I always appreciate a visit to the Natural History Museum in London, so getting to go there recently for the Unofficial Jurassic World Evolution community meet-up was an absolute ton of fun and one of the best experiences I’ve had in 2019 so far!
We kicked our day off by meeting at Sophie The Stegosaurus – something which I know Frontier Community Manager Steggs was particularly excited about as you can probably tell by his namesake! It was really cool slowly seeing a fantastic group of people arrive – totaling around twenty people in all which was a good turnout for the first time doing this. I’ve done meet-ups in the past which haven’t had great turnouts so I was a little apprehensive, but this went great! It was lovely getting to meet so many different people – coming from Cambridge, London, Southampton and everywhere in-between!
After we met at the Stegosaurus, we proceeded to one of the Natural History Museum’s lecture rooms – where Doctor David Button was kind enough to prepare a Jurassic Park themed presentation for all in attendance. This was a ton of fun – looking at everything from the fact that Velociraptors couldn’t have used door handles as it would have broken their wrists, to looking at how digital reconstructions of the skulls of dinosaurs such as Diplodocus are created. It was an incredibly insightful presentation – and I’m thankful to David and the Natural History Museum’s dinosaur team for going above and beyond to accommodate our group – making a fantastic central event for the day.
Following on from this, we proceeded to visit the Dinosaur Galleries, where attendees had the opportunity to take part in a couple of different activities. The first, Dinosaur Director (Aptly named after Frontier’s recent competition), challenged attendees to get their best photos of dinosaurs across the museum. We saw some fantastic results here – with many great entries and lots of people getting creative. It was great walking through the gallery and seeing so many people engaged with the activities of the day. The second activity was to correctly identify all the dinosaurs present in the museum who appeared in Jurassic World Evolution. This was a fun way of getting attendees to think about the game – and we even saw some fierce competition all in the name of good fun!
After we finished going through the galleries, winners were chosen – with one winning a Mattel Attack Pack Velociraptor Blue and the other winning a Pop Funko Ian Malcolm (Super Sexy Shirtless Variant). We then took part in a Jurassic Park quiz to round out the day – with everyone who came being made a winner and receiving some exclusive Jurassic World Evolution goodies in the form of both pins and printed posters. This was a fantastic end to the day – and something which I hope everyone enjoyed.
I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who came along. The support I’ve received not only here on Jurassic Park Podcast, but also on Twitter and further afield, has really made everything I’ve been able to do possible. Thanks, are due to the Frontier team – who continue to support and encourage me with everything I do. I’d like to thank Bo, Steggs and Brendon for all their support with this event. Go follow them if you don’t already!
That brings this to a close – but now I’m handing it over to you. Where should we organise the next meet-up? Would you come? Let us know in the comments down below.
Written by:
Tom Fishenden