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For fans of Star Trek: The Experience

kevjulian said:
Dale said:
A former Quark's employee with whom I communicate occasionally is visiting the Neonopolis location this weekend and will report back with any updates available. If he gets any news at all I'll pass it on.

I agree that reopening Quark's should be the first step. Quark's and the museum...
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You contact wouldn't happen to be Darrin Benjamin (former bartender). The reason I ask is that he made a comment on the latest Trek Cast about going to Neonopolis over the weekend and pretty much said the same thing you did.

Kev
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Indeed it was. He emailed me the other day to say he was planning to stop by Neonopolis and see what he could see.
 
Thanks for the link, Biggshow! So many pics, though. Would have been nice if they were available in a set of ZIP files. ;)
 
I just saw an article on Trekspace reference the opening of STTE-A. It says that it is scheduled to open May 8th 2009 for the upcoming movie. It cites the source as the Las Vegas Sun (or Times I cant remeber). Can any of the former employees, friends, locals.. confirm this

Kev
 
Las Vegas Sun article stating Star Trek: The Experience to open May 8 along with the new movie.

Neonopolis has taken networking to a whole new level.
Rohit Joshi, the owner’s representative for Neonopolis, welcomed Telemundo to the downtown Las Vegas property last week and announced he has a signed contract to house the Star Trek Experience.
What makes the deal so unusual is that Telemundo is owned by NBC, while rival network CBS owns the rights to the Star Trek brand.
In this world of multinational corporations with diverse assets, it’s certainly not inconceivable that subsidiaries of these rivals could share space.
Still, having two high-profile brands of direct competitors in the same venue raised some eyebrows. Scott Adams, redevelopment manager for Las Vegas, decided late last year to gauge the level of interest in the separate projects firsthand and came away convinced.
“I went to New York with Joshi the first week of December to meet with NBC and CBS to validate their interest in Neonopolis,” Adams said. “Clearly NBC has plans for Telemundo here and with the new movie coming out, CBS expressed a real interest in seeing the Star Trek Experience reopen here. I brought up the connection to the other network in both meetings and no one seemed too concerned about it.”
The latest installment in the Star Trek series is slated to be released in May.
It features new actors playing the familiar roles of Kirk, Spock and others from the original series as Star Fleet neophytes. A trailer for the movie that premiered during the Super Bowl offered a glimpse of the Star Trek on steroids that is expected to capture a whole new generation of Trekkies.
There has been speculation about the Star Trek Experience moving to the $100 million facility at Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard, but the signed contract makes the project almost a certainty. The city has even amended its parking agreement with Neonopolis to allow additional spaces for the new attraction.
The city owns the garage beneath Neonopolis and Wirrulla Hayward, the company Joshi represents, owns the structure itself.
“CBS is very excited to bring the Star Trek Experience here,” Joshi said. “We have the potential to bring almost half of what the canopy draws downtown with one tenant.”
The Fremont Street Experience, which includes the Viva Vision light show displayed on the canopy above Fremont Street, brings an estimated 18 million visitors downtown annually. Joshi said the Star Trek Experience could draw an additional 7 million visitors each year.
With the projected admission of $20 to $25 per person, it is easy to see why Joshi and CBS are so enthusiastic.
The first phase of the new Star Trek Experience is scheduled to launch in the spring.
Telemundo set up its new Las Vegas office in Neonopolis last month. The Spanish-language network has leased 17,500 square feet of space on the third floor of the complex for a broadcast studio.
Celia Chavez, general manager of the network’s operations in Las Vegas and Denver, said Telemundo is excited about the new location.
“There is a lot of energy and passion here with all that is happening at Neonopolis,” Chavez said. “This is a unique broadcasting opportunity that we hope this will help take our brand to the next level.”
The Telemundo office will employ 24 people initially, including a sales team and a news bureau. There is also the potential for increased remote broadcasts for the network as well as its parent company, NBC.
“There is a lot of synergy with our brand and (NBC),” Chavez said. “We are still in the installation stages here, but we are always open to new ideas.”
The other new tenants at Neonopolis, the Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Art and the Southern Nevada Center for the Arts, have also settled in. The art museum is displaying the Revealing Women Redux exhibit, which includes sculptures by Roberta Baskin Shefrin and the paintings of Susanne Forestieri, as well as the museum’s own Barbizon School collection.
The initial response from the community at our location here has been great,” said Joe Palermo, a well-known local artist and the museum’s executive director.
The space next door to the art museum has blossomed from an empty food court into a working artist’s showcase. More than 50 artists from around the world have filled the 30 spaces available (some have doubled up) with paintings, sculptures, jewelry and just about every other form of art imaginable.
“This has really been a collaborative effort,” said Carl Corcoran, president of the Southern Nevada Center for the Arts. “A lot of people have had a hand in getting this going.”
Artists of note at the center include Palermo, Michael Griesgraber, A.D. Cook and Ruel James, whose work is in the collections of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Whoopi Goldberg and Burt Reynolds.
The remnants of the former food court that previously occupied the space are the neon lights overhead that now serve to enhance the artistic experience.
Neonopolis lost a high-profile tenant recently when Jillian’s closed its doors, but even that setback has not dampened the enthusiasm at the project. Joshi said several prospective tenants have expressed an interest in the site, including a national restaurant chain.
Despite some big crowds for teen-oriented events, Jillian’s has struggled to generate the kind of consistent business needed to fill the cavernous venue, which took up portions of two floors at the site.
“They tried very hard to make a go of it, but there was just no brand there anymore,” Joshi said. “Branding is critical to success now.”
Del Prado Jewelers maintains its space at Neonopolis as does the Galaxy Theatres, and Joshi says the other vacant spaces will also be filled with what he called “blow-your-mind brand name” tenants.
The upscale nightclub Wet and several restaurants have pushed opening dates to the spring to cash in on the buzz generated by the Star Trek Experience’s opening.
“We will probably open them before Star Trek to give them a few weeks head start,” Joshi said.
The Star Trek Experience is slated to open May 8, the same date as the movie’s premiere. The experience will be introduced in phases, with the simpler (and less costly) components, such as the food and beverage, retail and museum to be rolled out first. The entire experience, including rides and an IMAX 4D component should be completed by next year.
Possible tie-ins to the May movie opening include merchandise sales and a Las Vegas red carpet premiere, complete with cast members.
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Hit the tags at the bottom of the page but Dale's quoting the current state of info on the reinstall.
 
I'm actually more excited about the return of STTE than about the new movie. Movies come and go, suck or don't, but STTE was a magical gathering place... a center of goodwill and instant understanding between people... a community of friends and acquaintances with a shared interest... and a great place to get a good meal and some extremely fine and potent drinks!
 
I have a few worries:
Is this new place just going to be a severely watered-down version of the STTE we all knew and loved? Are the same people going to be running it? Will it have the same employees? Will the Klingons and Ferengi and Vulcans be back? Also, the location kind of sucks, doesn't it? It's not in a nice hotel right there where they have the convention.

I'm sorry, I'm not usually so negative. It's just that for ten years, STTE held a very special place in my heart, and this whole thing has really thrown me for a loop. If anyone has any reassurance for me, I'd be grateful.
 
If you want everything to be as it was at the Hilton, then I'm afraid you will be sorely disappointed. There is a whole new management team for one (although some of the people responsible for the move were a couple of our better former GMs). I know that some of the old employees have moved on while others are still waiting for the phone to ring. CBS has a vested interest in seeing the place is operated well and looks good. OTOH, several have noted that STTE Classic was starting to look a bit run down towards the end so I don't know how much hands-on quality control they will assert. It does appear likely that Quark's will be reinstalled but the rest is open to conjecture. It also appears that the economic slowdown will cause a slowdown in the other phases of the reinstall. And Neonopolis already has a spotty history of popularity. However, several of the surrounding hotels (notably the Golden Nugget) have undergone recent renovations so a nice hotel nearby is not that big a problem.

Bottom line is that we don't know a lot of specifics at this point. The article that Dale posted is about as up to date and specific as we get right now.
 
Biggshow said:
If you want everything to be as it was at the Hilton, then I'm afraid you will be sorely disappointed. There is a whole new management team for one (although some of the people responsible for the move were a couple of our better former GMs). I know that some of the old employees have moved on while others are still waiting for the phone to ring. CBS has a vested interest in seeing the place is operated well and looks good. OTOH, several have noted that STTE Classic was starting to look a bit run down towards the end so I don't know how much hands-on quality control they will assert. It does appear likely that Quark's will be reinstalled but the rest is open to conjecture. It also appears that the economic slowdown will cause a slowdown in the other phases of the reinstall. And Neonopolis already has a spotty history of popularity. However, several of the surrounding hotels (notably the Golden Nugget) have undergone recent renovations so a nice hotel nearby is not that big a problem.

Bottom line is that we don't know a lot of specifics at this point. The article that Dale posted is about as up to date and specific as we get right now.
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Thanks biggshow!

I guess I just have to accept that the Experience is GONE. I'll just have to go through all the stages of grief and someday when I've finally accepted it, I can go back to Vegas again, and visit the new place.

Man, I sure am having a hard time coming to terms with it though. I can't even imagine what the people who actually worked there are going through.
 
Trekcast.com is your friend. :) Several interviews with former alien employees, including a currently running two-parter with April (T'Pril/Tahryn).

Enjoy.
 
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

Vernon Wilmer (Borg drone Seven of Sixteen from STTE and the Experience's resident archivist/historian) is nearing completion of episode one of his epic documentary mini-series on Star Trek: The Experience. He expects to release the first 90-minute episode to the public via the web late next week. Watch this thread for details as they become available.
 
Vernon Wilmer's documentary "Star Trek: My Experience" has premiered! Set aside about 90 minutes to view this epic two-parter and prepare yourself for a STTE nostalgia trip and a chance to see places, people and things you never saw or knew about Star Trek: The Experience!

Click the link above and settle in for a terrific ride!
 
More confirmation today, via Sci Fi Wire...

Confirmed: New contract to keep Star Trek The Experience alive in Vegas

SCI FI Wire confirmed today that a contract has been signed with CBS/Paramount to reopen the Star Trek The Experience exhibit in Las Vegas on May 8 —starting with at least a new restaurant and retail shop—to coincide with the opening of J.J. Abram's Star Trek movie.

[...]
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Full article: http://scifiwire.com/2009/02/confir...p-star-trek-the-experience-alive-in-vegas.php

:beer:
 
Dale said:
Vernon Wilmer's documentary "Star Trek: My Experience" has premiered! Set aside about 90 minutes to view this epic two-parter and prepare yourself for a STTE nostalgia trip and a chance to see places, people and things you never saw or knew about Star Trek: The Experience!

Click the link above and settle in for a terrific ride!
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I said it in the other thread, but I'll say it here too. This is amazing, touching and just downright well put together and fun. :bolian: THANKS
 
I kinda know Vernon since of course we both worked at STTE, just different eras. I told hime that if Paramount/CBS were smart, they would have him document the rebirth of STTE-A at Neonopolis. Apparently there's bad blood on the part of P/CBS. Dumb.
 
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