[Outreach] Edinburgh MELA

This weekend saw the second big outing for the Planetarium show this summer. After our successat the Royal Highland Show we were invited by the Forestry Commission for Scotland to be a part of their marquee at the Edinburgh MELA. The MELA is a festival celebrating cultural diversity, in a variety of forms: music; dance, and food. The days were slightly shorter than at the Highland Show, only from 12:00 to 6:00, and the MELA only runs for two days over the weekend, so it was going to be a bit shorter than our last big event.

I had some help once more, with Raphaëlle helping out again as part of her ongoing training to take over as coordinator, and Negin coming along to help with the management side of things, which turned out to be very helpful. Arriving on the Saturday we were greeted by a few problems: the power hadn’t arrived yet; we didn’t have a microphone, and our annex to the marquee had no floor! The last problem was quickly sorted by the quick acquisition of some plastic tarpauling and some spare carpet from one of the main tents, but the power never did show up s we had to piggy back on the main Forestry Commission marquee. The microphone we simple did without, which gave our voices a bit of a workout.

The other advantages of the weekend were that we didn’t have to deal with overly large school groups, and could set our own timetable and show. We chose half hour shows to make it easier for the public to come and go, and were full for pretty much the entire time we were open (from 13:00 to 17:30 on Saturday, 18:00 on Sunday). It was great to see so many people excited about coming into the dome, and to see most of them staying there – we had far fewer people leaving part way through than at the Highland Show, possibly because we were more successful in persuading parents to come in with children. I think that the extra popularity was due to the more interactive marquee that the Forestry Commission had going on this time, and due to the different nature of the festival. The MELA is much more of a family day out kind of affair, and the marquee had loads of activities going on. Being next to the BMX trials riders didn’t hurt either! We did have some crowd control issues, with massive queues, and we had to turn people away from a couple of shows, but having Negin there to focus on crowd control was a real help.

After two big events with the planetarium, I really think that it’s a great way of reaching new audiences that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to give shows to. Properly managed, I think that they’re a great opportunity that I hope Raphaëlle (or whoever takes over from me) continues to take advantage of.