Space, The Next Frontier

Our second big charity event took place at the Leicester Space Centre. In contrast to the Brooklyn Manchester, the customer service for organising it wasn’t as good.

We were pleased to have interest from 57 people.

We hired a separate room for the families to meet up with tea/coffee after they had been around the Space centre.

When I confirmed our booking and paid the deposit, they offered a chance to look around the centre. I explained to them that as I live over four hours away, it would be great if they could do a tour on zoom. Their reply was a disappointing, 'this is not something we offer.' such a modern and tech savvy approach to business! Especially for scientists. Imagine how much they could open up to new business by offering a zoom/virtual tour!

The morning of the event, our taxi dropped us off outside.

Faye outside the Leicester Space Centre next to a statue of an astronaut appearing to be floating in space on the top of a concrete base. Blue sky and sunshine.

It was all flat, which was good, but I did crash into the randomly placed silver bollards due to not seeing or hitting them with my cane.

After purchasing the tickets for those confirmed as coming, we were shown to the room and given a brief tour (e.g., Handed a map). The room itself was quite nice, and adequate for what we needed.

The first stop was to the toilet. It was decorated in light blue with dark blue wood. The downside being how small it was. There was no wiggle room.

There is a changing place, so I hope that is better, although it does need to be better sign posted, as some families found it hard to find.

The wheelchair access is very good. It’s all flat, with no doorways, just connecting corridors. It’s set out like a spaceship, with a control centre in the middle and octopus arms snaking off to different departments, such as planets, stars, space travel.

The cafe and lift were in the rocket tower.

The lift had a voiceover and was a decent size. The rocket tower had a total of three floors. The first/second was very visual, so we didn't go any higher.

For visually impaired people it was good: there were a few push buttons and a voice talk interactive explanations.

It’s probably better for the hearing impaired who can see, as it was very visual.

The best bit was the planetarium show. Although, it only allowed six wheelchair users in at a time, and we were rather squashed at the back. (Walkers kept cramming in behind me, one family just stopped and stared at me as if to say, 'well, move.' they didn't even thank me when I squashed my foot, moving for them.

The twenty-minute show covered the whole dome shaped auditorium in 3D effects projected across. I couldn't tell exactly what they were, but it looked to me, like explosions of colour. I found it relaxing, especially on such a busy day. The voiceover woman told us about the history of space travel and the difficulties astronauts have faced over the years. It was really interesting.

My mum and I had a super quick look at the rocket tower, planets and stars sections. When I was about nine or ten, there was a book about space that I’d take out of the library every week and read cover to cover, so I found it interesting.

When you organise an event like ours, you’re more focused on making sure everyone else is ok and enjoying themselves, so after zipping round, we headed to the room. I really do hope the families enjoyed it. Many travelled from afar, so it meant a lot to have them there.

Leicester Space Centre is a great day out, but I do think when organising, the staff maybe need to communicate more with each other when there is an event on. It felt like there was a lack of communication between departments (Bookings and Events).