Marc's Con Report Part 4 -- The Exhibition Room

Now let's move onto a very impressive part of the Century 21 convention --
The Exhibition Room. This was a fairly large conference room which had
been filled with models, costumes, props, and artwork from almost every
Gerry Anderson production.

They had some great stuff from UFO. The most prominent part of the UFO
display was a round table which contained the original large Sky One model,
the original large Interceptor model, an original small Interceptor model,
an original Alien helmet, and 3 replica SHADO Mobiles which I believe were
the same size as the studio models. The Sky One & Interceptor models are
owned by Phil Rae -- the small one was for sale a year or two ago
(advertised on my website), and I didn't realize until this convention that
Phil Rae was the buyer. The original Alien helmet is owned by Paolo Malaguti.

Nearby this table was a Moonbase girl's uniform plus wig and
boots. However, this was not an original costume from the series, even
though I've seen some people claim it is --to me, it doesn't even look much
like the original costume! Next to this was an original costume -- George
Sewell's brown jumpsuit, which was brought by Paolo Malaguti. Next to this
was a display of Derek Meddings/Mike Trim's pre-production artwork for
several Anderson series, which included paintings/drawings of SID,
Moonbase, the SHADO mobile, and Moon Mobile.

Across the room were some more pre-production drawings by Keith Wilson &
Bob Bell -- the Interceptor pilot uniform, the Alien costume, and the SHADO
HQ control room for the cancelled 2nd season of UFO.

I think that was all of the UFO display items.

And the rest of the Exhibition Room? There was a very nice Stingray &
Thunderbirds display, with lots of original puppets. There was a large
Space:1999 main mission wall panel & desk, which I'm sure was a replica. I
think Maya's original costume there too (?), plus there were some more
original Space:1999 uniforms.

There was a huge display of the real-life-proportioned puppets from Captain
Scarlet, Joe 90, and Secret Service. These all looked like original
puppets to me. Along with these was a Spectrum car & Angel aircraft, which
I'm not sure were original or not.

There was a display of Terrahawks stuff, but I don't know anything about
this series.

There was also a display of original models & items from Space Precinct,
including a huge model of the space station were Brogan's family lived.

There was an impressive set of original models (and probably some replicas
as well) from Space:1999, including lots of Eagles & Hawks. Along with this
was some Space:1999 pre-production art.

There were also some models of Thunderbirds craft, although I have no idea
if they were originals or not. I think it would have been nice if the
replicas were labelled as such -- Chris Bentley stated at the opening
ceremony that 90% of the items were original, but since nothing was
labelled, there was no way to tell which were originals and which were
replicas.

Oddly enough, the Fanderson Sales table was in a corner of this room --
although I'd think this would be more suitably located in the dealers room,
that room was pretty full & cramped and the Exhibition Room wasn't. Here,
you could buy back issues of many issues of FAB magazine and lots of items
offered in Fanderson Sales' merchandise brochure -- the Space:1999 Year One
soundtrack CD, which was thought to already be sold out (although by now
I'm sure it is!) They had a whole set of Fanderson 8 x 10" photos,
including some new UFO ones of Lt. Ellis & Captain Carlin (which I bought).

The Fanderson Sales booth had a boombox playing UFO soundtrack music. I
don't think this was the unofficial UFO soundtrack CD-R that many of you
have, but instead was from Fanderson's own sources. I asked them "Is this
the unavailable UFO soundtrack?", which was my way of saying that they had
the music but weren't offering it for sale to anyone, and they confirmed that.

One original item that was at the convention but not in the exhibition room
was the yellow model T car from SECRET SERVICE, which also appeared in the
UFO episodes IDENTIFIED and A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES. This was on display
in the Hotel lobby, although I'm still not sure how they fit it through the
entrance doors!

--
Marc Martin, [hidden email]