So, yesterday the doors opened on Abu Dhabi Science Festival. The Edinburgh Team Leaders were feeling quietly confident: we’d trained our science communicators, cleaned our stations and, we thought, we’d done this before.
I was working on Dino Dig where, about 10 minutes after opening, an enthusiastic child bounded up to tell me how much he loved dinosaurs, and how excited he was about coming to visit our show. Hurrah! They love us already! The science communicators were charmed by his glee, and I felt justified in whittering on about how this was one of the best jobs in the world.
Our first show went well, with just a couple of things we knew we could smooth out during the day. Just before we gathered our sparkly new presenters round for a debrief, I glanced outside our dino tent to see if it had got any busier. Man, had it got busier.
The hall in ADNEC is a big place. Like, a few houses could fit in it big. And it appeared to be completely filled with everyone in Abu Dhabi, plus a few more for good measure. Word on the street afterwards was that we had played host to 5,000 customers, but at a first glance it felt like several zeros could be added to that already pretty substantial number. Around the room, enthusiastic audiences were milling around the shows, falling over each other to get a piece of this new, strange festival.
The hours passed, the children were shown the science and the buzz seemed to heighten, even after the much-talked-about royal visitor had left. We got back to the hotel that night, slightly shell-shocked and counting limbs but...the best word is probably impressed. Our local communicators had stepped up to the challenge in ways that gave us maternal pride, and we were part of a festival that people were stampeding to be a part of. We’re a long way from Edinburgh, but one day closer to really understanding how this festival’s gonna roll.
Phew.
View pictures from the Abu Dhabi Science Festival on Flickr
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