Destination Star Trek 50th Anniversary

I’ve been a Trekkie for a long, long time,
and I always wanted to boldly go to a Star Trek Con!

Since my teenage years watching Jean-Luc Picard, “Make it so” has been a watchword, a phrase that encapsulates my own dreams, and the spirit of adventure that we all need. So, throughout The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager… (sorry, haven’t seen Enterprise, yet) and eagerly looking forward to the new incarnation, I am right there. Got the movies box set and enjoying the new films and parallel universe, and handing the fandom down to my children too, yes, I’m parenting well!

© Lisa Shambrook – Caitlin Shambrook – Bekah Shambrook

Birmingham NEC was the destination for the 50^th Star Trek Anniversary in Europe and we spent our Saturday amongst a sea of red, gold, and blue. Uniforms of all generations, and wonderful cosplay! Data, the Borg, Klingons, lots of Andorians, and many more aliens.

© Lisa Shambrook – Bekah Shambrook

My daughters cosplayed as Spock and Jadzia Dax, Vince wore his Enterprise Haynes Manual t-shirt, and I wore sleek black with my DS9 communicator!

© Lisa Shambrook

We saw Armin Shimerman (Quark – DS9), Walter Koenig (Chekov – TOS), Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris – Voyager) and Nicole De Boer (Ezri Dax – DS9) signing photos. Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi – TNG), Gates McFadden (Dr Crusher – TNG), Will Wheaton (Wesley Crusher – TNG), George Takei (Sulu – TOS), and William Shatner (Captain Kirk – TOS) were also there. We’d have loved to have seen Brent Spiner (Data – TNG), Michael Dorn (Worf – TNG), John De Lancie (Q – TNG, Voyager), Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker – TNG) and obviously Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard – TNG) but many of these actors had other commitments.

© Lisa Shambrook

I’d hoped to find exhibits of the ships, Enterprise etc, which would have been cool, but there was a great art exhibition, talks, and lots of mechandise.

Destination Star Trek Art Gallery

Anyway, we had lots of fun, photo opportunities, great cosplay and the pleasure of being amongst our people! 

Here’s to the next 50 years
to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations,
to boldly go where no one has gone before…