Star Trek con part 2: fan panels, cosplay contest, etc.

Happy actual 50th anniversary day!

Previous post: cast member one-on-ones

iggyw & I went to something like 18 panels over the course of the con (Khaaaaan). Many of them we only attended portions of; the schedule had three or four tracks that tended to overlap one another either entirely or by 15-30 minutes out of 60, which I suppose was useful for some people but also made it hard to stay for an entire presentation/discussion without feeling like you were missing something equally interesting. And yet there were dead zones at other times. *shrug*

I went to most of the talks I'd wanted to go to. Some of them met or exceeded expectations while others disappointed. An overall critique is that there were way too many white dudes up on stage. I only remember one panel with a female moderator, the leader of the Black Tribbles podcast team. No coincidence that that was a great session. Oh, and one lecture was half husband and half wife. A few other panels—but too few—had women on them. Disappointing, and reflected neither the demographics of the fandom or even of the con attendees nor the people who've worked on the shows (the "Writing for Trek" panel featured zero women, for instance). Likely the Feminist Fandom, Queer Trekkers and Women of Trek panels had greater presenter diversity, but I unfortunately missed them due to what they were scheduled against. Which is itself another kind of slight by the con organizers, putting them up against the big cast panels lots of people wanted to go to.

That said: Six of the panels we attended featured cast members; will write about those separately. The rest included:

FRIDAY

( The History and Future of Star Trek novels )

(  Fanbros: TNG vs DS9 )

( Galaxy Quests: The Humor of Star Trek and Beyond )

( Thriving on Limitations: Behind the Scenes of The Wrath of Khan )

( The First Convention and How It Helped Resurrect Star Trek )

( The Evolution of Star Trek's Fandom )

SATURDAY

( Growing Up Trek )

( Writing for Star Trek )

( Meet Writer-Producers from Star Trek: Discovery )

( Black Tribbles: Star Trek Into Blackness  )

( ST IV table read  )

And then there was the cosplay contest, but there's only one panel left to describe and there's not much to say, so let's do that first and then get back to the awesome costumes.

SUNDAY

( Trek Talks: NASA  )

So, yes, the ( cosplay contest! )

Last but not least: Next post will be about the cast panels. \o/