Screw the 65 million year age-gap, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with loving dinosaurs.
So you’ll probably be happy to hear that they’re essentially being brought back to life in a 20,000 square-foot immersive experience this summer thanks to the official Jurassic World: The Exhibition. Yes, you’ll get to freely wander around a fern-filled, immersive jungle (or park, if you will) and go snout-to-snout with dozens of life-sized, moving, snarling, booming, and impressively realistic dinos, ripped straight out of the movies/your childhood.
The show’s already cut its banana-sized teeth in almost dozen cities across the globe (from Chicago to Paris to Shanghai) and now it has its sights firmly set on the ExCel centre. Mostly because it’s one of the few places big enough to house fully sized, gigantic metaphors for mankind’s technological hubris dinosaurs. But also because it’s easily accessible thanks to the Elizabeth Line.
Grab a ticket, wander inside, and after being ‘transported’ to Isla Nublar you’ll then be able to step through the towering, iconic gates to Jurassic World. The space inside is going to be a cavernous prehistoric time capsule wherein you’ll be loomed over by a jaw-droopingly huge brachiosaurus, you’ll be barked at by a demonic pack of surprisingly nimble velociraptors, and you’ll narrowly escape being eaten/trampled by things you can’t even pronounce.
The animatronics are cutting-edge, and they showmanship is first class, thanks to the team at Universal whose experience in movies & theme parks is almost unparalleled – there’re throwing all the theatrical flourishes in the book at this. And yes, the rockstar of the whole franchise, the t-rex, will be there in her towering glory.
There’s plenty of interactive stuff too – you’ll also get to see behind the veil at the Hammond Creation Lab and learn some actual, real-world dinosaur science thanks to the contributions from famed palaeontologist Jack Horner. And, for any fans of Camp Cretaceous, you may meet Bumpy there too.
We don’t want to jinx it, but…
…it seems an awful lot like they spared no expense.
NOTE: You can find out more, and get tickets here.
Jurassic World: The Exhibition | ExCel London, Royal Victoria Dock, 1 Western Gateway, E16 1XL
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