STARFEST '93
On
February 20/21 saw the arrival of the
There
was a dealers room who contained all the professional dealers: Minotaur
Books, Alternate Worlds and Starland.
One huge main events room which housed speeches and video programmes, a small panel room which was only used for half
a day at a time and one large video room. There was no artshow, 2nd or 3rd strand programme,
fan lounge or alternate video programme, also very little in
displays and atmosphere. There were four local club tables:
Austrek, Threads, MSFC and Star Walking
which were located at the entrance to the convention.
Now
seasoned con goers may say that it doesn't appear very interesting. "What, no artshow?" With only
one real strand of programming, well it could almost be considered to be
"boring", maybe so BUT when you have over one thousand four
hundred people turn up and over 90% of them were joe
public closet trekkers and were virgins to the con scene, well a good
time just had to be had.
Starfest '93 was a hoot,
I had such a great time on Saturday that I didn't want to leave. However
the 3rd Annual St Valentine's Day Ball was on and I was doing the music so....
I myself was dressed in my Visitor uniform from 'V' a TV show of the early to
mid 80's (not wanting to fit in with the group you see) and it was one of the
few costumes at the con.
What
do you say when people keep asking "What is that from?"
A
polite reply of "A Deep Space 9 character from the third episode." Usually aroused an
interesting response, I mean how could've people forgotten 'V' I ask you? It
wasn't long before it became a joke of the convention. "Yeah, third
episode in the pie fight..." thanks Craig, "Wow, Bajoran pyjamas... real
cool" says another, and all this time people were thinking it was
for real, how gullible. Fortunately they didn't show the third episode of
DS9 at the con otherwise "gulp". In any case it was great just
to be amongst so many millions of new faces, and
the merchandise, Mega-Chunky man. Even at a Star Trek con I was
able to pick up a Batman collectable that I'd been after now that put me on a
high for hours.
However
to settle the pace down a bit, some of the
highlights were seeing the MSFC and Star Walking tables throwing paper missiles
at each other on Sunday afternoon, Saturday's auction where even tapes of 'Is
Elvis Alive?' were actually being bought, telling Arcane Annie and Stew just
what a crap movie 'Buckaroo Banzai' is (joke), Dave McDonnell's
speech, an upto date what's happening in the
movie business these days report, really informative. The committee
of Starfest singing '25 Years of Star Trek' to the
theme of 'We Didn't Start the Fire' together with a video collage back up (I
mean it was nothing short of brilliant and really put a lump in your
throat. Even Arcane Annie had to admit that even though she didn't like
Star Trek she was impressed by the clip), telling Darren Reid that his
fly was undone (you had to be there), getting the Mega-rare DS9
t-shirt, getting an even rarer committee con polo shirt (one of only two
I believe in the country), teaching the Americans how to pronounce
Australian words, creating an instant panel in the spare room and getting
an audience of six, being asked if I was wearing a DS9 uniform by a girl
and when I said "yes", her friend gets exited and says "I
thought so." (can't seem to figure that one
out.), coming home at around 8.00 Sunday morning, having a
shower, getting changed and going back to the con again (as you can
guess, I was pretty R.S.) Yeah!
Starfest, for me, was a lot of
fun especially on Saturday (I crawled my way through Sunday). The
committee themselves were wonderful, such a polite bunch of people, in
fact they showed a complete air of professionalism in that they never seemed to
panic, nor were they seen to be rushing all over the place, pretty amazing
really. Although I personally didn't do much at the con,
I had a ball, G'day to Alison, Jason and
all the other dudes who I met for the first time.
When
Walter Koenig saw a sea of faces at this speech he said "It's good to see
Star Trek is alive and well in Australia." to a round of applause, for those of you who couldn't (or wouldn't) go,
you missed a very interesting experience, it was not necessarily better
than an Australian convention, but with an attendance nearly the size of Aussiecon II 8 years ago, well, there were no end of
friends to be made both Australian and American. The touching part must
have been the farewell message they left on the white board at registration.
"Goodbye
Darren
Maxwel1