If you want an idea of how sharp the elbows are getting in the convention space right now, consider the case of the warring Star Trek conventions.

As the righteous among you are no doubt aware, this year is the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Series. Trekkies have already circled the week of August 3-7 to make the pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the celebration by the long-time “official” Star Trek convention, organized by Creation Entertainment. The Creation event features just over 100 cast members from all five television series (Original series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and, yes, sorry… Star Trek: Enterprise). Only Sir Patrick Stewart, George Takei and DS9’s Avery Brooks are conspicuous MIAs, but there’s still plenty of time for more announcements.

But, it turns out that’s not the only place you can catch the crew.

Boldly Going There. ReedPOP just announced a three-day “Star Trek: Mission New York” event at the Javits Center on September 2-4 (see “ReedPOP to Host Giant Star Trek Event”).  No guests are listed yet, but it’s hard to imagine staging a Star Trek con in New York, the site of the very first Star Trek event in 1972, without a couple of Captains on hand (and maybe a helmsman and a communications officer for good measure).

ReedPop’s Lance Fensterman says in the announcement that “Star Trek: Mission New York will be a completely unique fan event unlike anything seen before, giving [fans] the chance to go beyond panels and autograph signings, and immerse themselves in the Star Trek universe.”

After 40 years of fan conventions, it’s honestly hard to picture anything “completely unique and unlike anything seen before,” unless CBS Consumer Products, the co-sponsor of the event, is bringing the actual bridge of the Enterprise, or perhaps a new alien species to mingle with fans. But it’s a press release, so whatever. ReedPOP knows how to put on events. Whatever they’ve got planned for their Star Trek extravaganza is probably pretty cool. Otherwise why risk unfavorable comparisons with an established brand, at the media center of the world, less than six weeks ahead of their marquee New York Comic Con event?

A Time-Space Paradox. But wait, you say, isn’t all this Star Trekerry scheduled to go down on Labor Day Weekend – the same weekend as Toronto’s FanExpo (Canada’s largest con), the traditionally fantasy and sci-fi oriented DragonCon in Atlanta, Baltimore Comic-Con, and perhaps another big show out west that hasn’t announced dates yet?

And isn’t most of the Star Trek cast appearing just a week earlier, less than 100 miles south in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, at another Creation-sponsored event, part of their multi-city 50 Year Mission tour, also licensed by CBS Consumer Products?

Unless one of these shows is featuring the evil bearded mirror-world versions of our favorite crew members, that seems like an awful lot of exposure to the same basic fan base in a very short period of time.

Shields Up. In the past, most of the competitive dynamics we’ve seen in the convention business have been around corporate shows coming to challenge local independent events, or the big guys competing to buy up successful regional shows. There are always a couple of weekends during the season that feature convention pile-ups. You even get a couple of shows angling for the same general fan base in the same basic geographic region cropping up within a week or two of each other.

There have even been signs of detente within the business, as in the case of FanExpo and DragonCon coordinating around talent, or Seattle’s Emerald City and LA’s WonderCon backing off a bit on their schedules so they don’t hit on adjacent weekends (this year they are two weeks apart, enough time for West Coast pros to catch up on their deadlines).

But we really haven’t seen anything like the traffic jam that’s shaping up for Labor Day, 2016, with potentially four 50,000+ comics and entertainment shows (FanExpo alone is around 110K) and a ReedPOP Star Trek extravaganza in New York City now getting into the mix.

Warp Factor Nine. Sure, this sounds good for fans, but they’re not the only ones impacted by full speed ahead Con frenzy.

If I were the tower of t-shirts guy or any other multi-event exhibitor, I’d be doing some hard math about labor costs, travel costs and return on investment. If I were a professional with any kind of fanbase or drawing power, I’d be ripping up my “guaranteed minimum” contract and instituting a fairly stiff appearance fee right about now. If I were a celebrity, I’d tell my agent to back out of any deal that wasn’t signed in blood and make sure we start bidding wars between Con organizers.

And if I were the agent, I wouldn’t need to be told.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.

--Rob Salkowitz (@robsalk) is the author of Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture.