A new planetarium experience is coming to the UKCredit: Planetarium Go!It will tour five destinations across the country, with the first spot being LondonCredit: Planetarium Go!
It will then head to Sheffield from March 6 to 28, then Hull between April 3 and 25, then Manchester from May 1 to 23 and Northampton between May 29 and June 21 – though specific destinations have not been revealed yet.
Inside, the planetarium will feature a 360-degree screen which will show different films either science-related or of fictional stories and each will last between 20 to 35 minutes.
The experience itself will be in a large, spherical pop-up dome and different film showings will be suitable for different age groups.
For example, you could opt to watch ‘Exploring The Solar System + The Ring World’, a film that takes visitors on an exploration of the solar system, seeing Venus, Mars and the moon.
Viewers will the head to ‘The Ring World’ to see a star and find out whether humans could live on other planets.
For younger kids, ‘3-2-1 Lift Off’ might be better; visitors follow Alan the hamster scientist, who discovers a robot that has crashed from outer space.
There is also ‘From Earth to the Universe’, a documentary film lasting 30 minutes that is more of an educational option for kids aged over 10-years-old.
The planetarium will be open at Battersea Power Station Monday to Thursday and Sunday between 10am and 7:10pm and on Friday and Saturdays between 10am and 9pm.
Tickets cost from £15 per person or £12 for students and children under four go free.
If heading to the planetarium whilst it is at Battersea Power Station, there are a number of other attractions there to explore as well, so you can make it a day out.
The experience will pop experience will be at Battersea Power Station from January 30 to March 1Credit: Planetarium Go!Tickers cost from £15 per person or £12 per studentCredit: Planetarium Go!
Inside the experience visitors can explore 10 immersive zones across two floors.
You can walk under a giant Brachiosaurus, look around the genetics lab and even meet Blue the Velociraptor from the Jurassic World films.
The experience costs £36.70 per adult and £29.55 per child.
Alternatively, there is the Lift 109 experience, which recently had a refresh.
The Ford Mustang was built in Detroit, introduced to the world in New York and, according to a new exhibit on the border of downtown and Boyle Heights, romanticized by Los Angeles.
Part advertisement, part history lesson and part playground, “American Icon: A Mustang Immersive Experience” uses theme park-inspired trappings to celebrate a work of mechanical artistry. The car — first introduced in 1964 at the New York World’s Fair as a sporty, compact coup with just a little bit of an edge — is given a hero’s treatment. Inside the warehouse-like Ace Mission Studios, “American Icon” tracks the Mustang’s evolution from the suburban garage to the race track, and uses projections and a 4D theater experience to transform what could have been a showroom experience into something built more for a video game.
With installations focused on the fabled, traffic-free, open road “freedom” that car manufacturers like to so often tout, there’s something quaintly old fashioned here. The Mustang is presented as a car for young couples on the go, optimistically envisioning an America when home and car ownership were a given.
Visitors watch an immersive 4D short film.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
The seats inside a 4D theater vibrate and feature water and scent effects.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
In that sense, it’s a car enthusiast’s fantasy. But can it inspire a new generation of car dreamers, especially at a time when some data indicates younger audiences may be holding off on a car purchase?
While no cars are for sale at “American Icon” — there is an assortment of specially branded Mustang merch, however, much of it nostalgically focused on 1964 — such an immersive endeavor makes sense, says researcher Jason Jordhamo, a marketing director for Polk Automotive Solutions from S&P Global Mobility. Enticing audiences today, he says, involves a more personal touch than a big TV ad spend or a sponsorship deal.
“It’s less time in the dealership,” Jordhamo says of reaching younger consumers, especially Gen Z. “Those traditional things have to be let go of.”
Jordhamo notes that new vehicle registration among those aged 18-34 has dipped about 2% in recent years. Anecdotally, he cites a multitude of factors, ranging from growing environmental consciousness — hybrids and electric vehicles are big with the age bracket — to the ease of rideshare, especially in major cities.
But there are other causes for concern. “There’s a lot of things that are challenging in that space,” Jordhamo says. “One is affordability, which is huge. The cost for purchasing a vehicle — the monthly costs — have gone up 30% since the beginning of this decade. And the average loan payment nationally has been over $750 all calendar year.”
With the “Pick Your Pony” interactive feature, guests can listen to different Mustang engine sounds.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Immersive experiences, which typically denote either some level of participation on the part of the guest or attempt to envelope the attendee in all-encompassing imagery, are common in Hollywood and often seen as a way of reaching a younger consumer weaned on interactive entertainment. They’ve been utilized heavily by studios such as Netflix for pop-ups themed to “Arcane,” “Squid Game” and more, but brands and personalities as varied as the Catholic Church, McDonald’s and even Mariah Carey have gotten in on the experiential action. Car companies, too, have dabbled, be it partnering with video game franchises such as “Gran Turismo” or “Rocket League” or, as Ford already does, offering real-life experiences such as off-roading in a Bronco at various U.S. locales.
“It’s more than just steel and rubber,” says Ford’s communications director Mike Levine when asked why Mustang was pegged for such an experience. “Mustang’s impact on America should be appreciated like an art exhibit.”
Seated before a crisply, powdered blue 1965 Mustang on a turntable, the exhibit’s first major room comes alive to simulate movement as the surrounding four walls use projections to place us on idealized versions of Venice Beach and Route 66. The glimmering rhythm of Martha and the Vandellas’ “Nowhere to Run” sets the tone as visions of cruise culture innocence aim to make us feel as if we’re on a ride through Southern California. All that’s missing to complete the mood is someone to deliver us a milkshake.
Several generations of Mustangs are projected behind a real vehicle.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
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Levine says Los Angeles rather than Detroit was chosen as the first of a planned many stops for “American Icon” in part due to the city’s iconography, pointing to historic drives such as Pacific Coast and Angeles Crest highways as scenic backdrops for our car-focused culture. While experiential marketing is all the buzz in recent years, Levine says this is the first installation of its kind for Ford.
“So far, so good,” said Enzo Sanchez, 22, when asked on a recent weekday if he was enjoying “American Icon,” which culminates in a 4D theater experience that serves as a mini motion simulator. Expect to get splashed with a drop of water as the smell of burning rubber fills the room. The mini film — about five minutes — has Mustang drivers saving a post-apocalyptic world from a rogue AI. “Terminator,” but if Mustangs came to the rescue.
Sanchez, named after famed racer and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari, comes from a car enthusiast family. His father pointed to a wall dedicated to appearances of the Mustang in popular culture, and singled out a framed portrait of Johnny Mathis’ LP “Those Were the Days,” which features the automobile, and said he would have to track down a copy.
“It just transports you,” Sanchez says of his love of the Mustang, adding that he first became aware of “American Icon” on a recent trip to mid-Wilshire’s Petersen Automotive Museum, which helped curate the exhibition. Sanchez noticed one of its famed 1967 Mustangs, the so-called “Eleanor” from “Gone in 60 Seconds,” was absent, and when Sanchez inquired as to its whereabouts, he was told that it would be popping up at “American Icon.” The vehicle shares space with Mustangs from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Kick-Ass” and “Transformers” at the exhibition.
“American Icon: A Mustang Immersive Experience”
The Mustang, says Ford’s Levine, has been among the most popular movie vehicles, adding that “Gone in 60 Seconds” showcases the car as much as it does the city of Los Angeles. He, too, has seen the headlines that proclaim Gen Z is shifting away from car ownership. For now, he says, he isn’t concerned.
“I heard the same thing about millennials, who weren’t going to buy cars,” he says. “As a parent of two Gen Z children, they love cars. Their friends have cars. They want something they can enjoy.”
A rotating platform and video projections make a Ford Mustang look like it’s driving on a road.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
And as Ford bets on with “American Icon,” they want something they can experience.
“This is a different way to reach a Gen Z customer that is very much looking for or has seen engaging content online,” he says. “And when you come in to do that experience, it’s really every sense. When you do the 4D ride, it is every sense. You smell. You feel it. You hear it. You see it. And when you’re immersed on that level, you put the phone down.”
And that, of course, is an essential rule to enjoying the road.
IF you’re a train fanatic, or know someone who is, then this could be the perfect gift – or make it a great day out for yourself.
One steam railway is starting a brand new experience where enthusiasts drive their very own locomotive.
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A new driver experience is launching on the Ravenglass & Eskdale RailwayCredit: Adell Baker / @adell.exploresThe 40 minute experience will go through the Cumbrian countrysideCredit: Mark Fielding
Participants will get to be up front with one of the railway’s experienced drivers and spend 40 minutes taking the vehicle from Ravenglass to Irton Road.
The journey that newby drivers will go on includes an uncoupling in the passing loop.
On the return run, the driver on the experience will go through authentic railway practice and get a genuine taste of what the job entails.
The driver gets to take control on the footplate, and any additional guests can enjoy the journey from the comfort of First Class Carriage 140.
At the end of the session the learner drivers will be awarded a Certificate of Achievement.
Afterwards, there will be a chance to relax with afternoon tea and enjoy sandwiches, pastries, cakes and a scone with jam and cream.
The new experience will launch in spring 2026Credit: Alamy
Coinciding with 150 years since the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway first carried passengers in 1876, the experience will launch from 14 to 22 March 2026.
Nicky Williams, General Manager at the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway said: “How many people dreamed of driving a real train when we they were young?
There’s a special kind of magic in taking the controls of a steam locomotive, and nextspring we’ll be handing that magic directly to a select few.
“As we celebrate 150 years of carrying passengers through the Eskdale Valley, these new experiences put the public in the driving seat on one of Britain’s most cherished heritage railways, guided by the experts who continue to keep the line alive every day.”
Now for the technicalities, sadly this isn’t one for kids as drivers-for-a-day must be over the age of 21.
Anyone booking onto the experience can invite up to eight spectator guests to be part of the experience for an additional fee which does include afternoon tea.
Price for the driving experience start from £210pp and £99 for spectator guests.
A brand new crime-themed train experience is coming to UK city…
A train journey across the UK can be a magical experience depending on the views – but a new train is launching that doesn’t actually go anywhere.
The Unseen Experience is set to open in London in December and unlike a normal train journey where you purchase a ticket, get on board and travel from A to B, this service stays in the same spot.
Visitors will ‘board’ in complete darkness, being blindfolded throughout their ‘journey’.
Then, each ‘passenger’ will be “transported through time aboard a mysterious train as 3D audio surrounds you from every direction”, according to the event’s creators, Fever.
The experience involves two stories on one train and is said to be “perfect for fans of mystery, crime and psychological thrillers” – so perhaps not one for people who are expecting the Orient Express.
According to Secret London, in the first world, you are a deserter on the run in 1980, during the Cold War.
Then, in the second world, you are a survivor on the same train, but this time it is around 100 years later in a post-apocalyptic world.
Your fate is decided by the fellow passengers. The journey lasts for 35 minutes in total and each passenger must be over the age of 14 years old.
“H Is for Hawk” is for the birds. And such majestic creatures they are, holding their own opposite the magnificent Claire Foy (“All of Us Strangers”).
The film, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and based on Helen Macdonald’s memoir, centers on Foy’s character Helen, devastated by the sudden loss of her father (played by Brendan Gleeson). In her grief, she turns to a childhood interest, falconry, and buys a goshawk. The wilder the bird, the tamer the name; Helen calls her Mabel.
Producer Dede Gardner and Lowthorpe had worked with Foy before (in “Women Talking” and “The Crown,” respectively) and agreed she’d be perfect as Helen. But Mabel was another story entirely.
Lowthorpe tapped Lloyd and Rose Buck, married bird specialists who had worked for decades on natural history documentaries with the likes of David Attenborough. Since they were conveniently located not far from her home in Bristol, England, the three got together to figure out how to make the film work.
Five birds were needed to play the character of Mabel at different points; the main two would have to be raised and trained by the couple long before filming began. Sisters Mabel 1 and Mabel 2 had the bulk of the work. “They’re from the same clutch, but they’re like chalk and cheese in character,” says Lloyd. “Mabel 2 is much shier and has more wildness in her,” so she was used in the nervous bird scenes early on. Mabel 1 was used to fly to and from Foy’s glove, and for much of the action depicting Helen cohabiting with Mabel in her house.
Jess, on loan from a friend in Scotland with a falconry center, was accustomed to people, so she was featured in Mabel’s calmest moments. Juha, the only male and much smaller than the females, was seen only in high aerial shots. And Lottie starred in the hunting scenes, traveling up to 45 miles an hour through the woods to capture her prey.
Before filming was set to begin, Foy visited the Bucks for two weeks of intensive falconry training. “That was a crucial moment for the whole project, because unless they’ve taken to Claire and she’s taken to them, I don’t think it could ever have worked,” Lloyd says. “But because she was so amazing, it works. She’s interested, clever, intelligent, but above all she’s just a lovely person, and that’s what they see. You can’t fool them, they’re not silly; they can see if someone’s pretending to like them but they don’t really.”
Foy was delighted to work with the birds and with the Bucks. “They’re incredibly kind people,” she says. “They’re so tender and so beautiful with their birds, and therefore they are with other human beings as well. But also they just threw me in. At the end of the first day I was with Lottie hunting, letting her release off my arm. Learning with the birds was the last piece of the puzzle of Helen and the experience I was going to have, so it became a really profound experience.”
“Claire put her heart and soul into that training,” Lowthorpe says. “She has great physical instincts as well as emotional instincts.”
Everything on set revolved around the hawks’ well-being. Filming took place between October and January, to avoid molting season. Everyone in the crew wore drab, dark colors, because that’s what the birds were used to. Microphones were hidden because the birds didn’t like booms, and most of the crew hid upstairs; even Lowthorpe hid behind a piece of furniture with her monitor. Lloyd or Rose would either hood or remove the scene’s Mabel, and give the all-clear, before the crew could reappear to work between takes.
“I told Charlotte Bruus Christensen, our fantastic DP, we should just film everything,” Lowthorpe recalls. “If you pin it you might kill the flavor of danger or surprise. Claire was so in tune in those scenes, she was able to react in an improvisational way, and she would be in her character at all times during those long, long takes. Like I was capturing the hawks, I was capturing Claire, allowing her to move wherever she wanted.”
“It wasn’t like having another actor who had another agenda or actions or a perspective that they wanted to get across in the scene,” Foy says. “I was along for the ride with these animals.”
When Helen takes Mabel for her first walk around the house, she talks gently to her. “This is my kitchen,” she says. Mabel flaps her wings wildly. “It’s not that bad.” The bird poops. “Oh, thanks very much.”
Mabel becomes both salvation and addiction to Helen. “To feel that alive, chasing a goshawk as it’s hunting, you’re part of this extraordinary experience, which feels spiritual and meaningful,” Foy explains. “I do think that we try to avoid the ugliness of grief at all costs, like that’s something you’re supposed to do alone in a cupboard that isn’t witnessed. We just are so afraid of that expression of it. The journey with Mabel is the most vivid expression of that experience.”
Back home in London, Foy says she intends to visit the Mabels. “Whenever you drive on the motorway in the U.K., you’ve birds of prey everywhere, and now I can identify them,” she says. “I see them everywhere I go. There’s an owl out the back of my house. I feel like I’m constantly looking upwards now.”
