First look inside Star Trek: Red Alert at Universal’s Fan Fest Nights

Trekkies who dream of climbing aboard a transport shuttle to the USS Enterprise and touring the captain’s bridge before beaming back down to Earth will have their greatest wish fulfilled during a new after-hours fan event at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Fan Fest Nights will run on select evenings between April 25 and May 18 at the Hollywood theme park.

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The new separate admission, after-hours event dedicated to sci-fi, fantasy, gaming and anime will feature Star Trek, Dungeons & Dragons, Back to the Future, Harry Potter, One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen.

Fan Fest promises to be a cross between Halloween Horror Nights and Comic-Con with walk-through attractions, fan zones, anime films, light projection shows, drone shows and character meet-and-greet photo ops as well as cosplay opportunities, themed food and exclusive merchandise.

I got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Star Trek: Red Alert experience last week from Universal Studios Hollywood Entertainment Production Senior Director Stephen Siercks.

Fan Fest visitors will walk through the Star Trek story-based pulsed experience in groups of 10 to 20 people at a time in the former Walking Dead year-round attraction on the Universal upper lot.

The seven scenes in Star Trek: Red Alert will take about 10 to 12 minutes to experience with visitors spending about two minutes in each room.

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The Fan Fest creative team was busy working on operational planning, programming and rehearsals during my tour of the Star Trek immersive experience.

Consider this your spoiler alert as we embark on a scene-by-scene preview of the Star Trek: Red Alert coming to Fan Fest Nights.

1) Preshow

The story begins in the Starfleet Spaceport Los Angeles on Earth where tour groups are waiting to travel to a Starfleet Museum that displays legacy spaceships in outer space.

The backstory for the experience is set during “Star Trek: Picard,” the latest series in the franchise appearing on the Paramount+ streaming service. Starfleet Museum tour groups visit the USS Enterprise from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” from the 1980s and ‘90s.

“It’s a perfect way of marrying the latest with the legacy from Star Trek,” Siercks said.

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The preshow plays a short video explaining who we are, why we’re there and what we’re doing — in this case, getting an exclusive tour of the Enterprise D from “Next Generation.”

The Fan Fest creative team worked with Paramount on the Star Trek: Red Alert experience to make everything as true as possible to the franchise.

“Every inch of this space is authentic,” Siercks said.

2) Shuttle Bay

After the video preview, visitors enter the back end of a shuttle craft that takes them to the Starfleet Museum. Visitors exit the front end of the shuttle craft and step into the shuttle bay of the USS Enterprise D.

The tour of the Enterprise is led by a series of ensigns, junior commissioned officers who are typically recent graduates of Starfleet Academy.

The tour begins with an ensign showing visitors a giant space window in the shuttle bay — in this case a giant LED screen with a view just outside the Starfleet Museum.

“All of a sudden we see a light entity appear in the distance,” Siercks said. “The entity comes closer and closer and closer.”

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The entity breaches a force field, enters the ship and appears to whoosh past the visitors with a combination of audio and lighting effects.

“At that moment, everything starts going on the fritz,” Siercks said.

Surprised and concerned, the ensign instructs the visitors to head deeper into the ship for safety’s sake.

3) Sick Bay

Inside the Enterprise, visitors are whisked into the Sick Bay where they meet another ensign.

“In every room you get to meet a different character,” Siercks said. “The great thing about this experience is that those characters represent different races and different species of Star Trek. Every character looks and feels a little different.”

The ensign hastily greets the visitors while trying to diagnose the escalating situation.

“This is when we realize something is seriously wrong,” Siercks said.

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A yellow alert is issued throughout the ship.

Amid the chaos, attentive Star Trek fans will notice a replicator in a corner of the Sick Bay continually replicating Earl Grey Tea — Captain John Picard’s favorite drink.

4) Engineering Room

Visitors will be rushed from the Sick Bay into the Engineering Room through automatic sliding doors that will be instantly recognizable to Trekkies.

“You can’t do Star Trek without the iconic swish doors,” Siercks said. “All the audio effects are straight from the original franchise, so they are authentic as well.”

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A pair of ensigns in the Engineering Room discover the entity has infiltrated all of the Enterprise’s operating systems.

The Warp Core, the ship’s central heartbeat, starts to spark and emit fog as the entity wreaks havoc on the Enterprise.

“The ship is destabilizing,” Siercks said. “It’s no longer safe to be on the ship.”

One thing is abundantly clear: The tour is over and the visitors will need to get to a transporter ASAP to be beamed back down to Earth.

5) Turbo Lifts

The visitors are herded into two Turbo Lifts — splitting the group in half. It’s a technique that’s used over and over again during Star Trek: Red Alert to create the feeling of compression and expansion.

“Having the ability to get into these smaller spaces that then open up into bigger spaces really helps to create that sense of urgency throughout the experience,” Siercks said.

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Lighting and audio effects help to create the illusion that the Turbo Lifts are traveling throughout the ship toward the Transporter.

After being redirected, the Turbo Lifts make an unexpected and unscheduled stop.

6) Enterprise Bridge

To their surprise, the tour group empties out of the Turbo Lifts onto the iconic bridge of the USS Enterprise.

Ensigns are busy trying to regain control of the ship at a series of blinking and sputtering panels monitoring mission operations, engineering systems and environmental controls.

The entity reappears on a giant space screen at the front of the bridge and communicates with the ship’s crew through a translator. The entity meant no harm and found its way onto the Enterprise by accident.

“We realized that this entity has never been found before, so we’ve made first contact, which is a big deal in the Star Trek world,” Siercks said.

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During my behind-the-scenes preview, the Fan Fest creative teams were still installing key pieces of the USS Enterprise-D bridge — all originally created for the “Star Trek: Picard” series.

“Everything is authentic and screen used,” Siercks said.

Visitors can’t sit in the chairs on the bridge — which are roped off like museum sets — but there will be photo ops at the event where fans can snap selfies in a Star Trek captain’s chair.

7) Transporter

When it’s time to go, visitors get to experience the iconic “beam me up” machine — an instant teleportation device known as a transporter.

The energy conversion/transmission/reassembly process is simulated with a mist effect and video projection of the Star Trek transporter.

“You walk through it to give that feeling you’re being beamed back down to Earth before exiting the attraction,” Siercks said.