Overview
The National Space Centre in Leicester held a Sci-Fi Weekend on 17/18th of June 2006. It was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the release of the film "Aliens". The event included original prop displays, celebrity signings, prosthetic make-up demonstrations and retail stands.
The weekend included Aliens, Dr Who, Firefly and Star Trek content:
Alien Encounter - Live-action experience
The Harry Harris Aliens Collection and Archive
Karl Derrick - Borg prosthetic make-up demonstration
Celebrities - Al Mathews ("Sgt. Apone"-Aliens), Terry English (USCM armourer-Aliens), Terry Molloy ("Davros", Dr Who), Colin Baker (Dr Who), John Leeson ("K-9", Dr Who)
Alien Encounter
The part of the weekend that I was involved with was the "Alien Encounter" live-action walkthrough experience. Punters paid £5 to be part of a group tour of the "Weyland-Yutani Biological Research Centre". Inevitably, they were performing diabolical experiments on Xenomorphs. Even more inevitably, the Aliens escape halfway through the tour, the lights go out and all hell breaks loose!
I was one of four Aliens working on the event. We had the sadistic pleasure of terrorising defenceless members of the public! The response from the punters was electrifying: people were screaming, crying, pushing each other out of the way and even losing their shoes!
The camaraderie of the event team was wonderful. Changes were made during the weekend that made the shows even scarier. We Aliens were enjoying ourselves so much that we worked continuously on the Sunday so that we could double-up. This allowed two Aliens to attack at once, one coming from the front and another surprising the punters by appearing directly behind them!
The Marines had a hard job to do and they did it well: they had to act convincingly while persuading the punters to follow the correct route and making sure that they don't freak out too much. In saying that, I think we managed to genuinely scare a couple of marines! We also managed to run into, trample and scratch a few of them. On the whole, they accepted this mistreatment in very good humour!
The scientists were really enjoying their roles. Their "dying" act was a sight to see! I didn't see much of their performances (I was mostly sitting in the dark and waiting for a chance to eat the punters!) but what I did see was top notch. They also had a perfect view of the scared punters being attacked in the other room via CCTV.
Each show lasted about 10 minutes and we did more than 40 shows over the weekend. The event raised over £1000 for charity.
I have dreamt of being an Alien ever since I was scared to tears at Alien War when I was nine years old. This event fulfilled that dream!
