Fan tourism and conventions

While Star Trek is largely set in space and a fictional future, the opportunities for fans to get close to the text are myriad. Filming locations, museum exhibitions, themed experiences, and fan conventions offer multiple communal experiences: from meeting other fans to buying merchandise to seeing cast members in the flesh. As a result, Star Trek can be located and found anywhere fans travel and often in some quite mundane and everyday sites. This chapter discusses Star Trek conventions, traveling exhibitions, theme park-style experiences, real filming locations, and other public spaces, arguing that they offer a useful cultural map of how fans have continued to physically and emotionally engage with the franchise. Moreover, what fans do in these different types of places helps to make the experience more real and close the gap between fact and fiction, the present and the future.