When I say themed party I don't mean the toga party you attended in college or that awkward 1920s themed bachelorette party you had to go to. When I say themed here I mean the events that are going on along the four floors of the museum all relate to the general theme of the evening. Some examples of the events are:
- The Forensic Challenge: When is a Crime Scene Not a Crime Scene?
- Forensic Botany
- A film on "How Sherlock Holmes Changed the World"
- DNA Extractions
- Fingerprint Analysis
- Composite Sketch Challenge
- Murder Mystery: Who Killed Ben Lion?
Of those events we did the following:
We went to The Forensic Challenge talk. It was about 30 minutes long, and funny story I'm almost positive the forensic anthropologist that assisted him on the case was my anthropology teacher in college.The is the only thing I will frown upon, they needed to warn you in some way that you were going to see actual explicit pictures of actual dead bodies. I saw about three bodies too many.
I did a fingerprint analysis on myself and learned that my thumb does not fit any of the 9 typical patterns of fingerprints. Even the guy running the booth was baffled by my thumb. But my other fingers matched a right loop pattern.
The composite sketch challenge would not work for us but it seemed cool. They show you an image of a person for 7 seconds and then you are supposed to recreate what you saw.
The Murder Mystery was all throughout the museum. We didn't actually do it, but it had potential to be really interesting. You were supposed to wander the museum looking for clues and evidence (stations set up for you to look at hair samples) and talk to suspects. We never saw any suspects. We found the booths for evidence but never any suspects. But again, we didn't actually partake in that events.
The biggest disappointment though was the International Exhibit of Sherlock Holmes wasn't included in the price of your event ticket. I don't remember seeing that written anywhere when you purchase your tickets, but I do remember there was no option to buy an exhibit ticket when you were checking out online. We were not happy about that. It was almost the entire reason we were there. I had to talk Megan into buying a ticket by telling her it was essentially the cost of a drink. The exhibit itself looked cool BUT it was way too crowded and there was no clear set up as to what you were supposed to do. It's a murder mystery in itself, where you go to stations and look at evidence and solve the crime. After room one I was over the murder mystery and just wandered about the exhibit looking at stuff and things. It looked cool. It all looked cool. If less people were in there I would have tried to put effort into the crime game but it is what it is.
While all of this is going on though you can wander the entire museum and look at all the permanent exhibits sans crying, screaming, running children and with booze.
Here's me trying to outrun a T-Rex. Jurassic Park could be real. I need to train.
Speaking of booze, they had specialty cocktails for this event, Spyglass Sour (Tuaca
Lemon Drop Martini) and the Curious Southern Comfort Caramel
(Southern Comfort Caramel and Sprite).
Tasty drinky drinks
In addition to the actual cocktails they had a station with frozen cocktails. Booze infused ice cream is the best.
These tiny samples were not enough. More was needed.
They did claim to have turned their cafe into a "Gastropub". I use quotes because it depends on your definition of gastropub. It was more than they had British-themed food options that they took forever to put on the line. We went an hour into the event to get food because everyone and their mom was eating first thing. We both wanted the fish and chips but there weren't any ready. We were behind one couple waiting for food, after about 15 minutes there was a crowd of closer to 12 waiting for food to be put up. They were making it fresh, but they were making them one at a time. Were my fish and chops and strawberry rhubarb tart (more like all strawberry no rhubarb tart) and champagne worth the $17 dollars and 20 minute wait? No. Just no. It was fine. It was food. But the cost was high for what I received. I recommend you eat before you go to one one these events.
But besides the food, and the slight disorganization of the event it was totally worth it. We ended up staying an hour and a half longer than I guessed we would. Downside, it was pouring rain and it ruined my chance to play leap frog like the adult I am.
All in all here is what I think of The Perot Museums' Social Science Adult Program:
1. Eat before you go.
2. Go in with a semi-game plan. It can be overwhelming with the crowd and the events. Also, it will take longer to get to places than you would think. We missed some events just because time got away from us.
3. If you want to do whatever additional traveling exhibit is there know you are going to need to buy a ticket once you get there.
4. Totes go to one though! I already bought my tickets for the next one on June 19th titled Naturally.
No comments:
Post a Comment