The unfinished set of the U.S.S. Ares intended for the never-to-be-made Axanar feature film. Image/Axanar Productions
Axanar Piggybacks Convention atop SphinxCon
Scrambling to Ready Bridge Set for November Event in Atlanta
ATLANTA — In a joint statement, a non-Star Trek science fiction convention announced it was hosting AxaCon, a long-promised Axanar fan event, as a “convention within a convention” scheduled November 2-4, 2018, at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Airport.
Table of Contents
UPDATE June 22: AxaCon posts guest roster (pictured below): Axanar Lite writer-director Paul Jenkins, Fan Film Factor blogger and Axanar surrogate Jonathan Lane, Prelude to Axanar actor Steven Jepson and animator Mark Largent, creator of the Axanar parody, Stalled Trek: Prelude to Ax'd-We-Are, joining previously announced guests Alec Peters and David Gerrold.
FEATURED GUEST OWC Studios head Alec Peters appears on the SphinxCon website as a featured guest. Image/SphinxCon
SphinxCon
The June 19 announcement stated the hosting organization, The Manticore Company, Ltd., would provide AxaCon with a dedicated space at the hotel for its panels and events.
Manticore operates SphinxCon, a literary military scifi-fantasy convention, the annual meeting of the Royal Manticoran Navy: The Official Honor Harrington Fan Association. The scifi series is written by author David Weber.
In return, AxaCon is slated to offer additional guests as well as a display of television and movie props from Axanar Productions’ CEO, Alec Peters’ personal collection.
BANKRUPT SphinxCon described Peters as “known throughout the scifi world as a collector of screen-used props from a variety of science fiction franchises, most notably Star Trek.”
Peters’ original company, Propworx, went bankrupt in 2012, owing $401,466 to a number of creditors, most of it owed MGM, Propworx’s customer for the Stargate auctions.1) Under the terms of the bankruptcy none of that money was repaid, and the company was reconstituted in 2015.
Since forced to abandon his putative California studio, where Propworx was housed rent-free, Peters’ company website has been taken down and the domain name put up for sale.
Finishing the Bridge Set
The impending convention dates spurred Peters to seek volunteers last week to help him complete Axanar’s only standing set, the bridge of the film’s U.S.S. Ares, estimated at only 85 percent complete. Peters appealed to volunteers to help with installing missing monitors, graphics, control panels and carpeting in time for the November event.
'Perfect Sense'
SphinxCon chairman David Weiner said it made “perfect sense” for his group to host AxaCon after Peters made the proposal. “We had already come to an agreement with Alec to offer a private tour of the Axanar sets at OWC Studios to our Manticore Premier members and Convention guests,” Weiner said.
SphinxCon had previously announced that in addition to the Basic and Deluxe memberships to attend the convention ($50 and $60, respectively), a $150 “Manticore” membership entitled the person to “a Meet and Greet with all of the Convention Guests at OWC Studios in Lawrenceville, Ga. (transportation provided), where you will be able to take your selfies with the guests on the bridge of the U.S.S. Ares from Star Trek: Axanar!”2)
The $150 memberships sold out, though the SphinxCon website did not specify how many were sold. “Everyone thought it would be a win-win,” Weiner said.
AxaCosts Extra
While tickets allowing SphinxCon members to see the Axanar set are sold out, Peters told members of the Axanar Fan Group on Facebook they would be charged extra to attend AxaCon and see the bridge set:
These are only ticket [prices] to SphinxCon. We have yet to put up the page for tickets to AxaCon, which is an add-on.3)
Program
Though at the time this article was filed the SphinxCon program had not yet been announced,4) its AxaCon statement described the prospective offerings as “Axanar actors, production team and crew-led panels, meet and greets, and autograph signings,” as well as preproduction updates regarding Axanar Lite, the two short films Peters is allowed to produce in the wake of his settlement in the copyright infringement lawsuit brought against him by CBS and Paramount Pictures.
Describing Axanar
While SphinxCon described Peters as a “noted sci-fi props expert,” and Prelude to Axanar as having “won 46 film festival awards and the love and respect of Star Trek fans around the world,” it omitted any mention of the controversial copyright case in which a federal judge found Peters had personally profited from using Star Trek’s intellectual property.
COMMENTS
Discuss this article in AxaMonitor's Facebook group.
Keywords
1)
BusinessBankruptcies.com, retrieved 6/19/18.
2)
SphinxCon Membership page, retrieved 6/19/18.
3)
Alec Peters Facebook post, 6/19/18.
4)
This article was filed June 19, 2018.