Star Trek: Mission Seattle, which was to be ReedPop’s second official Star Trek convention in the USA after taking over the official license, has been cancelled.
No Seattle 2023
On the last day of Star Trek: Mission Chicago in April, Reed Pop announced their next convention was going to be held in Seattle, Washington on Memorial Day Weekend in 2023. Since that first announcement, ReedPop hadn’t added any updates to the official site or via the Star Trek Mission social media accounts until today, when they made the following announcement:
After careful consideration, unfortunately the decision has been made to not move forward with the Star Trek Mission Seattle event in 2023. We are working on new ways to bring our favorite Trek fans the optimum experience, and we look forward to celebrating together again in the future.
TrekMovie has confirmed that ReedPop continues to hold the license for Star Trek conventions in the USA, and they will share more information on future events when that is available. This is no indication of when or where their next Star Trek convention will be held.
ReedPop hadn’t started selling tickets for the event, so there is no need to issue refunds; however, fans who booked travel for the weekend will have to deal with those cancellations.
Lower Decks star Tawny Newsome singing at Star Trek: Mission Chicago 2022
Today’s announcement follows news that this year’s Destination Star Trek event in London will be the final con for Massive Events, who held the official license for Star Trek conventions in Europe. As of now Star Trek: The Cruise IV sailing to Mexico out of the Port of Los Angeles next February is the only officially licensed Star Trek event set for 2023.
Creation Entertainment has announced the 57-Year Mission event in Las Vegas for the first weekend of August 2023, which is an unofficial Star Trek-focused convention with a number of Trek celebrities already lined up. The same is true for the annual FedCon in Bonn, Germany with the next event set for the last weekend of May 2023.
TrekMovie will continue to monitor this evolving story and will offer any updates when we have more information.
Find more conventions and events news at TrekMovie.
I’m glad that FedCon and Las Vegas are the only events I have planned to go in 2023 (and they both feel much more like fan-oriented events than e.g. Chicago did this year). Interestingly, FedCon 2023 is exactly on the same weekend that Seattle would have been on.
Can you explain what you mean that Chicago wasn’t fan-oriented? I’ve been to Creation Vegas 4 times (last time in 2018), and really loved it. Wasn’t able to do Chicago. What did they do that made it feel less fan-oriented?
Typical…cancel a convention before it’s scheduled to start.
Perhaps ReedPop should re-consider their licensing of Star Trek conventions.
Well, would you have preferred they cancel it during the convention? Lol
Good point, brother.
Chicago was under-attended it seemed. (though COVID played a role in that)
I was amazed at how few people were there!
I only went on Friday in Chicago and had a decent time, but it was pretty poor overall.
It was their fault. They fucked up the website so there were barely any vendors there. The vendor half empty. You couldn’t even buy tickets for a long time.
Because those of us living on the west coast had significant cost and family commitment issues traveling to this on a freaking holiday weekend. Duh! This was like the Trek convention equivalent of moving the Beyond premiere to coincide with the Summer Olympics…lol
Pick a better weekend next time, or admit you are not on your A game with planning these and let Creation do more regional conventions again please.
CREATION — with ReedPop bailing out, please look at bringing back the SF convention next year! The SFO Hyatt is my all time fav Trek convention location, and it’s not 105 degrees outside and there aren’t MAGA types all over the place. (-: Thanks!
Let’s Make Star Trek Las Vegas “Official” Again!
I agree 100%. Hopefully the license with ReedPop has some kind of clause so that CBS/Paramount can cancel and give to someone else.
Well, living in Seattle, I’m disappointed that an official ST event won’t be happening here. But it appears that ReedPop isn’t up to the task of handling the license for official ST events. Give it back to Creation. I went to their events for many years, and while they had their issues, they were generally reliable and well run.
Exactly!
It’s simple – it’s hard to make money at these events. Booking the talent and venue is a great majority of their cost, and while cons are great, it’s not like there are thousands eager (and willing) to attend a Star Trek con these days.
No it’s not. Creation did this just fine with a profit for decades (and they had fan volunteers supporting them). What happened was the studio (that same studio that auctions off every freaking thing from any series for cash) wanted a larger cut, and hence picked a different events firm who would try to do this cheaper to give the studio more $$.. and those numbers of course aren’t working out, of course.
You really don’t know anything about the inner workings of conventions and why CBS/Paramount wanted to go with a different company for an official con. You could not be more incorrect in your assumptions.
But I will say that at least Creation has a multi-decade run Trek themed convention, and ReedPop continues to shit the bed. It boggles my mind that they run Star Wars Celebrations without issue, but can’t seem to get a handle on Star Trek.
Star Trek licensing has generally been more misses than hits.
Hard to explain more than five decades of poor decisions but it really makes one wonder what the impediments really are. It’s got to internal organization culture or something.
Books (and the publisher is part of the same conglomerate) have been the one niche of licenced products that has been consistent done well.
But CreationCons were another. I miss their relatively small regional cons of the 90s. They had fewer actors, EPs and production staff per event compared to the annual mega events like ST:LV, but they were more affordable, more spontaneous and a great live entertainment experience.
ComicCons are attracting tens of thousands at events across North America, it sounds like there could be a financial model for some smaller regional cons again.
LOL, first, I have both volunteered and been on been on the committee that has run sf conventions, dude. So I know what goes on in the back room, the financing, pickup up the guests from the airport, etc. etc.
Secondly, of course I am ASSUMING what CBS/Paramount did here. But why wouldn’t anyone in their right mind assume that a studio that is willing to sell every single of piece of extra series props for $, and which is separating the movies to get more cash instead of putting them on P+ — why should I not assume that they did this to increase their $ versus what they were getting out of the Creation agreement? Ocaam’s Razor applies!
this comment is a perfect example of someone not knowing what they are actually talking about. but that’s usually the case with volunteers who think they know how things ” Really work”
I love how are you and the “other” ;-) dude here just throw out “ you don’t know what you were talking about,” without providing a shred of counter information?
So OK, Mensa, please explain why I am likely incorrect? And by the way I’ve been on the organizing committee on some conventions and not just a volunteer, and I take issue with you putting words in my mouth that suggest otherwise when you know I specifically mentioned that in my post.
I looked at Chicago and the cost of travel and hotel were way too high. When they announced Seattle I thought that would be better, but no they picked a holiday weekend so again the travel and hotel was way too high. They have been putting on conventions for some time they should be better at this. Creation has always had their issues but they have managed to put on a convention without many major issues for decades. STLV is affordable for most it just seems that we will continue to meet up there till there is a better option.
Called this months ago. Reedpop is incompetent and inept. Paramount never shouldve trusted them with the license. Hopefully they rectify that blunder.
Hey Paramount – don’t “f” with Creation – the definitive Trek con promoter
After how poorly the first NY version seemed to go this isn’t surprising to me.
It took this cluster-F for fans to appreciate Creation. For years, I went to their very nice regional conventions, including my fav ones in SF, and their last big regional one in NJ last year, and so many spoiled fans would complain that they weren’t fan friendly enough and that Creation was money gouging them.
Well, now we’ve seen alternative, so LESSON EF’IN LEARNED.
Bring back Creation and their great people who know how to do Star Trek!
The fact that Reedpop has canceled their planned Star Trek convention does not make any of the criticism against Creation that you mention any less valid.
And even if Reedpop put up a bad show that does not make any of the criticism against Creation that you mention any less valid.
Basically, it’s no excuse for company A to be bad just because there is a company B that’s bad as well (or even worse).
That’s a false argument.
Except I never thought “company A” was bad — I always thought Creation did a great job and never agreed with the subset to Trek fans who whined like little babies that they were money gouging (they weren’t, the actors we love to see are more expensive to bring in than most fans would think).
I would say the vast majority of my best convention experiences were at Creation cons.
So it’s not a false argument — in fact, it should be a learning experience to chill out and appreciate a pretty good thing when you have, because it might go away someday. Perfection is not walking through that door anytime soon…lol
Well, and other people have a different opinion of Creation. You like the company, other people don’t. They don’t need to like or appreciate Creation just because another company is even worse.
We were at the STLV held at Bally’s. It was good but the venue was not conducive to what was done in the past. Smaller theaters, smaller vendor room, smaller hallways and you had to take an elevator from Casino level to the 26th floor to get to D Kelly theater and Roddenberry stage. Despite that, we had a great time, so many of the hotel staff, stopped us to get photos with us in our costumes. They never have seen any convention quite like this.
But we did hear that the Windy City was not well attended. Our friends who did go, said it lacked what Creations has done, not the same vibe. It does not matter how you feel about Creations, they do know how to handle Trek. Reedpop may do Star Wars well, but past performance is no indication of future performance when doing something new. CBS/Paramount have their reasons for switching to Reedpop, whatever they are, its none of our business. Perhaps CBS can renegotiate something with Creations if these Reedpops do not succeed. When we speak to the some of the Trek actors, they love going to Las Vegas.
It will be great to be back at the Rio next year. It will be interesting to see the renovations Rio has done.
Well, no movie now for 6 years (and counting). Streaming TV shows that can’t possibly draw the audience or visibility of the classic broadcast and syndicated shows. An aging fanbase. So it’s no surprise at all that this has happened.
This might be signaling something that has been foreseen by a number of people. Not saying it is or isn’t myself. Only that is feels like a start.