Today CBS and Paramount+ turned First Contact Day into a big virtual event with a series of panels, announcements and events. But they have something even bigger in mind for next year.
Star Trek: Mission Chicago 2022
The final announcement coming during the virtual First Contact Day event was for the return of the official Star Trek convention as a live in-person event. ReedPop, one of the world’s leading producers of pop culture events, announced today that they are joining forces with ViacomCBS Consumer Products as the official convention partner for the Star Trek franchise. The partnership will kick off in 2022 with an all-new event – Star Trek: Mission Chicago, a three-day “immersive experience” that will take place at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center from April 8 – 10, 2022.
Star Trek: Mission Chicago will feature celebrity guests, interactive exhibits, exclusive merchandise, photo opportunities, costume exhibits, autograph sessions, gameplay and other “special surprises.” Reed Pop promises “Mission Chicago will give fans the opportunity to boldly explore the past, present and future of the franchise, while embracing the ideals of a diverse and inclusive future that remains at the center of Gene Roddenberry’s beloved creation.”
McCormick Place Convention Center
New cities every year
Following the inaugural event in Chicago, future “Star Trek: Missions” will travel to a new city each year.
“The Star Trek franchise has one of the most passionate and spirited fan bases out there, and we at ReedPop are excited to welcome them and ViacomCBS Consumer Products into our family,” said Lance Fensterman, Global President of ReedPop. “Together we plan to give the fans an incredible experience to remember and I speak for all of us at ReedPop when I say that we can’t wait to experience the energy that Star Trek fans will bring to Chicago next April.”
Veronica Hart, executive vice president, global franchise management, ViacomCBS Consumer Products added, “As the Star Trek franchise continues to grow and evolve, so too is our convention business evolving. We are excited to partner with ReedPop as our official Star Trek convention partner to take this next step in creating an event that will introduce the Trek experience to loyal and new fans alike each year.”
Reed Pop previously ran the official Star Trek Mission: New York convention in 2016. Other pop culture events they manage include Star Wars Celebration, New York Comic Con, Emerald City Comic Con, and Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo.
Rene Auberjonois, Terry Farrell and Michael Dorn at the DS9 Panel at Mission: New York 2016
For more information and updates on Star Trek: Mission Chicago, please visit www.startrekmissions.com.
First Contact Day wraps up… for now
This is the final First Contact Day official announcement. However, TrekMovie will have more coverage of today’s panels along with analysis of the new trailers and more. We will also dedicate this Friday’s episode of our All Access Star Trek podcast entirely to discussing everything from today. So stay tuned to TrekMovie for our full First Contact Day coverage.
Chicago is a nice town and loads of fun, but not Vegas. Oh well we shall see how it goes.
SPOILER FREE – As for all the news today, hope Trekmovie will soon be reviewing all the latest from Picard to Discovery.
LLAP everyone.
It’s closer to the center of the country and has more culture and less glitz than Vegas. I’d MUCH rather go to Chicago!
I live in chicago. I’ve been to Vegas. I’d rather be here.
Chicago produced the best actor to play Kirk ever… John Belushi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0xOgFDXFg
From this summer onward’s, looks like there will be star trek every week, back to back starting with Prodigy/lower decks S2 followed by Discovery S4, Picard S2 and Strange New Worlds.
That’s a whole year of trek
And a whole Yr of people paying for Paramount+
A whole year of me HAPPILY paying for Paramount+ :-)
I feel similarly. If my year-long subscription helps enable them to make year-round Trek, then frankly I’m honored to do my part haha. It’s so much more of a direct consumer-producer interaction than what aired television allows for.
I’m (mostly) thrilled by all the First Contact Day announcements. I’ll hope to be able to get to Chicago next year. All the trailers looked great. I’m just a little disappointed we’ll have to wait until August for new Star Trek. I was kind of hoping they would announce a new run of Short Treks to tide us over until the next season of Lower Decks.
No doubt Reedpop gets a big boost because of the partnership with CBS/Paramount so that means they have all the exclusive props, costumes, displays, etc for use rather than Creations Ent once they lost the licencing for Trek. Thus the reason the current 55 year Mission shows photos of the actors out of costume. CBS-Paramount controls all Trek characters, but not the actors.
Moving around the country, is not a bad idea but it comes with its own issues. Vegas has the advantage (IMO) that there are thousands of hotel rooms varying in price, fans and actors like to go there, gambling if you are into that, those pool parties and great food choices. Having it in other cities will give a lot of local fans a chance to attend who may not or could not go Vegas.
The only disadvantage, if you can call it that, is it will be 3 days instead of the 5 day Creations has been doing since 2015 due to the massive amounts of things to see and do. But on the other hand Creations started out with 3 days with the Grand Slam’s in Burbank, CA we went to. While I am happy to see any Trek Cons, we will have to give it a chance and see how this works out. At least in Chicago it will allow me the opportunity to see my cousins.
Another big advantage of Las Vegas is that the actors really like going there. Most of them are LA based, so Vegas is easy to get to. And for the bigger names, it is easier for them to head out to restaurants and nightspots without being recognized in Vegas.
However, an April convention works well for those actors who are in regular network shows. Filming is usually done for the season by the end of March. Perhaps this is not as big of an issue with more television production occurring at more times of the year (and in different countries).
The 2016 ReedPop convention in New York was not as well attended as hoped. But now there is far more Trek in production, so that will make the new Chicago con an interesting test case.
I am curious why CBS/Paramount decided to pull the license from Creation. While not perfect, Creation has kept the Trek convention experience going for decades.
I’m sad they haven’t repeated the Mission New York form of this… but with how small the turnout was compared to NYCC I can see why they would move to a different city to try the format again.
One of the big challenges for Mission New York was the timing. It was announced several months before the actual convention date. It was also scheduled just four weeks after the big Vegas con. Further, it was scheduled on the same weekend as several other bigger conventions in Toronto and Atlanta. So there was too much competition.
By announcing this a year in advance and not scheduling it when other big conventions are happening, it will have a better chance to differentiate itself.
CBS/Paramount wants to have this be the big, official Trek convention for the year. And it plans to move it around like the Star Wars Celebration convention does. So it is likely that it will be back in New York at some future date.
Like Star Wars Celebration, I expect all future Trek announcements will be made at this convention instead of STLV and SDCC.
New York is also just a tough market to break into financially. Wizard World (known for their touring) Comic Con did a New York stop and have not been back since because the cost of space VS attendance is not sustainable now when starting out.
NYCC lucked out getting sponsored by AMC/The Walking Dead at a time when they could still continue to grow. I’m guessing ReedPop thought the same type of rapid growth might come with Star Trek when they did Mission New York. But Mission NY was kind of depressing to go to knowing what NYCC is like- NYCC is so packed that it fills Javits entirely + takes up half the west side of Manhattan at various other venues including MSG… Mission NY was half the main floor of Javits + a handful of rooms downstairs… which were empty along with the halls… that honestly surprised me at the time.
Have the prices been posted, and do we know when the tickets go on sale?