Cleveland Concoction 2015

Article by Richard Smith

It was a cold Early March morning when a few members of the USS Crystal Point piled into an older van and headed the 100 miles to Cleveland Ohio for the Second Annual Cleveland Concoction. This Con unlike many others is put on by fans for fans. The whole event runs three days, but we decided to go out on Saturday and experience things. A few members of my crew and I decided to check it out.

The theme this year was Steampunk in Wonderland, so a lot of the Cosplay was centered around that. My Crew and I donned our USS Crystal Point T-Shirts and after registering, roamed the hotel halls to see what trouble we could get into. It was still early and most of the booths were still setting up, but it didn't take us long to find the Star Trek group in Cleveland, the USS Chalenger. This group unlike mine is a member of the International Federation of Trekkers. Good bunch of guys who do some good work in the Cleveland area.

From there is was onto the ConSuite and taking with some other fan and meeting some cool people. We followed a group of them down to the Gaming Room where there were all manner of Role Playing going on. I honestly haven't role played in 15 years so I opted to play the gigantic Jenga game with a few attendees from Akron. After 25 minutes of play the tower finally came tumbling....at my hand. You can't win them all I guess.

We decided to get a few pictures after heading back up to the main floor and more people had filed in since. it was great to see so many people attending a local Con. So many well done costumes. I decided there that when I go back next year I am going to have my custom Fleet 31 Uniform made and I'll be entering the contest.

While deciding what to do next, we were approached by a woman who told us about a drink mixing demo by Calamity Labs that was about to start. Since at that moment we had no other plans, we decided to head on over. I'm glad we did! It was quite informative and my crew decided to indulge in a few samples. Since I drove, I decided to pass, but did buy a shot glass for my collection. They went over the best types of drinks to buy and the stuff you need to have a decent home bar. I wouldn't mind taking a look at their advanced course even though I am not a big drinker. Fun was had by all. Dawn and Dorian were awesome.

After Mixology 101, we went back up to the booths and there were a few more up and running and we spoke briefly with Tasia Valenza who was an actress in the Next Generation Episode "Coming of Age" as one of Wesley's fellow competitors for the Academy. She is doing voicework these days, but you can still see her in from of a camera from time to time.

It was time to hit the vendors and te room was smaller than I thought it would be but it did not disappoint. If you've ever been to a Con you know there are all manner of things you can take home. One of the guys in my crew got a Klingon Dictionary, I got a wand for my daughter and also found a custom clothing make, who I just might hire to do my Uniform.

We decided to wrap up the day with a trip to the artist room and that was another sight be behold. Tons of great work from dozens of artist. One thing that caught my eye was a Starship print. They only made 100 of them and if I had another $50 I would have been all over that, but I still had to buy gas on the way home so I had to pass unfortunately.

We found of that the 2016 Con will be centered around Star Trek's 50th Anniversary and I have to tell you I am already making plan to head over once again. It wasn't a super long day only about 8 hours in total, but I'd like to think it was a successful away mission.