Star Trek Convention, Las Vegas 2008 - Day Two
7 August 2008, 10:28 PM

The convention really heated up today, since some Big Name Star Trek Stars took the stage in the afternoon. Brent Spiner ("Lt. Commander Data", "Lore", "Dr. Ira Graves" and "Dr. Noonien Soong" on Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Data" in five movies, and "Dr. Arik Soong" on Enterprise) and Marina Sirtis ("Counselor Deanna Troi" on Star Trek: The Next Generation, five movies, Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise) were fantastic crowd pleasers.

We started the day with a "real science" event. Two of the team leaders of the Phoenix Mars Lander mission gave a presentation about the project. They were great presenters, with interesting detail about everything that went into getting this low budget space project accomplished. Unlike a lot of other efforts, this one had a budget in the millions rather than the billions, and was not organized through NASA, but instead through the University of Arizona. It was very successful, and I think they've moved on to a Lunar project now.

Today there was a small food cart and tables and chairs setup just outside the secondary theater, so we had a cheap lunch - I got some green tea and Jeff got a coke and a muffin. After lunch we opted for a non-main-stage event again. This time it was the graphic design, computer and video production team of Mike and Denise Okuda. They talked about the behind-the-scenes work on digitally remastering the effects of the original series. They also did complimentary autographs afterward and I stuck it out in line for a while before bailing for the main theater.

Spiner and Sirtis were on stage next in the main theater, and they had the crowd in stitches the entire time they were up there. They got a workout as well, striding back and forth across the long stage, answering questions from fans at microphones on either end of the stage. The questions were not very good - cliched and sometimes cringe-worthy, except, perhaps tellingly, when they were asked by children! Still, the actors were gracious and funny and very entertaining.

Since this was the first time we'd ever attended a convention like this we didn't really know what to expect until we got there. Luckily the schedule followed exactly what was in the program we were given at registration, which made it easy to plan. Usually the guests would do autographs (for those who held autograph tickets) either just before or just after their appearance on stage in the main theater. Usually no programming happened on stage while autographs were going on and a fan-made music video would often precede a guest star's appearance. So as Spiner and Sirtis walked off stage to do autographs, Jeff and I headed back to the vendors room to kill some time. I found a NX-01 model kit for $50 rather than $125. Not cheap, but about what it'd run on eBay with shipping and all, so I got it.

Majel and Eugene Roddenberry were next on stage, but we missed them. Instead, we'd grabbed some pastries (next time, something other than just caffeinated tea for breakfast/lunch for me!) and took a break in our room. It'd rained today and I keep seeing helicopters flying over the city. The view out our window was a pretty landscape and not what you'd expect of Las Vegas. We could see a green country club below, the city spread out before us and a range of mountains not too far away in the distance. Very pretty, especially when the storms came through town.

We headed back down to the convention after a brief rest and caught the tail end of Eugene Roddenberry on stage. A fan-made Voyager music video was shown, and then Garret Wang ("Ensign Harry Kim" on Star Trek Voyager) took the stage. He had a great shtick, starting with some comments on how he loved original trek because of Sulu and George Takei's voice. (I.e. Sulu was not a stereotypical Asian role, or one with a silly squeaky voice.) He likened George Takei to an Asian Tom Jones and talked about some of the times he'd done impressions of George and co-star Kate Mulgrew. He took questions from fans for a while, and then cracked everybody up by messing with the convention's camera guy who was following him back and forth on the stage for the big screens. He ended, not with fan questions, but with two silly stories from working on Voyager (one about accidentally grabbing Jeri Ryan's left breast rather than elbow, and one about a gag done by Tim Russ on a late night shooting of Pon Farr. I thought that was a risky story to tell since I could see how some people might not find it funny.)

Today there were a few more folks in costumes, including a number of "look alikes". There was a guy who looked remarkably like Patrick Stewart/Jean Luc Picard (with a voice to match!) wearing a movie costume. Very nice. I saw him around with a guy who's a look-alike for Avery Brooks/Captain Sisko, in the DS9 uniform. There was also a woman who's in a Troi uniform with the Troi hair who looked very much like Marina Sirtis - she even got up to the mike and asked a question about Marina's hair, and early in Brent and Marina's appearance Marina commented on "It's me!"

The costumed poodles were back today (see yesterday's photos), and I saw a few folks in elaborate Vulcan costumes. (Yesterday seemed to be all about Andorian costumes.) So far we've only seen one Klingon, but I did see two more Enterprise costumes. The overwhelming majority of costumed folks are simply wearing Deep Space Nine uniforms. And, of course, there aren't nearly as many costumed folks as people are led to believe by media who cover events like these. There will likely be more costumes (and perhaps more elaborate costumes) tomorrow, since there's a costume contest then.

We wrapped up the evening with The Star Trek Experience party - dinner and several of the stars doing brief bits. Again, I didn't know quite what to expect, and if I had I probably wouldn't have paid extra for the tickets to the Thursday night party and just stayed with the complimentary Friday night tickets we had. But I wanted to see the stuff that was happening Thursday night, so away we went.

The line to get into the Experience party wrapped around the wall, down the long hall to the hotel entrance and back around again. I was dismayed when I saw it, wondering how the heck they were going to fit all the people in at once to see the acts AND get a dinner. At one point we thought perhaps there was a large conference room nearby that they were going to put us in and do dinner cruise-ship style. Turns out that Quark's Bar and Restaurant has two levels, each with a small stage. Extra standing-room only tables were set up in the hallways between the gift shop and inside Quark's bar. A buffet was in the hallway, and you were on your own. Since the line to the buffet was really long, and the dining room was packed, we opted to do one of the rides first, then dinner. Honestly, I figured we'd miss most of the guest stars.

In the end, the timing turned out perfect. We quickly walked through the Star Trek museum area of The Experience and chose the Borg 3-D ride first. This ride didn't exist back in 1999 when I was there with Valerie, so it was a new experience for me too. It was okay, but a bit cheesy compared to what I remembered of the Klingon-based ride. There weren't as many set changes to walk through, but the 3-D stuff was fairly nice. At one point in the ride - when you're supposed to be fighting off assimilation - the seats poke you in the back. That got a few surprised screams from the crowd.

We emerged from that ride into the hallway between Quark's and the Promenade shop (gift shop), where they'd setup a buffet. We spotted Garrett Wang walking through the crowd, and again later, casually chatting with some folks at a table.

The buffet was decent, turkey, roast beef, roasted veggies, salads and fruit as well as desserts. We made our way as far inside Quark's bar as we could, to eat standing up at one of the tables there. The couple there were amazed we'd paid so much for these extra tickets, and now that I'd seen it, so was I. :-/ Not quite what I was expecting, actually.