We’re less than a month from Creation Entertainment’s annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas — and today we’re continuing our “STLV 101” series to get newcomers ready to take on the week-long event with with more tips and tricks to make the most of the convention experience, from navigating the convention to surviving the photo op and autograph lines!

I know that many of you are eager to check out the schedule for STLV’s events, but unlike many other convention groups, Creation doesn’t publicly release their day-by-day schedule of events, signings, and other happenings until about a week before the convention kicks off.

While that may make it a bit inconvenient for planning your daily ventures to panels, autograph sessions, or photo ops — or even to decide which days you plan to attend the convention — it’s still early enough that most admission and signing tickets will still be available once the itinerary is posted. (You’ll be able to save on that $8.50-per-ticket “processing fee” too, if you wait to purchase tickets until you get to Las Vegas.)

On the bright side, many announced guests also have their attending days publicly set on Creation’s STLV Guests page, so you can start to pencil in your plans for who you want to see and when they are expected to be in attendance at the convention.

All convention attendees will receive a printed schedule once the convention kicks off, but I recommend printing off a copy before you leave for Las Vegas to help you map out your plans for the week — our unofficial Facebook group will often convert the online schedule to a convenient Excel format to let you really dig into the event timetables — but bring a highlighter along to help you mark your must-see panels if you’re waiting until arrival.

Speaking of arriving at the convention hall: let’s talk about pre-registration! This early check-in for STLV attendees starts Tuesday night before the event, where all full-week pass holders can get their official STLV 2018 badges before the barrage of daily general-admission attendees arrive — as well as obtaining early access to the giant vendor’s room.

The pre-registration process prioritizes each high-level ticket-holder tier — Gold seatholders get the first check-in time, followed by Captain’s Chair attendees, Copper, then GA Weekend — but even if the lines seem long on Tuesday night, they move quickly… and they’re nothing compared to the lengthy registration lines full of single-day-ticket attendees that fill the hotel lobby each day of the convention. (The pre-reg times will be on the published schedule when released.)

Once you’ve made it through the check-in process, you’ll find a map of the Rio’s convention area in both the printed program booklet, as well as in the main rotunda.

STLV fills the entire convention center, with three stages (the main ‘Leonard Nimoy Theater,’ the secondary ‘DeForest Kelley Theater,’ and the smaller ‘CBS All Access Stage’), separate rooms for photo ops and special autograph sessions, Quark’s Bar (a lounge area with hot and cold food for purchase), several Trek-themed exhibit and photo rooms (with recreations of the TOS Enterprise bridge and TNG’s Ten Forward bar), and a gallery of Discovery props and costumes — plus my personal favorite room, the giant vendors room (or ‘Roddenberry Exhibition Hall’).

As you navigate your way throughout the convention center, you’ll find the hallways decorated with Trek-themed banners, which always has several props that are perfect for casual photo ops — like replicas of a TOS-era transporter pad, a set of Borg regeneration alcoves, the Guardian of Forever, and (new for this year) a Discovery-era Terran Empire agony booth.

Once you’ve got the convention layout figured out, it’s likely you’ll be spending a lot of time in the Nimoy Theater, which is the main ballroom that hosts the majority of the top-tier Trek panels.

Just about all of these panels make time for fan question-and-answer sessions. If you’re eager to ask a question, be sure to line up as soon as possible — in fact, I recommend lining up before the panel begins if the Creation staff allows it. As each fan’s question is unique, you never know how long the celebrity’s answer will be, or what rabbit hole they’ll fall into when answering.

As a courtesy to others, though, please consider whether your question is respectful to the guests, and to other fans. Creation encourages asking thoughtful questions that will provoke an insightful answer, but keep in mind that the guest may not answer your question in the way that you expect — and that’s okay! For some of the attendees, they filmed their scenes years (or decades) go, and may not remember what filming a specific scene was like.

One small aside for the main convention areas – bring a lightweight sweater! These rooms are large and can be very cold when sitting for extended periods of time. Also, please be courteous towards other fans. Keep private conversations at a minimal volume, take phone calls outside and silence your tribbles, phasers, and tricorders!

When it comes to autographs and photo ops, there are a few things you should know to plan your time accordingly — Creation sells autograph tickets in numerical order, so the earlier you buy your signing passes, the sooner you’ll get through the lines. Tickets purchased on-site at STLV are relegated to the back of the line, so you’ll need consider if the $8.50-per-ticket service fee outweighs the prospects of waiting in line for potentially an hour or two.

For Gold attendees, Creation includes 13 autograph tickets as part of the attendance package — with prioritized access, meaning that Gold gets to go to the front of the line for those signing guests. (This year’s included Gold autographs feature such guests as Kate Mulgrew and Colm Meaney.)

It’s always wise to double check who is offered as a freebie for Gold, as those lines can take a while to get through — with an on-site autograph ticket purchase, it took nearly two hours to get through a signing line for one Gold-included guest last year.

Fortunately, Creation calls out ticket numbers in the main theater to ensure that no one misses their opportunity, and also displays the status of the queue on monitors around the main stage theater, which means that you can stay in your chair until your ticket window is called.

Just be sure to bring something for the guest to sign! Not all guests have printed photos on hand at their signing tables, so you’ll need to plan ahead — or at least stop by the vendors room to pick up a piece of Trek merchandise or select an image from a wide variety of Trek photo vendors.

Photo ops are my own personal favorite STLV experience, and thankfully, those lines move much more quickly — there’s no prioritized queuing here, as all the photo op sessions have ‘first come, first served’ access. Creation’s photo op tickets can cover either one or two people, and their photography team allows up to four people (via two tickets) to appear in each photo.

As you enter the photo op area (which are off-limits to personal photography), assistants will provide any specific rules each guest may have in place — such as ‘no hugs’ or ‘fist-bumps only.’ While many guests are open to limited physical interaction, others are not, and it’s crucial to respect those boundaries.

One thing to remember is that Creation does not offer refunds for purchased autograph and photo op tickets — unless, of course, a scheduled STLV guest cancels their appearance at the convention. That does happen occasionally, and in those instances Creation does try their best to ensure a fair replacement option, offering trades for the same experience with another Trek guest.

They’re also great at accommodating any guests with special needs or who have a scheduling conflict (such as a signing and photo op happening at the same time) — just find a volunteer and explain your situation. They’ll be happy to help!

For more information on navigating STLV, please join us in the Unofficial Star Trek Las Vegas Convention Group on Facebook, where you’ll find previous year’s schedules, convention center maps, and our STLV FAQ, which tries to answer every question you may have.

It’s also a great place to make friends before you arrive because even if you travel to Las Vegas by yourself, you’re never alone at STLV. See you in August!