Trekkies will lose a starbase
THE MOVABLE BUFFET
Star Trek: The Experience will close at the end of the month. An annual convetion will continue, but will it be the same?
IFIRST saw Bill Lyons and his wife, Pam, dragging a suitcase behind them like any tourists and followed them because I thought they would lead me to the convention I was covering. I did not say to them, "I am from Earth. Take me to your leader." But maybe I should have.
The Lyonses both were dressed as otherworldly characters from the movie "Star Trek: Insurrection." "My character doesn't have a name," Pam Lyons said. "I am a skin-stretching specialist." The movie came out in 1998, the year Star Trek: The Experience opened at the Las Vegas Hilton. Since then the franchise has fallen on hard times. The most recent movie was in 2003, and the last "Star Trek"-themed television show ended in 2005.
For fans there is a new "Star Trek" movie scheduled to come out in 2009, but Vegas is not a town with patience, and so by 2009, to the consternation of a lot of the convention attendees, this annual "Star Trek" convention will have to take place without what has come to be known informally as the Star Trek Experience ride at the Las Vegas Hilton. Perhaps even more important, the convention (which concluded last Sunday) is losing its informal headquarters: Quark's bar. The "Star Trek"-themed bar and restaurant are next door to the ride and are an unofficial hangout central for convention attendees. Both the bar and ride are closing at the end of the month.
On Sept. 1, one of the most successful tourist rides here will be "decommissioned" after more than a decade, twice as long as the USS Enterprise's five-year mission on the original television series. The convention grew from a modest affair at places like the Plaza downtown to a convention that attracted thousands with the arrival of the Experience.
For some years the convention and the ride were at different resorts. "The people that own the Experience were slow to embrace us, but when we finally went to the Hilton," recalled Gary Berman, co-chief executive of the convention's parent company, Creation Entertainment, the take from those who attended the ride, bought souvenirs and ate at Quark's was greater than the Experience had enjoyed before the convention.
Berman expects the ending of the Hilton's "Star Trek" attractions to have a minimal effect on the convention. And he estimated that the average age of the attendees this year was in the late 40s -- a perfect demographic for a casino. He estimated attendance this year at 10,000 to 13,000. The convention has a contract to be at the Hilton next year too.
