If you had asked me a year ago if my favorite, wildest dreams would be fulfilled during my lifetime, I would have probably replied with some slightly snarky or at least ironic answer which, pressed together and shaken down, would have essentially come to a simple answer: No. But I would have been wrong.

I’m not saying that attending StarFest has granted all my wishes. I haven’t actually traveled in the TARDIS. I wasn’t able to watch the formation of a new star or, at least, space confederacy. I didn’t single-handedly defeat hordes of flesh-eating demons or find the cure to a fearsome zombie-creating virus. But if you could get as close as possible to any of those activities without ever actually endangering your life or travelling in space, I suppose that StarFest would be the place to do it.

StarFest is the Neapolitan ice cream of science fiction geekdom. Not into Star Wars? You can take a class on basic Klingon. Doctor Who just not your thing? You can rub elbows with Lord of the Rings enthusiasts. And if anything space or alien-related fails to tickle you pink, it is a few steps away to ComicFest or the Anime room, where furries abound in numbers reminiscent of a Tribble invasion.

When I was asked if I would be willing to act as a blogger for the StarFest website, starland.com, my knee-jerk reaction was an enthusiastic, “Will I get in on the company dime?” My StarFest experience started off on Thursday evening when I met up with my buddy Dave, famous as one of the voices here on www.screengeeks.com, and his out-of-town friends from www.geekradiodaily.com and www.thejesusgeeks.com. But that was just a brief prelude to the official stuff that started on Friday.

Friday found me, dull-eyed and limp-tailed from lack of sleep, in the official StarFest interview room at 11:00 awaiting a press-only screening of Angry Baby Monkey’s latest horror film. Dahmer vs. Gacy is a comedic take on governmental cloning, religious chicanery, and tabloid journalism, with a healthy dose of serial killers, rednecks and ninjas thrown in. From the moment the film commenced, attended by director Ford Austin, I suddenly understood that the weekend would not be a blind stumbling from one event to the next with little to entertain me but making remarks on my fellow attendee’s costumes. I did spend some of Friday simply wandering from room to room and wondering what this person or that was dressed up as. I think my first thrill came when I saw two members of the 501^st Legion dressed as alien soldiers from the classic 1980’s miniseries, V. But since my first experience asking for photos with icons from my childhood was so positive, it made me brave to ask for more from others later, fortunately.

Friday’s dinner was followed by a screening of the 1984 film, Night of the Comet, hosted by the Denver Film Society. True, it was not an official activity of StarFest, but it fit in perfectly with Saturday morning’s 10:00 Zombie Defense Tactics class (hand-to-hand combat, only). From there I was swept into a whirlwind of activities, and I barely even scraped the surface of the panels, screenings and Q&A sessions at the con. My personal itinerary included:
Authors Readings – excerpts from three authors, including Mario Acevedo, author of Werewolf Smackdown.
Horror Directors Panel – discussion of indie and guerilla film making featuring Ford Austin, Philip Calderone, director of
Manhater, and the guys from Bizjack Flemco, bringing Atom the Amazing Zombie Killer to indie film theaters near you next year.
Doctor Who – Past Present and Future Discussion
Starting a Podcast Panel – with the guys from www.screengeeks.com and fellow podcasters
Federation Ball – where I actually danced. Okay, only one dance, but that’s a lot for me.

Here I feel I should take a break to explain about the whole photo thing. On Saturday evening as I was passing through the crowd around the Federation Ball in the atrium, I passed a man who looked remarkably like the Doctor. My Doctor. Not the other ones. I had heard there was a guy wandering the Fest who looked like my Doctor, and as soon as I saw him I reacted the only way I possibly could: I grabbed him by the lapels and dragged him to a secluded spot where we proceeded to…you know. Yes. That. We did that. Two or three times at least. In two or three different poses.

All that to say that if you have always wanted a picture of yourself with the Doctor, or a dark elf, or even a wookie (yes, there was a 7-foot wookie in attendance), Star Fest is the place to go. My would-be doctor was so gracious about allowing me to take photos with him, that he even posed for a few more when I found my Rose Tyler look alike whom I had met earlier that afternoon.

Sunday was a great day for attending more panels and Q&A’s. Giant Gnome Productions hosted a podcasting panel on audio dramas and did a fantastic job, even running a demo of how to do voice work and edit it together.

But the Q&A’s made my Sunday. I was only able to attend Garrett Wang, actor from Star Trek: Voyager, and Marina Sirtis, who played Deanna Troy in Star Trek: TNG. The StarFest Powers chose well by inviting two of the most humorous individuals I’ve had the pleasure of seeing live. Wang was downright funny while talking about other projects he has worked on and continually being mistaken for a Native American extra while on the set of TNT’s miniseries, Into the West.

But Marina Sirtis won my heart with her straightforward treatment of filming TNG and making jokes about acting, the French, and her fellow costars. My only regret was that there was only one of me and so many Q&A’s I would have liked to attend.

You probably think I’m building up a somewhat unimposing science fiction convention held annually in a mid-western state far too much, and in a way you’re right. In a way, everything I got out of StarFest was sparked by experiences, affections, and feelings I took in with me. While I truly admired the amount of effort that went into the creation of a set that looked like of the Hoth ice caves, the planning necessary for putting on a three-day fete that catered to every type of sci-fi geekdom, or the creation of a life-size Tardis, I myself had little to do with the outcome of my first StarFest except making the effort to move my feet from event to the next and let others entertain me.

But for me that was all that was necessary to have one of the best weekend I have had in a long time. Will I be attending next year? Darn tootin’ I will. Sometimes bliss is as simple a thing as having a photo taken with someone dressed up like your favorite character from a TV show.