STLV part 2

Greetings all,

In part one of my Vegas coverage I explained what STLV is and why people come to it every year. This week I'd like to share a few stories from the convention. I have so many stories from this year so will only tell a few high lights.

This year was the 20th anniversary of Voyager and the biggest panel of the weekend was the Voyager cast panel. Every main cast member was there except for Jennifer Lien (Kes). The cast reflected on their time on the set during the 7 season run and shared a bunch of personal stories. They talked about what their favorite episodes were and every time someone would bring one up, Ethan Phillips would take credit for either writing or directing that episode including other series. Robert McNeil would tell him "Ethan you didn't direct (or write) that episode" and everyone would get a laugh. That was one of the funniest things about that panel as to how they kept encouraging Ethan Phillips to do that with someone telling him he didn't. Kate Mulgrew stood up and thanked every single cast member for being on the show and said it would not have been a success without them. The panel was only supposed to last for about an hour, but Creation let them go an additional 20 minutes or so. It was a once and a lifetime deal to see everyone together like that.

Then there was the TNG panel with Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spinner and Levar Burton. I didn't catch the entire panel due to a Photo Op, so came in to it about half way through. Sir Patrick Stewart had been on stage earlier in the day and was signing autographs while this panel was going on. They picked on him due to the high cost of the autograph saying you could get married by one of them, get an autograph and photo op cheaper than the cost of a Sir Patrick Stewart autograph. They proceeded to tell details on how this would work in the theatre as well lol.

Every night after the convention I'd go get a drink and hangout with everyone at the Masquerade bar. There were so many people down there at times you could barely walk through. On Friday night I ran into Elijah and Cookie Cupcakes from Priority One podcast. I was wearing a t-shirt that Elijah had given me the day before and was helping to advertise for them a bit, as that was part of the deal for getting the shirt. Elijah goes "I love this guy" as he had on the same shirt with a STO uniform top on top of it. Next thing I know, I was surrounded by a few of the STO developers as well as a former community manager Brandon Feltzcer and a bunch of fleet admirals. It was very cool to hear everyone talking about the game and what they thought of the big announcement earlier that day. Everyone talked for about an hour and a half or so before starting to turn in for what they had going the next day.

One of my favorite things about this convention is seeing friends that you only get to see once a year and getting caught up. I have a friend from the UK that tries to make it every year and we always swap Trek jokes. I got to meet two online friends in real life and met them for drinks one night. They live locally in Vegas and were volunteering at Robert Picardo's table helping him with an auction he was running. I also met up with the Trek radio staff that were covering the convention and volunteered to help them get pictures from the panels to Facebook Photo shoots. 

Before I beam out, I'd like to thank DalekChick and CaptShinypants for letting me be a special guest and hope to be back in the future with other blogs and / or coverage from other conventions.

Live Long and Prosper,

-Admrl Suval