Palm Beach Con
| Convention | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Palm Beach Con 1/Trekon Int’l 1975 |
| Dates: | August 30 - September 1, 1975 |
| Frequency: | |
| Location: | Colonnades Beach Hotel in Palm Beach Shores, Florida |
| Type: | |
| Focus: | Star Trek, science fiction, comics |
| Organization: | Star Trek Federation of Fans, West Palm Beach Chapter |
| Founder: | |
| Founding Date: | |
| URL: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Palm Beach Con 1 was combined with Trekon Int’l 1975.
Organizers
Committee
- Chairmen: John Ellis and Rick Coy
- Secretary: Ruth White
- Finance: Guy McIntyre
- Art Show: Carlene Gardner
- Audio Visual: Howard Goldberg
- Registration: Elaine Clipper
Other Con Staff
Ken Mitchroney, Bob Haupt, Marcus Welage, Della Hawks, Carloine Moorer, Joyce Huser, Bonnie Gardner, Diane Farnsworth, Mary Raiman, Marc Graham,Mary Polyniak, Anne Malcolm, Miriam Martinez, Sara Sherman, Jeannie Tomkins, Cathy Tortorici, Steve Tortorici, and Dale Snodgrass.
The Program Book
James Van Hise of the S.F.C.A. helped created the 32-page program book.
The cover was a painting called “Today and Tomorrow” by C.C. Beck, the back cover was “Night Before Launch” by Frank Kelly Freas.
Programming
There was film room, an amateur film contest, an art show, a costume contest, auctions, dealers room, guests speakers, and a handful of panels.
The panels:
- Comic Art Panel
- Star Trek Fandom V.S. S.F. Fandom
- New Directions in Science Fiction
from the program book
from the program book
Guests
- George Takei - Lt. Sulu of Star Trek
- Noel Neil - Lois Lane to two Supermen - George Reeves on TV and Kirk Allan in the serials.
- F. Kelly Freas - Hugo award winning SF Artist.
- Joe Green - SF writer and affiliated with NASA
- Keith Laumer - SF writer best known for his Retief and Bolo series.
- C.C. Beck - Creator of Captain Marvel (Shazam)
- Jim Mooney - Artist of Batman, Spiderman, Tommy Tomorrow, Superman, Supergirl, Submariner and more.
- Sondra Marshak - Editor of “Star Trek Lives!”
- Myrna Culbreath - co-editor of “Star Trek Lives”
- Morris Weiss - writer and artist, creator of the comic strip "Mickey Finn"
- Art Stark - Producer of the “Tonight Show” for over five years.
- T. Casey Brennan - writer for many comic book companies including Warren, Skywald, Red Circle and Charleton.
Con Reports
We got to the hotel around seven on the 28th. The Con suite was to be ready for us that night so we could set up the next morning with no trouble. The people at the desk acted as though they never heard of us and the the person in charge of conventions had left for the day. The room wouldn’t be ready until the next day- about that time the owner of the hotel happened to come in and he knew one of the con committee members and came over to see what was up. Once he learned what had happened he got us another room for the night. We get everything in the room which included three 16mm projectors, a ton of 16mm films, program books, awards, badges, and so on. We all decided we were going to watch the Wizard of OZ - we had a NEW print of it for the con and we knew none of us would have a chance of seeing it when it was screened.
7AM we get our stuff and get ready to setup and we find out that there is another convention in the hotel and they have some of our space. We need to be ready for registration by five PM and people would be getting in all day and we had to reallocate the rooms. Only two rooms were effected - but one was our dealers room - which meant moving the dealers room to a smaller room with two other smaller rooms. (Luckily two dealers from New York wanted one of the smaller rooms to split between them and it made the other room work out just right). We lucked out that George Takei and Noel Neil were on the same plane - so we had only one trip to the airport. Most of the other guest lived in Florida. By the end of the night all our guest are in and most of the dealers and we were starting to get in people who were staying at the hotel to make sure they would be there bright and early for the opening of the con. The elevator to the con suite acts like it may die at any time.
7 AM Saturday Morning - DAY ONE - we are at go! We open the registration at 9 AM and the crowd begins. By 10 we have the official opening. Then the day gets crazy. It seems no one on the con committee gets any free time - problem solving becomes an art. We hold our committee meeting at around 1 AM, so we would be ready for the next day (HA).
The rest of the con was a whiz of things happening - Noel Neil almost getting hit by the movie screen in the Grand Ball room when it fell - George being bed by another guest at the con expense when we needed him for a TV appearance - a newspaper report that was done by a reporter who only saw a painting of a topless mermaid in the art show...
When it was all over we broke even!! (Which was all we wanted) and I think everyone at the con had fun...and we were tired.... [1]
I arrived at the Collonades Beach Hotel at 9:00 Saturday morning and the temperature was already pushing 90 degrees. I parked in the guest parking lot which happened to be about half a mile from the lobby. To describe the place I'll use an excerpt from the con Progress Report: "The hotel is a huge, sumptuous resort complex located right on the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the lush tropical setting of famous Palm Beach Shores...the hotel features free saunas (dealer's room), fast elevators, and fabulous rooms." Hmm, can't be the same place. Well anyway, I stood through the long, hot, confused registration line and got my booklet and membership card, then lugged the STW material up to the dealer's room. There was supposed to be 3 big dealer's rooms, but at the last minute the hotel booked a Barber Shop singer's convention and they took up a lot of the space that had been ours. The dealer's room that I was in was crowded beyond belief. If you wanted to get out from behind the table you about had to crawl under or fly over it. I closed the table at 6:00 p.m., then went to see the costume contest which was held—of all places-- out on the terrace. By the time the contestants began showing off their apparel it was so dark you couldn't see a thing and there wasn't as much as a flashlight to illuminate the place. Sunday's big attraction was George Takei and Noel Neill (Lois Lane) who spoke in the ballroom. The rest of the day was spent mainly under the shade of an umbrella out on the beach watching the waveless ocean.
Monday morning found me drinking complimentary coffee in the lobby of the hotel next door (where I stayed after seeing my room at Collonades). I was back at my table at 10:00 and somehow during the night it had gathered up a new array of club, con, and zine flyers. I was showed a suitcase full of German Perry Rhodan books and future American PR covers (by Gray Morrow) by the Chairman of Rhocon I. In the film room I watched the ST episode "All Our Yesterdays" and then "The Day the Earth Stood Still!" This was the first time (believe it or not) that I had gotten the chance to see this great classic of SF. After it was over, I jumped into my spaceship and headed home with a feeling of e1ation. [2]