you kind of have to pay for what you want now, when it comes to seating. You can't really depend on cheating the system anymore. Except that if you get Preferred and you get row "UU" you can go up to the front row of Preferred still and nobody would notice unless you were in someone's seat. Like I said, I wouldn't even try this with Jolene, Connor, or any big TOS or TNG stars like Kirk, Spock, Picard, etc. You will definitely get caught and I don't even wanna think about what they might do b/c Creation's people can be real douchebags.

Ok now that I've talked about seating forever. What else you get with Gold Package: bunch of autographs. Certain ones, you can't pick. You can get OTHER ones too, but you only get specific stars, including probably some people you won't care about. You also get, to varying degree in the Gold Package and the Captain's Chair, some kind of Early Bird Party or Aftershow Party or Afterhours Party, etc. They're always coming up with new events like champagne socials, for the Gold folks.

Here's my .02 on how to spend your money at a Creation Convention. If this is the only convention you eve rsee yourself going to, I might give serious though to the Gold Package after looking at what it offers and making sure the autographs seem valuable to you. If you're not a person who's interested in autographs AT ALL, consider selling them to your friends who are going if any are interested. Look at what you get for the Gold Package and if you have the money, I'd probably try it once. I've never done it, and I really want to just once, even though I'm sure there will be crap with it I don't care about, because there's all these little things like a gift bag with commemorative coins, etc. Shit that ridiculously wealthy and obsessed Trekkies would collect year-to-year from Creation Cons.

Big rule of mine: Spending lots of $$$ on lots of autographs and photo ops will NOT bring you immense amounts of fun, it won't MAKE your convention for the sheer activity of it. If you're INTO autographs and photo opts beacuse you have a shrine or you're just a hoarder, go at it. But they last such a small amount of time that you will be left feeling kind of unsatisfied by just the activity of it if you invest all your money and your 'good time' in it. Photo ops last about 30 seconds, maybe more, maybe less, depends on the star, the Creation people around, and how pushy you are to be personable. While it's irritating as all hell, the guy in front of you holding up the line b/c he's striking up conversation with the celebrity is the guy getting his money worth. If you're not afraid of getting snapped at by Creation officials or even brushed off by the less-cordial stars (like Robert Beltran), then go for that. But keep in mind these things are short lived, so just don't go into it for the time spent next to them or talking to them, b/c it's brief. Same with authographs, only, it's even briefer.

Personal time with the stars is best found at small conventions - I had heard this fact and finally learned it personally at FailCON 2008 in Dallas (my new name for it guys, ya like?!). Random, personable, private encounters with celebs at big cons are rare and unlikely - but someone DID say they just ran into Jolene on the way through the casino one time and said hello and she was very nice, so who knows. Gamble on it if it's worth it to you .

The one venue at big Creation Cons through which you CAN get personal time with the stars is this new thing they started doing a lot like in the last 5 years - the dinner/lunch/cake-tasting-party/silent-auction type events. This is where they basically charge you $70-80 a head for a half-way decent meal, but one in which you and about 30-40 other people sit at 6 or 7 tables where 2-3 stars (sometimes more, but rarely) cycle through the tables. It doesn't get any better than this, and that's not a put-down, it ca be pretty damn cool. Basically a table of 4-8 people get about 10 minutes a piece, maybe more, with each actor. It's totally informal, you just ask w/e you want, but you will experience this - you WILL BE NERVOUS at first. Don't squander your time! Get over it as soon as possible! This was my most positive experience coming out of my first Vegas Con, after meeting Jeff Combs, Casey Biggs, and especially James Darren (this happened to be a DS9 event).

You pick and choose these events based on what the theme is - it migth be Klingons, it might be Cardassians, but most of the time, it is show based. TNG people, ENT people, or VOY people. I think D and her husband went to an ENT one with Connor, Dominic, and Anthony this year in Vegas. I think this is the first time they've done that particular trio, but I'm betting it went over real well, so they will probably repeat it. I've never actually seen one of these with TNG people, they may not be into the whole "getting that close to the fans" thing. I don't know. They just always seem a little less personable to me. Vaughn Armstrong, Jeff Combs, Nana Visitor, John Billingsley, and of course, Connor and Dominic are probably the most fun people I've ever gotten to just say hello to. With Vaughn Armstrong, he was just walkin outside to have a cigarette - and that was actually in Vegas! Brent Spiner, Frakes, those guys, will be nearly impossible to get close to.

Oh by the way, if you're a fan of other sci fi franchises, Trek cons, and particularly Vegas because of how large it is, is a really good place to see them - not necessarily because there are a ton there (there's just a slim pick every year) but generally because they're not what everyone is there to see, so you can sometimes get cheap autographs or a lot of personal time. Kelly and I sat and talked to Virginia Hey (Zhann, Farscape) for like 20 minutes one time because she had a booth selling her special herbal soap at one Trek Con and nobody was paying attention to her. Minor trek stars will have tables and boothes at these things too. And by minor I mean like, the guy who played the Gorn Captain in TOS or the woman who played an Orion slave girl in one TOS episode. I'm not kidding. Guy we were with actually bought her biography hehehe.

OH! And I met Richard Jefferies! Matt Jefferies' brother! Guy who designed the Enterprise! Btw, Matt Jefferies is dead

Anyway, the biggest bang for your buck when it coems to enjoyment if you're not into autographs, not into photo ops, is just decent seats, a little bit of luck, and extra money for the dealer room. The entire experience itself is just a blast, and if you get one autograph you've always wanted or to meet one star you've always loved, it will just top it off. IMO, autographs and photos don't make the experience, but they can sugar coat it. The other thing is that at Creation Cons you will have a huge schedule with presentations from NASA, auctions for fan items, all kinds of other events.

Oh, I should also mention that the Cherry Hill, NJ con we all went to WAS a Creation Con, but as far as Creation Cons go, it was on the smaller end - definitely MUCH smaller than Vegas. We had an awesome time, and one of the highlights was a dinner event with Connor and Mark Alaimo - probably two of my all-time top 5 fav. characters.

Anyway, long schpiel on conventions over. Return with questions.

[evcake]

Thanks for the infos! I'm not into autographs, or even meeting celebs, really. So I'll save my $ for other stuff.

[Linda]

The gold package is not sold out yet. The silver, bronze, or any other packages Creation will come up with are not being sold yet. I think they are trying to see how many people will buy into the gold before offering the others. I don't think I will go for the gold. I am waiting to see what the other packages will cost.

[Elessar]

If the gold is 689, I'm gonna ballpark the silver at... 549

[Linda]

Hopefully bronze will be 300 something. That is more in the range I am looking for. I don't know about 500 something for silver, it seems to close to the gold price. I can see people thinking "well, its only a hundred more for the gold, so why not go for that?" But maybe that is a good sales tactic.

[Alelou]

Actually, a lot of higher-priced products are mostly there to encourage people to choose a middle range product when they might have otherwise chosen the lower-price product. See printer lines for an excellent example of this.

(That and there are always a few people who just want to have the most expensive version of anything -- closely related to early adopters, who always want the first, more expensive version of anything.)

Then there are the cheapskates like me, who wait until whatever it is shows up in the thrift shop or freecycle.org...

[Linda]

William Shatner has been booked for 2009 at the Los Vegas convention. Since the next ST movie is out in May 2009, this should be an interesting con, since Shatner is not in the movie.