Location scouts must have been having a slow day as they imagined the late 24th Century. A teaser trailer for the new Star Trek: Picard clearly shows the exterior of – the Anaheim Convention Center.
Yes, the building you see in the teaser is the unmodified exterior of the southern California exposition center, which hosts America’s largest music instrument trade show. I’m genuinely surprised no one else has commented on it, because it’s hard for me to watch the trailer without thinking “oh, God, not NAMM!” The trailer shows a big shot of the exterior, plus some action shots around the roof; it seems we can expect more. Presumably this is a Starfleet or Starfleet Academy building.
In the past, Trek has intentionally used recognizable Bay Area locations to situate its futuristic Starfleet administrative buildings in an imagined future. (Heroic humpback whales and 80s jokes, optional.) Unless Starfleet has some Anaheim branch I don’t know about and a … peculiar 24th century approach to historical preservation … I’m going to put this one more in the “oh crap let’s find a cheap location in the LA area” files.
That should not stop any speculation, however.
Will NAMM still be held in the late 24th Century? Well, there’s no money, supposedly, but let’s presume the acronym will have been long forgotten, but it is totally plausible the NAMM convention will still be in Anaheim and in the same building, yes.
I’m guessing Picard has gone there to check out some flute vendors. (I mean, obviously.)
But with apologies to Barry Wood, I think that the Federation may now be the strangest ever NAMM Oddity.
As Captain Picard would surely say in a meeting – opinions?