We wish we had good news to impart, but sadly, it’s true: On June 30, Star Trek: The Experience put out a press release, via the Las Vegas Hilton, stating that it would power down its warp core on Sept. 1, after 11 years as one of Las Vegas’ unlikeliest tourist magnets, along with Quark’s Bar & Restaurant and the prop-and-costume museum. As Wired magazine described it, ST:TE was "Part simulator, part environment, part museum and (of course) part gift shop/restaurant," and its shutdown is "a sad commentary on the state of the Star Trek franchise." When the motion-ride attraction opened in 1997, the then-owners of the LVH were so unprepared for the immensity of the fan turnout they found themselves having to cope with lines of kids spilling out toward the casino floor.
As far as where the finger of blame points, that depends on whom you ask. Hilton spokesman Ira David Sternberg put the onus on the theme park operators, Sandusky, Ohio-based Cedar Fair Entertainment, telling the Las Vegas Review-Journal it was "not a decision from our end."
TrekMovie.com, which broke the story on May 2 (local newspapers didn’t notice for almost two more weeks), heard otherwise and wrote, "Apparently the Hilton Hotel was the biggest holdout, convinced more money could be made using the space for other purposes." It added that the talks between the three main players (CBS/Paramount, Cedar Fair, and the LVH) had gone on far longer than anticipated, but agreement proved elusive.
Attendance at ST:TE had long been slumping and Cedar Fair (which inherited the attraction from Paramount Parks) had instituted economy measures, including shorter operating hours. One provisional solution, leaked to the media, would have involved a short-term lease renewal, keeping ST:TE in place until the release of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek feature film could possibly jump-start attendance.
But that was when Abrams’ movie (an "origins" story about young Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc.) was slated for a late 2008/early 2009 release window. It’s since been pushed back to May 8, 2009. Although Cedar Fair’s contract runs through Dec. 31, Sternberg writes, "They are closing Sept. 1, because it will take them three months to move infrastructure, props, etc. out of there." Actual props and costumes will revert to CBS, while the fate of the infrastructure to which Sternberg refers remains unknown.
CBS Consumer Products, which continues to branch out into new realms of Trek merchandising, including manga, has floated the possibility of resurrecting ST:TE elsewhere, maybe even in Vegas. CBS actually appears keener on the prospect than does Cedar Fair, whose announcement of the Sept. 1 closing had a distinct note of finality. Paul Walker, "captain" of local fan club USS Las Vegas, won’t be sorry to see the last of Cedar Fair, whose best-known attraction is Knott’s Berry Farm. Walker told TrekMovie.com, "They are not advertising it. They are not promoting it. Cedar Fair bought it, but doesn’t know what to do with it."
He also believed that, despite the addition of a "Borg Invasion" ride in 2004, the mini-theme park had fallen on evil days: "Klingon Encounter is so outdated that there is no reason to ride it again. The Las Vegas cityscape footage is totally outdated. [Filmed in 1995, it shows –- among other atavisms –- the Sands hotel-casino, long since demolished.] ... And in Quark’s they haven’t changed the menu enough to keep it fresh." Walker’s conclusion is that Cedar Fair needs to recapitalize ST:TE, not economize.
The park operators will have one last opportunity to capitalize on Trek mania Aug. 6-10, when Creation Entertainment holds its annual –- and heavily attended -– Star Trek Las Vegas Convention. Although Creation has bundled admission to ST:TE in its ticket packages, company co-founder Adam Malin didn’t seem all that broken up about the attraction’s demise. The money that would have gone for Experience tickets, he told the R-J, "is going to literally give us a huge operating budget to create other kinds of evening entertainment." Creation’s previous moves in that direction have included concerts of Trek film and TV scores, featuring a half-size complement of the Las Vegas Philharmonic.
Author Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation (the most successful of the various Trek series) offered a less-mercenary take, on his "WWdN: In Exile" blog: "It's obviously an important place to me, though I don't expect it be nearly as important to anyone else in the world. I've always said that it's something every Star Trek fan should, uh, experience, at least once." They’ll have [?] more weeks to do just that.
So, as we prepare to say a fond "Live long and prosper" to Star Trek: The Experience, there seemed no better way to close than with the thoughts of Robert Picardo, a fan favorite as The Doctor (a hologram, he had no given name) on Star Trek: Voyager. In a conference call with SyFyPortal, he mused, "It breaks my heart a little bit to no longer be my own theme park ride. Once you have an action figure for years, there are only a few ways to go up, and being a theme park attraction is one of the only ones."
