Chill out at the Ice Age exhibit
SANDTON – You’re in for a mammoth of a good time when you head on over to the Ice Age exhibition at the Sandton Convention Centre.
Just be sure to bundle up … it’s going to be a chilly walk through time.
The incredible 3 000m² display has popped up just in time to entertain the kids during the school holidays. Visitors can view life-size animatronic displays where robots are used to emulate animals, and bring about lifelike characteristics of woolly rhinos, sabre-toothed cats and many other beasts set across 12 different scenes.
Edmund Beukes, marketing manager of Media24 Weekly Magazines, which brought the exhibition to South Africa, said the feedback they’ve received from the exhibition has been very positive. “The school groups we had this last week were just amazing and the kids were overwhelmed. We are gearing up for a nice full school holiday experience.”
If you’re thinking it’s all fun and games and furry beasts, think again. The exhibition has a geological timeline explaining how an ice age happens and what happens to earth afterwards. There are also fossilised skulls on display, video displays of the sea creatures from way back when, and even an extremely chilly blizzard tunnel complete with gusts of wind, snow and water, to show what the weather conditions were like during the ice age.
Beukes added that the biggest challenge with the exhibit was the setup. “It was reduced to four days from seven because of the AU Summit that took place in the centre. But we made a plan – we contracted another evening shift and flew in more of the international staff to basically work through the night to finish the setup.”
After soaking up all the prehistoric knowledge, the kiddies can let loose and have their faces painted, ride an animatronic glyptodon, which is a large mammal similar to armadillos. There are also activity tables, a sandbox excavation zone where they can discover important fossils firsthand, and even the chance to get a picture snapped atop a life-size sabre-toothed cat, not to mention the incredibly thrilling ice slides.
The exhibition will run from 20 June to 8 August at the Sandton Convention Centre.
Details: www.computicket.com
