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Over the past few years, Alton Towers has been building its image away from just a simple day-trip theme park and into that of a fully fledge resort location. Now comprising two hotels, a waterpark, spa and crazy golf course alongside the long standing theme park and gardens, Alton Towers is becoming bigger and better than ever. Throughout the season, the park now offers all kinds of extra events such as live concerts and Halloween nights. However this Easter, the park is embracing geekdom more than usual through it's Mad Science events, running from now until April 25th.
Run by the Mad Science team who can often be found running workshops in schools worldwide, the Easter event includes theatrical science shows, rocket launches and interactive workshops where kids can get hands on with science. The stage shows are loud (perhaps a little too loud for very small children and babies - you may wish to leave them with another adult), interactive, silly and fun. A pair of mad scientists, both of whom I was pleased to note were women, performed a number of small experiments on stage, all designed to shock and surprise the kids and get them interested in how they were done. Water that seemed to disappear, flash paper that simply vanished into thin air at the touch of a flame and balls that hovered magically in the air were just some of the simple experiments that were performed, often in the style of as magic show, and had the kids in the audience fascinated. The scientists also recreated an experiment seen on Mythbusters - the Sawdust Cannon - only this time icing sugar was used instead of sawdust and the fire plume was much smaller, probably a good thing considering we were all sat inside a marquee on the front lawns of the theme park! I found myself pleased by the scientific terminology used by the performers who didn't dumb down the processes but also kept everything completely understandable; none of the kids looked confused. When a smoke shape was created using an air cannon, the audience member who called out that the shape was a donut was told they were incorrect, the shape is actually called a torus.
Along with the stage show, interactive workshops were provided that ran all day in the Mad Science lab close to the Sonic Spinball roller-coaster. In these workshops, kids could learn about electricity, and sound FX, and discover Van de Graaff generators, slime buckets and more. From my experience, kids generally engage far more with science when they can interact with it themselves, so these workshops are a great way to get them interested in the content; they also work to break down the hectic pace of running between rides without boring the kids. Finally, water rocket launches took place multiple times per day on the front lawns and as we all know, kids go mad for rockets any day of the year.
The Mad Science event is great fun for school aged kids (if a little OTT for their parents) and a fun extra to your day at the park. The show lasts around 20 minutes, short enough that smaller audience members hadn't yet begun fidgeting by the end, and the workshops run from park opening until 5pm, hotel guests can also attend a workshop in the lobby of the Alton Towers Hotel for one hour in the evening. A times guide for all events is available at Guest Services as you enter the park. A full GeekMom guide to the park will be coming soon as Alton Towers is something of a hidden gem of UK geekery.
Complimentary tickets to the park were provided for myself and my family in order to attend this event, many thanks to Alton Towers Resort.
