Debby and I took a quick weekend trip to Phoenix AZ, one to see some friends and two, not necessarily in that order, to see Star Trek: The Exhibition. ST:EX is a traveling exhibition, hence the name, of Star Trek Memorabilia from all the series that was at the Arizona Science center, too close not to miss.
Originally Star Trek: The Tour was first announced at the Official (or big honkin’) Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas in 2007 and was a very ambitious 40 city tour of 50, 000 square feet of Star Trek goodness. It apparently did very well but was poorly managed and ended up being sold to pay off outstanding debts. The exhibitions was scaled back and eventually broken into two touring sets. We got to see the Second set in Phoenix; the first is currently in Detroit.
The scaled down versions also have a nicely scaled down price of $10 in addition to the science center admission. The exhibition contains original costumes, models, masks, and set pieces from the various series and the set we saw tended more towards Star Trek: The Next Generation including a large saucer section, maybe 10’ tall. There was a bridge set from the Enterprise D, a sick bay diorama with Crusher, Worf, a biobed with a Selat being examined and several panels from sickbay, and my favorite was an Engineering set with Consoles, panels and a Warp Core backdrop. Various display cases had props, masks, models as well as a full size model of Shinzon’s Scorpion and a Quark’s bar set that had a Trivia game, both Debby and I missed one question but were still promoted to Captains.
Various wall plaques had information about the displays and information about the Star Trek universe. There was a Timeline similar to what I had seen in the Star Trek Experience but not as complete but still well detailed. We took the audio companion to the exhibition but it was apparently the same from the original tour as many of the items in it were not at this version of the tour. I would have skipped it if we had known. There was also a motion ride for an additional $6 but it wasn’t staffed when we were there. We did go on a Monday afternoon since the center was on the way back to the airport. Overall we spent about two and a half hours in Star Trek immersion and got to see many set pieces up close that made it well worth the price of admission. They did the obligatory pictures on the ‘Transporter Pad’ as you entered and on the ‘Bridge’ and we did end up purchasing the Transporter photos as one was a Lenticular Photo that had us ‘Beaming’ in an out. Now if only we could have had a Ferengi Bar Tender serve us a drink that would have been cool.
The Phoenix Exhibit is closing on May 3rd, one week earlier than planned and it is headed to Philadelphia I recommend it for any fan of the shows, just skip the audio tour and take your time. Qapla’
That sounds like alot of fun! I hope the exhibit comes to Denver!