Conventions

 Conventions were events, normally held in hotels, organised by fans for fans. Unlike today, where they are mainly an exercise in getting the attendee to part with as much money as possible (like the Collectormania events held all round the UK) these meetings were amateurish (though only by today's standards, no offence meant) but felt friendly. These were the days before films and TV shows had a multitude of merchandisers fighting to get the attention of the fan. Indeed, that was about to happen in 1977 once the various campaigns based around Star Wars showed that George Lucas was a genius to keep the merchandising rights rather than take a larger cut of the profits from the film.

An example of the above is in that the fans were allowed free access to the guests, and neither autographs nor photos were charged for !