Creation Entertainment has been running Star Trek conventions since its founding in the 1970s. At its peak in the ’80s, Creation was operating over 100 Trek cons every year all across the USA. That number was pared down until the most recent decade when they focused on a single big Star Trek con every year in Las Vegas, but that is all about to change.
In 2024, Creation is returning to regional events for what they are now calling the “Trek Tour,” starting with the “STSF: Trek To San Francisco” convention from Friday, March 8 to Sunday, March 10 at the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame, CA. TrekMovie talked to Creation co-founder Gary Berman about the San Francisco event, this year’s big Las Vegas con, and more regional “Trek Tour” cons across the USA coming up.
Trek to San Francisco
For years, Creation has been looking to bring back local Trek conventions. Berman told TrekMovie: “We wanted to bring the best of Las Vegas to these regional cities.” It’s been years since Creation held a Star Trek con in San Francisco, but the company has continued to run other conventions there, like one for Vampire Diaries fans. This weekend’s STSF con is being held in the same location, which was used in the past for Trek conventions as well. “It’s a nice hotel for this, very cool and futuristic-looking,” says Berman.
Atrium for Hyatt Regency SFO hosting STSF con this weekend (Hyatt)
STSF has lined up 32 guests for this weekend from across the Star Trek franchise, including classic headliners like Brent Spiner, John de Lancie, and Gates McFadden from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jeri Ryan and Robert Picardo from Voyager, Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer from Enterprise, and Jeffrey Combs and Casey Biggs from Deep Space Nine. They are also bringing in luminaries from the new shows, including Michelle Hurd and Todd Stashwick from Picard and Tawny Newsome, Eugene Cordero, and Dawnn Lewis from Lower Decks. There are also big names from behind the scenes, including Picard showrunner Terry Matalas and production designer Dave Blass. Melissa Navia from Strange New Worlds will be there, but Ethan Peck just had to cancel as he was needed on the set in Toronto. Berman said they expect to have more Strange New Worlds stars at upcoming events when the show isn’t in production.
Hey San Francisco! I will be joining @JeriLRyan @TerryMatalas and my other #StarTrek Family this weekend at ST:SF Trek to San Francisco https://t.co/H7u22BubvQ pic.twitter.com/kSE2NOXq4t
— Todd Stashwick (@ToddStashwick) March 4, 2024
The regional events are designed to be more intimate than the bigger show in Las Vegas. The goal is for STSF and other regional Trek Tour cons to have the celebrity guests be “interactive with the audience and make it more fun for the fans,” according to Berman. This will include special events like wine tasting with Casey Biggs, karaoke with Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer, and an after-party on Saturday night at the Holo Lounge bar with Prodigy’s Bonnie Gordon singing jazz. Gordon is co-hosting the weekend along with Ryan Husk of The 7th Rule podcast. Gordon and Husk are also hosting a welcome party on Thursday. Husk tells TrekMovie: “I think the intimacy and special events of this new regional convention tour is going to be incredibly fun, and I’m extremely excited for it.”
The convention will also feature a vendors room, science panels, Trek insider panels (including 2 with Ande Richardson Kindryd, TOS producer Gene Coon’s assistant), trivia contests, daily cosplaying themes, and a cosplay contest. Of course, there are also autograph and photo ops. There will be group options, including one themed to Star Trek: Picard season 3 with Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, and Terry Matalas.
STSF is expected to sell out, but there are still limited tickets available ranging from weekend General Admission passes for $169 to Gold passes (starting at $549) with reserved seating, autographs, and more bonuses. There are also single-day passes ($60) with only a handful left for Saturday. Berman is enthusiastic about the return to San Francisco for Trek and he offers his thanks to the fans, saying “I think we’re all feeling super appreciative to everyone for supporting San Francisco.” Tickets are also available for the Saturday night “Rat Pack” concert with Max Grodénchik, Jeffrey Combs, Casey Biggs, Ethan Phillips, and Vaughn Armstrong.
For more details on STSF or to buy tickets, visit creationent.com. There are also still rooms available at the Hyatt Regency SFO.
Rat Pack concert at Star Trek Las Vegas (Creation)
Revamped Rio for STLV 2024
The next stop for the Trek Tour in 2024 will be the big event in Las Vegas, now officially dubbed “STLV,” with Creation dropping the “58-Year Mission” branding. The event will be held August 1-4 at the Rio in Las Vegas. They have already lined up 39 guests. with headliners including William Shatner, Kate Mulgrew, Nana Visitor, Tawny Newsome, Connor Trinneer, Paul Wesley, and Ethan Peck. Many more are expected to be added to match last year’s count of over 100 guests. They are already setting up some special events including a “Broadway to the Stars” show with Discovery stars Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz.
William Shatner with Paul Wesley at STLV 2023 (Photo: Kayla Iacovino/TrekMovie.com)
One highlight for 2024 will be the venue itself, as the Rio Hotel is under new management. New owners Dreamscape have partnered with Hyatt, making the Rio part of the World of Hyatt. The Rio is currently undergoing extensive renovations. The first phase of the $340 million transformation will be completed this year and includes upgrades to the exterior, lobby, pool area, casino, and dining options. They are also upgrading the rooms in the 1,501-room Ipanema tower. “The renovation is turning out to be much better and bigger than I originally thought,” says Gary Berman. Dreamscape has also added more staff to accommodate large groups like STLV. Berman says Creation has a “great relationship” with the new owners who see “STLV as important to the Rio,” with plans to keep STLV at the Rio in upcoming years.
Even though it is months away, Berman says tickets are selling fast. For more on STLV 2024, visit creationent.com.
Renovated room in Rio’s Ipanema Tower (Hyatt)
Trek Tour heads to Chicago and beyond
It is the success of STLV that has Creation looking beyond Las Vegas again. Berman tells TrekMovie “Attendance was wonderful last year and the feedback was excellent. That is one of the reasons San Francisco is going so well is word of mouth.” With San Francisco looking to be a sellout, Creation is setting its sights on the future. “Our goal is to roll out a whole tour and do 12 Trek Tour shows a year, like we do for Supernatural.”
Berman revealed the next stop on that tour will be in Chicago. They have already lined up October 25-27, 2024 for an event at the Westin O’Hare Hotel. [UPDATE: Due to conflicts with wanted celebrities on the weekend of October 25, Creation will be moving the Chicago event to a different date. A new date for Chicago will be announced soon.]
The 2024 Chicago Trek Tour should be launched on their website after the STSF with the initial list of guests and events. According to Berman, they will be looking for lessons learned in San Francisco t help shape this next regional event.
Chicago and the Westin O’Hare is the next regional stop for Creation’s Trek Tour in 2024 (Getty/Westin)
Even though Creation gave up the official Star Trek convention license in 2020, they remain committed to the franchise that got the company started in the 1970s. Berman sums things up with “We are really happy with the state of Star Trek fan conventions.”
So looking forward to attending!
FYI to anyone who is going/planning to go: I along with some other local fans who also collect video and pinball games will be bringing some of our personally-owned Star Trek-themed games to this Convention. If all goes right, we should have all 4 of the Star Trek pinball machines that have been released (going back to 1979) as well as 2 versions of a retro Star Trek video game that was produced by Sega as a coin-operated game in 1982. Again, these are full-sized, coin-operated machines, but for the Convention, they will be set up for free play (no quarters needed!). The organizers are also planning on a charity event with some of the celebrity guests playing on the games with the winner having a donation to his/her favorite charity.
AFAIK, this will be the first time for this type of related event to take place at one of these Conventions, and we’re happy to participate to make it happen certainly.
Hope to see folks there starting on this Friday!
Jon
That sounds awesome. I’m in the Bay Area so I’ll b there!
That sounds so fun! I love pinball!!!! Star Trek pinball!!! Any chance this can also happen in Vegas?
Actually, the organizers did ask us if we’d be willing to do this event at the Vegas show (in an even bigger way to bring other retro/pinball games based not only on Star Trek, but other SciFi/fantasy franchises (e.g., Star Wars, Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, Tron, Jurassic Park, etc.), but we had to decline at this time.
In truth, we’d actually love to do this but the logistics made it not doable as we also organize a local event each summer (this will be our 28th year now!) that involves literally hundreds of these types of games (pinball, video, etc.) spanning decades from the past to the present. But our show is set for the weekend just before the Vegas show so doing all we need to do to make our show happen and then turning around and trucking loads of these games from the SF/Bay Area to Vegas is just not viable, remembering just how large (and heavy) each and every game is. To have to load/unload a whole kit and caboodle of these games, set them up, maintain them, and then turn around and head home is again just too much for us all given we will have done much the same the weekend prior. Trust me, it’s a TON of work each time and while it’s also very much a labor of love for all us involved, it’s also very exhausting :) .
But hey, if you’re in the SF/Bay Area this summer for the very last weekend of July (7/27 & 7/28), we’ll be holding our crazy show (called “California Extreme”) on these dates if you feel inclined to attend. As I said, literally hundreds of pinballs and stand up video arcade games will be there, ranging from the past to the present, all set on free play (once you pay an admission fee) for you to enjoy until your fingers fall off or your wrists give out ;) .
Information on our very basic website here:
http://www.caextreme.org
That sounds incredibly fun. Sad it doesn’t work out with my location and life… but maybe one day! I was a big pinball kid. I actually worked at a video arcade as a teenager, although I confess that was a very annoying job as there were 12-year-olds begging me for quarters and cigarettes all day!
Thanks for the heads-up on this. I may attend!
San Francisco?!?! FINALLY a con in my back yard! I’m SOOOO there!
Perhaps hang around the elevator lobby at night — that’s where I ran into Frakes at at Trek convention at this same Hyatt about 8-9 years ago — and he stood and talked with me for about 10 minutes! The hotel set-up there is very conducive to running into the guests.
This makes me very happy. Hopefully they’ll do something out here on the east coast. I remember going to their previous small creation conventions in New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia.
I wonder if Creation can get the license back since Mission doesn’t seem to be doing anything with it.
Any chance of making it back to the east coast, PA or NJ? The local cons stopped happening just as we were gearing up to go!
I would consider one in the Philly/NJ area. Haven’t been to one in about 30 years, that one was in Atlantic City.
If only this came closer to Little Rock.
My first and so far only convention was in my hometown of Phoenix, AZ during the final season of TNG, before it was announced it would be the final season. There was only one guest, Brent Spiner. It was all in one big convention room in some hotel. I remember being in middle school, waiting in line with my dad, the tables of merch of all sorts in the main area, the big stage where as a kid I won the trivia contest, the really cool costume contest where the winner was a Borg (this is before cosplay took off because of the Internet), and then everyone sitting and watching Measure of a Man together before Spiner came out and answered questions and shook hands. I asked him what it was like to work with Spot (not great, he replied). He took questions about the possible end of the show, whether a movie might happen, whether he thought Data fired the gun at Kivas Fajo (yes), and someone even asked him why the Federation doesn’t have a cloaking device (his response: “I don’t know who to ask, maybe an Admiral?”)
It was such a fun, intimate experience, just to be surrounded with like-minded people who enjoy the same things I enjoy. It was a good time when the conventions were hyperlocal like that. Now it’s all so concentrated and consolidated and expensive that a kid like me wouldn’t be able to go to something like STLV and enjoy themselves. There are so many tiers of ticket and so much guarded access to the actors, and you have to have as many people as possible there.
I love that Creation might be going back to local conventions again. I hope they do more. I hope they are able to just do small 1-day affairs with 1 or 2 actors only. It really was enough for me to meet Data back then. It was everything.
Anyhoo, just sharing the memories.
Such a great story! I never been to a conversation before so always great to hear others. Thank you for sharing my friend! 🙂
And since you mentioned Spot there is an hilarious video on YouTube of Spiner at a convention a few years ago going off how much he hated working with the Spot cats and how hard it was to get them to do anything. It had me roling. 😂
So glad to see it’s coming back to the Bay!
Tickets for a stay at Hyatt are officially booked!
This looks amazing! We -loved- MISSION CHICAGO, the last headline TREK event in the Chicago area, back in 2022. Beyond excited about this news.
Hey Creation, let us know when you’re coming back to the Washington DC area for a Star Trek convention. Haven’t seen you here (for myself) since 1983.
I’ve been to only one convention, in February 1975, at a hotel in NYC. I don’t remember much, except that Gene Roddenberry announced there that he had a deal with Paramomount to make a Star Trek movie (and yes, it was almost more 5 years until it came out) and they screened a full restored version of The Cage for the first time, in black and white. I think they also screened a few TOS episodes in color.
Wow! If you’ve only been to one, that’s a pretty good one to have been at.
I’ll be there. But the Creation website is a cluttered mess that looks like it was designed by Pakleds. The schedule? a Google spreadsheet that’s super fun to look at on your iPhone with all the scrolling left right you have to do to even read it. Want to buy general admission tickets? Wander around in frustration until you piece together that maybe, just maybe, you can’t even buy those online and only at the door. Boomers and the Interwebs don’t mix. Boomers, stay away from pretty much everything. It’s 2024. You are not equipped and can’t learn “new” things. Enjoy your Jell-O and Matlock.
They rely on some volunteers, and it’s never been a big money maker for those involved. I didn’t have a problem navigating it. What’s the big deal?
As for General Admission passes, click on the HUGE BUTTON on the main page that says ADMISSION PASSES and then click on the multi-day or single-day general admission icon. Easy-peesy.
Thanks for tip. Got my tix. That “huge button” is the same headline art that on other pages is not a clickable button. The site is a mess. Grateful for your help.
You do know that Boomers invented the Internet (as DarpaNet in 1969) and the Web in 1989 right?
This sounds lovely to attend. Would love to see a lot of the casts from DS9, ENT, TNG and VOY again but Stashwick would be the biggest delight. Seen him in a lot of interviews and he’s so fun to listen to.
I really hope he can be part of Star Trek again in any form.