Did Star Trek Conventions begot Comic Con and Cosplaying?

[SteveJRogers]

This is the question. I was asked this question concerning the recent New York City Comic Con and since when did the idea of dressing up as your favorite character start becoming a thing.

The only thing I could think of was the Trek conventions in the early 1970s, and while I know sci-fi conventions go all the way back to the late 1930s (at least. Ah hell STAR TREK can pretty much thank conventions for it's existence with Gene taking The Cage to a few and that finally got to be shown to the right people), I don't think the template of the conventions that we know now (Star Wars Celebration, San Diego Comic Con, etc) didn't come into being until the Trek fan conventions.

Basically the cosplaying, the vendors showing off or selling wares, the panels featuring interesting conversations, guests being available for autographs and whatnot and everything else that goes with a modern pop-culture convention.

Sooooo, am I right in that assumption? Or was it more than just the Trek cons that helped get the ball rolling?

 

[A beaker full of death]

Beget.
Sort of. There used to be comic conventions and Creation (Star Trek) conventions. They were smaller, much smaller, but they grew and then the overlap started to happen.
Now every geek in the US turns out for these things, and all the corporations took over. Hell, it's almost cool now.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I was asked this question concerning the recent New York City Comic Con and since when did the idea of dressing up as your favorite character start becoming a thing.... Or was it more than just the Trek cons that helped get the ball rolling?

IIRC, Bjo Trimble, her husband, John, and other committee members of the (annual?) science fiction convention, Equicon, went on to do the first Star Trek conventions in the 70s. Traditions such as trivia contests, fan art shows, hucksters, filking, costume parades, etc., had already been a staple of earlier SF conventions. The events just transferred across and picked up on the ST theme.

There's a useful book called "The Making of the Trek Conventions, or, How to throw a party for 12000 of your most intimate friends" by Joan Winston, who was also a contributor to "Star Trek Lives!"