Halloween half term at Science and Industry Museum

Whether you’re looking to get into the Halloween spirit with some spooky science or prefer to swerve a scare in favour of family favourite experiences, the Science and Industry Museum is offering something for everyone this Halloween half term (Saturday 25 October – Sunday 2 November).

Be transported back in time by stepping inside the newly opened Power Hall: The Andrew Law Gallery. Wake the ghosts of Manchester’s industrial past and be immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of times gone by. Walk in the footsteps of 19^th century railway workers and see engines built in the 1830s brought back to life. Visitors can even peer inside Pender, a steam locomotive from the 1870s to reveal its spectacular insides.

Hidden details lurking in the shadows inside Power Hall will be revealed with a special ‘Looking Closely' guide, created specifically for half term visitors. Use the guide to explore the lesser-noticed details on the engines and locomotives inside the gallery.

If it’s less frightening and more frolicking visitors are after, they can join a series of flash mob-style movement sessions being run by dancers from Company Chameleon. Inspired by the engines in Power Hall, budding dancers can spin like a flywheel, jump like a piston and wave their arms like plumes of steam during dynamic workshops that will engage the whole family in movement and music. The free drop-in sessions will run daily throughout the holiday at 11.00, 12.00, 12.30, 13.00, 14.00 and 15.00.

The museum’s family-favourite special exhibition, Operation Ouch: Brains, Bogies and You, also offers goo over gore this Halloween. Visitors can venture through the senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste as they take a deep dive inside the human body, dodging icky earwax, squeezing past sticky snot and steering clear of saliva as they discover exactly what goes on inside our bodies as we make sense of the world.

Swap scary for hairy as you enter through the ear canal and discover more about cochlea and the hair-like sensors that send signals to our brains, or trade macabre acts for snotty facts – like how we make enough snot every year to fill two bath tubs! - and learn about how this magical mucus helps us smell.

There are still smatterings of supernatural throughout the exhibition, including coins touched by Henry VIII. Five hundred years ago, people believed that illness could be cured by the touch of a king or queen. The King gave coins he touched to sick people in the hope of healing them.

Visitors can also fill up their Halloween bag of tricks with some brain-altering illusions that prove you can’t always believe what you see, including ghost dots appearing in blank spaces, straight lines being bent by the brain, circles seeming to spiral and even faces appearing upside down.