Participating in A Klingon Christmas Carol has been a world of firsts: performing in a foreign language, speaking a foreign language with science-fiction origins, first time in a show with extensive stage combat… each of which has brought new and exciting challenges. After attending WindyCon 39 this weekend, I have a huge number of firsts to add to that list.
WindyCon is one of the largest fan-run science-fiction conventions in Illinois. Clocking in at a yearly attendance of around 1300, it’s an exciting gathering of like-minded folk sharing their hobbies and partying heartily. It’s also awesome. Our purpose there was to meet new people and share and represent the show by hosting a Klingon party on Friday and Saturday, attend other parties as Klingons to talk up the show, and hit the con floor to meet people and share who we are and what we’re doing with other science-fiction fans.
By the time I arrived at the convention, our party room had already been all decked out. Since this WindyCon was zombie themed, our room was made out to look like a derelict Klingon ship that had been overrun by zombie tribbles (a terrifying prospect if you ask me). I had no idea how we’d represent this, but fellow Klingon fan and friend of the show Marc Malnekoff did an excellent job creating the fierce, but furry creatures. The room had the perfect spooky cool vibe required to set the tone for a Klingon party. After helping with some general prep, we got into costume.
It was great! The costuming process wasn’t as difficult or intense as I thought it would be. We suited up first and our Klingon clothing looked quite impressive even without our ridges or makeup on. I had some difficulty with the various knots that needed to be tied on one exterior costume piece, but after some help, I was ready to get “ridged”. This involved a lot of glue but wasn’t too bad once I got the hang of it and the ridges and wig slid on easily. They looked great! I finally got to feel what it was like to be a looming, glowering, Klingon warrior.
Over the course of the evening, we took on different roles to promote the show including bartending, hanging out with guests at our party, or running “raids”. These raids involved hitting the con floor and other parties and meeting people as Klingons to talk about the show. This was by far my favorite part. Fellow cast member Josh Zagoren and I had a great time acting like Klingons and meeting other WindyCon attendees. We handed out countless bookmarks and chatted up a variety of costumed sci-fi fans. We took photos and directed people to our show related tweets. By far, I was most excited about how positive the response was. People were jazzed to see us enter their party and excited to hear about the show. I can’t say enough how cool it was to hear people excitedly shouting, “Klingons are here!” and “Qapla’!” as we entered party rooms and passed people in the hallway. The response was even greater on the second night, after we’d met a good number of people the night before.
Response was similar at our own party. WindyCon attendees hung out, enjoyed Klingon themed drinks, and had the opportunity to check out and chat about the show. Local Klingon fans joined all of us in welcoming interested visitors and treating them to the Klingon party experience. We met loads of cool people (Barfleet? That’s a thing, and an awesome one at that) and got to learn about other fan groups (Zombie Squad, look them up, they are cool) while sharing our own interests and passions. Totally cool.