The largest outdoor science-popularization event in Europe: the 14. Science Picnic:
- More than 100,000 visitors a day
- 250 institutions from all over the world
- Free participation
Details from the organizer's website http://www.pikniknau...pl/standard/en/ (<-- there is also a video):
The "Science Picnic of Polish Radio and the Copernicus Science Centre" is Europe's largest outdoor science-popularization event. It has been held every year since 1997 in Warsaw's New Town Square and Podzamcze area, each time drawing crowds of visitors – more than 100,000 in the course of a single day! The Science Picnic was commended by the European Commission in 2005 as one of 10 model European projects in the "Science and Society" field. The event has served as the inspiration for many other popular science initiatives, including the Copernicus Science Centre in Warsaw."
"Each year the Science Picnic is participated in by some 250 institutions from Poland and abroad (including from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Morocco, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, the US and UK). Institutions of higher education and scholarship, research institutes, museums and cultural bodies, science-related foundations, and interest groups all present their achievements and reveal behind-the-scenes aspects of their work. They illustrate the very stuff of science in ways accessible to visitors of various ages, using hands-on experiments, demonstrations, and often interactive exhibits. A wide range of research fields are represented at the Picnic, including the hard, natural, and social sciences plus the humanities."
"The participants of the Picnic may include universities, research institutions and institutions popularizing science, which will prepare demonstrations of interactive, popular science, educational or artistic nature. The participation in the Picnic is gratuitous for public educational institutions, research and development units and cultural institutions. The organisers ensure: promotion and advertising of the Science Picnic; technical infrastructure in the form of: a tent, tables, coffee tables, chairs, power supply, etc. The condition to participate in the Picnic is completing and sending back to organizers, by the deadline, “Participation Declaration” and “Registration Form”."
The lat year Formal terms of participation: http://www.polskiera...43011593669.pdf have been slightly changed, the most important:
"1.The Organiser reserves the right to refuse to accept participation in the Scientific Picnic in order to present Shows, in particular when the Organiser decides that:
a. the Shows are not of an interactive nature;
b. the Shows are not of a general scientific, educational or artistic nature;
c. the Shows are dangerous to the public, the Participant, the Organiser (for all of the people present at the Scientific Picnic);
d. the Shows directly promote products or solutions of a particular entity."
Brochures, books, CDs - all has to be gratuitous. Quizzes, games etc. - to be invented.
The Shows can be in English. Both stage shows and talking to the people who would come to the stand/tent. So if non-Polish speaking ImmInst members were to come to Warsaw for the Picnic, it would be perfectly fine for them to speak English.
More ideas are welcome.
The Participation form is in Polish only (I offer my help, of course): http://kopernik.org.pl/pikfor/
I think that at least 3 persons (or more) at the stand are necessary. I can be one of them, but I am new here; so someone more experienced would be more knowledgeable and convincing to people.
Do you think that the appearing at the Scientific Picnic would result in more members, media coverage and perhaps future cooperation?