Corner Brook -
If you happened to be in the area of West Street on Saturday, the sight of Darth Vader, fearsome bounty hunter Jango Fett, together with a clone trooper may have been a bit startling.
However, if you could see the faces behind the masks, you would have noticed the ear-to-ear grins of three men who were realizing a dream. The organizers of Newfoundland's West Coast Con, the first sci-fi convention in Corner Brook, were only a few of the hundreds of guests and participants who felt right at home surrounded by so-called and self-proclaimed geeks.
"I have been a big fan of science fiction my whole life, I'm a pretty big nerd, as you can probably see," Gage Lavallee of Stephenville said. "I'm a big Stargate and Star Trek fan mostly, so I'm just checking out the stuff.
"I've never been to a sci-fi convention before. This is pretty cool actually, they have some pretty cool stuff and I met the stunt coordinator Star Wars and Indiana Jones movie (Paul Weston) and got an autograph."
In what seemed to be the theme of the day, Lavallee thought a sci-fi convention was long overdue and hopes it can grow into something much bigger in the years to come.
"I thought it was a pretty cool idea, it's about time they got something like this on the go," he said. "There's nothing around here other than ski-doos, and Star Trek don't mix with ski-doos, right?"
James Drover of Corner Brook was impressed to learn a few things he didn't know about stunts from Weston, but overall he was just having a good time and enjoying the opportunity.
"I've been a sci-fi nerd for most of my life," he said. "We don't get something like this very often on the west coast and I hope this one grows and gets a bit bigger every year. I don't think it can get as big as the east coast one, just because of the population, but I would like to see it get close at least."
Sharon Street of Corner Brook brought her 10-year-old nephew Kalen Street out to the convention. They sat in on a couple of the panels and browsed the dealer room, and were impressed by what was available.
"I love it," Sharon said. "It's about time we got something here like this. There are things like this on the east coast, but nothing on the west coast, especially for Star Wars, Star Trek and anime fans. So, this is lovely, I hope they have it again next year, just as big or bigger with more things and more events."
Sharon was chatting up quite the storm with a few of the other guests, revelling in the opportunity to converse with some like-minded people.
"It's nice to know I'm not the only geek around, that there are other people that like the same shows that I do and share the same interests I have," she said. "It's nice to be able to get together. You have sports fans, so why not anime fans and Star Trek fans."
Meanwhile, Kalen was rehearsing some of the new moves he learned from the session on lifesaver training.
"I think it is good they have a science fiction convention here, I like it a bit myself," he said. "I like Star Trek and Star Wars and cartoons that come on television I like a lot of different things here."
Meanwhile, organizer Carson Smith was just blown away by the public response.
"It's better than we thought," he said. "We almost exceeded in one day what we thought we would get over the two days, it's just great. We figured we would get a couple of hundred people and we're well over a hundred people now (mid-Saturday afternoon), it wouldn't surprise me if we are at 150."
Smith is already contemplating a bigger and better convention next year, and the year after that, for that matter.
churley@thewesternstar.com
