Trek to convention pays off for 'trekkies'
1,083 die-hard 'trekkies' beat record for number of people dressed as characters from TV series
Star Trek fans have made history by breaking the record for the largest gathering of people dressed as characters from the TV series at the Destination Star Trek London convention.
The event at London's ExCel centre on Saturday attracted 1,083 costume-clad "trekkies", narrowly beating the previous record of 1,040, set at the bigger, annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas in August.
The achievement will be officially verified by Guinness World Records within a few days, but organisers were confident they had topped the Las Vegas record.
Most record-breakers dressed in the colour-blocked uniforms of the Starfleet, with Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans peppering the crowd.
Trekkie Mark Whitfield went to extreme lengths, wearing a full-body suit to emulate a mugato, a beast from Star Trek: the Original Series.
"It looks silly. It's just a gorilla suit painted white with horns on it. It's very, very hot. In fact, I was on the verge of collapse when a very kind person gave me a bottle of water because I dehydrated quite badly," he said.