Overview
If you haven't booked your spot in Richard Brandon's Virgin Galactic craft just yet, you might want to ease into things with a new space exploration mission coming to Wellington.
Part of Aotearoa New Zealand's Festival of Arts, interactive exhibit Destination Mars is setting up at Te Papa museum in December, allowing keen space fans to face the challenge of averting a catastrophic galactic disaster — just without any actual threat to life.
Created by the same team who toured the successful Apollo 13: Mission Control exhibit in New Zealand back in 2010, Destination Mars places you in a control room on an international space station during a routine Mars mission in 2034, when a solar flare threatens the planet.
In actual fact, you'll be seated in a giant dome with friends, family and strangers on Wellington's waterfront, working together to avert disaster as the action unfolds.
Blending theatre with technology, Destination Mars is a totally immersive, 45-minute experience, developed by a crack team of game developers, designers and live performers.
If you've always dreamed of saving the day, this might be the perfect chance. We'd say it's the perfect office team-bonding experience to really put those work friendships to the test, or a great way to see how your date handles disaster. After all, if you can stop a solar flare, you can probably handle smaller niggles like where to book dinner.
Tickets start at just $15 for children aged six and up, but there are concession passes and family packs available as well.
Destination Mars runs at Te Papa in Wellington from Saturday, December 11 – Sunday, March 20. For more information or to book tickets, visit the festival website