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What Isaac Asimov Really Thought About The Earliest Star Trek Conventions

By Witney Seibold

May 25, 2026 6:45 am EST

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According to StarTrek.com, the very first "Star Trek" convention, "Star Trek Lives!," took place from January 21st through 23rd in 1972, only two and a half years after Gene Roddenberry's noted sci-fi series had been canceled. During its initial run, "Star Trek" was never an overwhelming ratings bonanza, and it wasn't until it began to circulate in reruns that its legion of fans began to grow. By 1972, there were enough passionate Trekkies in the world to rent out the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City and book appearances from Roddenberry himself, as well as a guest speech by legendary sci-fi author Isaac Asimov. Asimov was actually a regular attendee at such conventions.

("Star Trek" had a presence at other sci-fi cons prior to 1972, but that was the first "big" one. Also, some detail-oriented sticklers (and all we Trekkies are) will point out that the very, very first exclusively "Star Trek"-devoted con came in March of 1969 at the Newark Public Library. It was a free event, only 300 people showed up, and it had no celebrities, but some feel that it should count as the first.)

Asimov talked about the phenomenon of "Star Trek" conventions in the very first issue of Starlog Magazine, published in August of 1976. By then, cons had become pretty big business in the Trekkie community, and had even attracted something of a stigma from non-Trekkie outsiders. As Asimov recalls, outsiders viewed "Trek" cons as little more than chaotic nerd mosh pits of 12-year-old girls screaming like Beatles fans. The author corrected that stigma by announcing that the cons were attended by all types, and that Trekkies were kind, interesting, intelligent people. He got to sign autographs and had a marvelous time. He had no unkind words for the attendees.

Isaac Asimov attended several early New York cons and loved them all

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In a one-page essay written by Isaac Asimov, called "The Conventions As Asimov Sees Them," he laid out his feelings about "Trek" cons as plainly as possible. He noted that he was invited to attend conventions in 1972, 1973, 1974, and that he did two in both 1975 and 1976. According to the StarTrek.com write-up, Asimov likely only attended these cons because they were all held in New York, where he lives. It's possible that the convention center was only a brief train ride away for the author.

Regardless, Asimov loved the cons, and said that no, it wasn't just a group of, as he called them, "sub-teen girls." He said it was also "sub-teen boys, teenage girls, teenage boys, grown women, and grown men." He also noted that people turned up in droves, surprising the sponsors of the first convention in 1972. "There were plans for 250, and 2,500 arrived," he claimed.

But it wasn't ever chaotic. "I have never witnessed," he wrote, "(in a reasonably long lifetime of attending conventions of all sorts: science fiction, science, and business) any group of people as reasonable, as orderly, and as good-humored as at each of these conventions." Trekkies, he found, were kind people, and not given to mayhem. For Q&A sessions, Trekkies always lined up behind the mics and gracefully took turns asking celebrities their questions. Asimov saw the 90-minute line of autograph seekers, who all waited patiently just to meet him and talk to him very briefly. He liked "Star Trek," too – he just hated "Star Trek V."

No, this wasn't chaos or drooling fanboys. This was a hall full of calmness and decorum, a sharp contrast to the infamous 1982 "Con of Wrath."

Isaac Asimov found Trekkies to be exceptionally well-behaved

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Isaac Asimov emphasized all this by writing:

"These were enthusiastic people of all ages who had taken part in the 'Star Trek' experience, who had been and were participants in the most sophisticated example of science fiction on the television screen, and a little of whose lives had been permanently marked as a result. The Trekkies are intelligent, interested, involved people with whom it is a pleasure to be, in any numbers. Why else would they have been involved in 'Star Trek,' an intelligent, interested, and involved show?"

Asimov then recalled that there was, in spite of his observations, at least one moment when there was a little bit of uncontrolled fangirling. It seems there was a moment at one convention (he doesn't say which) when Mr. Spock actor Leonard Nimoy, who had his fair share of interesting fan interactions, strolled out on to a stage, and that some of the young women in the audience swooned. "But you have to allow for hormones, after all," Asimov wrote.

It should be noted that Asimov had a reputation at some of these conventions for being a self-declared "dirty old man." Everyone kind of knew that he liked to kiss and touch young women, often without their consent. A lot of this was framed in anecdotes as "just a bit of fun," although it's worth noting that the 1970s was a very different time, and men like Asimov were never called out for their sexual misdeeds. Asimov's lecherous behavior has inspired modern essays about bad behavior at cons, and how so much groping made by powerful men was ignored or brushed off in previous generations.