ground control

“I have been informed that you are indeed Ground Control: a team of highly sophisticated young minds brought together in this one room. You are the best people to be here.”

An interactive mission for 7-12 year olds.

You are Ground Control, and Futuretron is asking for your help. Here’s the situation: in 1974, a manned mission was sent into space to look for inhabitable planets. Now, in present day, the sensors aboard Shuttle X27-40 indicate that it may have found just such a planet.

The three astronauts on board are about to be woken from their hypersleep, and they are going to need to know how to go about setting things up. Problem is – they’re from 1974. They think that Charles Aznavour is groovy and that the computer mouse is a cutting edge invention. They need to know what the world is like today – what is cool, what is relevant, what is fair and important and what is on the minds of the population – and who better to advise them than…you?

If you had to start from scratch, how would you decide on the name, the laws, the cuisine? What do you love, what’s important to you, and what will everybody be dancing to when the anthem comes on? Through a series of ‘modules’, Futuretron playfully asks participants to decide an identity for the planet, to decide its laws and what it will hold culturally important. The result is a civilisation unique to each group that takes part.

Using a giant projection screen and a live, highly intelligent computer (well, Futuretron), the participants are given control of the technology and asked to work in a team, and individually, to decide the future of their new planet.

ground control is a Hijack Festival commission for 7-12 year olds. There are up to 40 young participants, seated in Grid Squares, and no adults allowed.

TOUR DATES 2018 – COLLABORATIVE TOURING NETWORK
In 2018, ground control is one of the shows selected to tour to 8 regional festivals as part of Battersea Arts Centre’s Collaborative Touring Network. Please see the website for each host festival, below to find out the dates of public ground control performances.

Hull
Heads Up Festival: 19 – 23 Sep

Medway 
Paint the Town Festival: 26 – 30 Sep

Darlington
Jabberwocky Market: 3 – 6 Oct

Gloucester
Strike A Light Festival: 10 – 14 Oct

Peterborough
Platform 8 Festival: 17 – 20 Oct

Wigan
Wigan Arts Festival: 24 – 28 Oct

Torbay 
Doorstep Arts: 31 Oct – 4 Nov

Thanet
Looping the Loop Festival: 7 – 11 Nov

TOUR DATES 2017
Z-arts: 11 February
Battersea Arts Centre: 17 February

TOUR DATES 2016
South Street Arts: 18 February
Manchester Royal Exchange: 1 June
MAC Birmingham: 3-5 June

TOUR DATES 2015
National Theatre: 22-23 and 30-31 August
ICIA, Bath: 11 July
Cambridge Junction: 10 May

INFO PACK FOR PROMOTERS AND VENUES
DOWNLOAD