2nd May 2012

LYME REGIS: Festival set to be most spectacular yet

By Francesca Evans

THOUSANDS of visitors are expected to descend on Lyme Regis this weekend for the annual Fossil Festival and official launch of the Jurassic Coast Earth Festival.

This year’s Fossil Festival, to be held between Friday 4th and Sunday 6th, is themed “Discovering Earth” and will be the first event of the five-month-long Earth Festival, in which special activities will be held all along the Jurassic Coast.

The Fossil Festival is set to be one of the most spectacular yet, with the biggest attractions including the Onboard Jurassic Airlines simulator, which will transform the Marine Parade shelters into a mock airport. For £3 visitors will be able to fly through time and space to discover the Jurassic Coast in a completely unique way using pioneering technology.

Another great attraction will be Horace, the giant travelling pliosaur cinema in Cobb Gate. Children will enjoy operating the beast’s head, mouth, eyes and flippers themselves, as well as peering through peep-holes into its belly and meeting the puppets inside.

Most other events will be based around the Grand Marquee on the shingle beach, where a range of exhibitions and activities for all the family will be offered by the Natural History Museum, Dorset Geologists’ Association, Natural England, the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Team, Palaeontological Association, British Antarctic Survey and more.

There will also be the annual fossil fair with special finds on sale from local fossil collectors.

In the Marine Theatre, events will include “What an Earth Happened?” - a unique, interactive workshop by author, historian and former Sunday Times journalist, Christopher Lloyd, who embarks on an epic journey in a bid to connect the dots of the past.

Robyn Hitchcock and John Hegley will also present “A Celebration of Time”, sharing their music, humour and philosophy.

There will also be plenty to do at Lyme Regis Museum, offering free entry all weekend.

Activties will include ammonite polishing, paint your own fossil plaster cast, fossil walks and rockpool rambles. The museum will also be celebrating Lyme Regis’ famous fossil hunter, Mary Anning, with a talk from Tom Sharpe of the National Museum of Wales and guided walks.

Local actor Harry Ford will play nineteenth-century scientist and clergyman William Buckland, who boasted that he had eaten his way through the whole of the animal creation, for “Dinner with Dr Buckland” at the museum.

Lyme Regis Development Trust, which is organising the Fossil Festival, has been working on two digital apps which will be launched over the weekend, offering visitors an interative experience of the Jurassic Coast. The trust will also be offering free WiFi along the seafront so the apps can be used during the festival.

The apps will use augmented reality and digital maps to teach people about the coast as they walk along it. For more details on how to get these apps on your smart phone or other device, visit the grand marquee over the weekend.

The official launch of the Earth Festival will be held at 5pm on Friday 4th, with snippets from several of what are set to be weekend highlights. Proceedings will be introduced by Earth Festival Patron, Sir Ghillean Prance, with guest of honour Petya Totcharova, UNESCO’s chief of unit for Europe and North America.

Full details, times and dates of all events are available on the Fossil Festival website www.fossilfestival.com

PICTURE 1: ALL ABOARD - The inside of the Jurassic Airlines simulator

PICTURE 2: An impression of what the Marine Parade shelters will look like set up as the airport

PICTURE 3: TOOTHY GRIN - Horace, the life-size travelling pliosaur cinema, will be one of the main attractions at this weekend’s Fossil Festival