Show Descriptions
Audience Guide for Current Shows
| Younger Audiences |
General Audiences |
Adult audiences (Due to Music Lyrics) |
|---|---|---|
| Tucson Sky & Beyond | Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon | |
| Perfect Little Planet | Touring the Solar System | Pink Floyd The Wall |
| Great White Shark | Laser Metallica | |
| Black Holes | ||
| BUGS! A Rainforest Adventure | ||
| Forward! To The Moon | ||
| Laser Queen | ||
| Laser Stranger Things | ||
| Undiscovered Worlds: The Search for Alien Earths | ||
| Mysteries of the Unseen World |
Get a view of the fascinating universe of insects magnified up to 250,000 times their normal size in BUGS! A Rainforest Adventure. Become immersed in a miniature world, where a leaf weighs as much as a car and a single raindrop can quench the largest thirst. Highlighting the extraordinary world of insects, BUGS! A Rainforest Adventure focuses on the life cycles of a praying mantis and a butterfly from their birth to their inevitable encounter in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia, where predator meets prey.
Recommended for general audiences.
Themes: Bugs, insects, entomology, nature, biology
Style: Fulldome film followed by live presentation
A fun, gorgeously animated fulldome show about cosmic chemistry and our explosive origins, this dazzling film reveals how hydrogen and carbon, the very building blocks of life, formed in the universe and then brings it all back to us – we are made of stars!
Recommended for younger audiences.
Themes: Stars, element formation
Style: Fulldome animated film followed by star talk
Discover our solar system through a new set of eyes – a family from another star system seeking the perfect vacation spot. Fly over the surface of Pluto, our best known Dwarf Planet. Dive down the ice cliffs of Miranda. Sail through the rings of Saturn. Feel the lightning storms at Jupiter. And walk on the surface of Mars. Which destination would you choose? This is the solar system journey for space travelers of all ages.
Recommended for younger audiences.
Themes: Planets, planet features
Style: Fulldome animated film followed by star talk
Misrepresented, maligned and misunderstood, the Great White Shark is an iconic predator: the creature we love to fear. This planetarium show will explore the Great White's place in our imaginations, in our fears, and in the reality of its role at the top of the oceanic food chain. See the Great White through the eyes of people who swim with sharks:
Recommended for general audiences.
Themes: Sharks, conservation
Style: Fulldome film followed by live presentation
Zoom away from planet Earth and take a guided tour through the Solar System! In this show we stop by each of the planets and learn why they are unique. Hold on, this is one fun ride!
Recommended for general audiences.
Themes: Facts about Planets, space exploration
Style: Live presentation
This is our "classic" night sky show, but not like you remember it! Take a relaxing look at the night sky as one of our skilled "Console Captains" gives you a guided tour of the stars, planets, constellations and current events happening in the night sky. This live show is never the same and there is always a surprise in store.
Recommended for general audiences.
Themes: Stars, planets, constellations, mythology
Style: Live presentation
Black holes are one of the most intriguing and mysterious phenomena in the universe, a place where humans could never venture—until now!.
Recommended for general audiences.
Style: Fulldome film followed by live presentation
Dynamite with a laser beam! When the music of QUEEN meets the rippling laser lights on the planetarium dome, get ready to rock your head off. “Laser Queen” brings the operatic glam rock of the legendary rock band to luminous, pulsing life with laser beams.
Ride the power of Freddie Mercury’s voice as you sing along to all the hits, including "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," "Under Pressure," "Another One Bites the Dust," and of course "Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Recommended for general audiences.
Style: Laser Light Music Show
You loved the Stranger Things series on Netflix, you grooved to the awesome ‘80s pop-rock soundtrack and the show’s spooky synth theme song. Now the songs and the lights in Laser Stranger Things will transport you back to that dark, delightful adventure. Come see the new laser music show at Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium and turn your world Upside Down.
Recommended for general audiences.
Style: Laser Light Music Show
Explore the timeless question of whether other planets like the Earth exist.
The now almost weekly discovery of exoplanets reminds us that our Solar System is not the only one in the Universe. Increasing numbers of alien worlds redefine our understanding of planets and the nature of solar systems.
With rapidly improving technology and instruments like the Kepler Telescope, the discovery of exoplanets brings us closer to the possibility of finding an Earth-like world.
When we do, how will it change the way we view our place in the Universe?
Recommended for general audiences.
Style: Fulldome Film
Mysteries of the Unseen World
Mysteries of the Unseen World transports audiences to places on this planet that they have never been before, to see things that are beyond their normal vision, yet literally right in front of their eyes. Mysteries of the Unseen World reveals phenomena that can't be seen with the naked eye, taking audiences into earthly worlds secreted away in different dimensions of time and scale. Viewers experience events that unfold too slowly for human perception. They 'see' the beauty, drama, and even humor of phenomena that occur in the flash of a microsecond. They enter the microscopic world that was once reserved only for scientists, but that Mysteries of the Unseen World makes accessible to the rest of us. They begin to understand that what we actually see is only a fraction of what there is TO see on this Earth. High-speed and time-lapse photography, electron microscopy, and nanotechnology are just a few of the advancements in science that now allow us to see a whole new universe of things, events, creatures, and processes we never even knew existed and now give us new 'super powers' to see beyond what is in front of us.
Recommended for general audiences.
Style: Theatrical IMAX show formatted for planetarium
Forward! To the Moon
Forward! To the Moon which engages audiences in NASA efforts to send both humans and robots to the Moon and Mars. NASA’s 21st century Artemis program, named after the Greek moon Goddess and twin of Apollo, is the next step in our mission to explore the universe and land the first woman and person of color on the surface of the Moon.
Narrated by Kari Byron from CrashTest World and Mythbusters, the film features the NASA Artemis program along with the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
Recommended for general audiences.
Style: Theatrical planetarium show
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
Based on Pink Floyd’s 1973 album of humanitarian, political and philosophical empathy, Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most startling and bizarre laser light shows of all time! Considered by many critics to be the album that brought the commercial breakthrough to Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon offers a mixture of psychedelic, rock and jazz sounds. Its sonic backdrops and atmospheric soundscapes combined with a unique assortment of sound effects yield an emotional resonance. When accompanied by a diverse and unusual display of laser art, the overall feel is a dramatic and haunting atmosphere.
Recommended for adult audiences.
Style: Laser Light Music show by AVI
Runtime: 45 Minutes
Pink Floyd: The Wall
The Wall is best considered as a continual story rather than a collection of individual songs. It tells the tale of a rock star named Pink and his downward spiral into madness. To the listener, and indeed many critics, The Wall is a gripping and spellbinding musical journey – beautiful, haunting, powerful and thought provoking. It is a timeless classic, and one of Pink Floyd’s best, becoming the group’s second best seller behind Dark Side of the Moon. Now coupled with spectacular and mesmerizing laser art, Pink Floyd’s classic 1979 epic about personal struggle takes on a unique look, weaving its story in one of the most popular laser shows ever produced! Visitors will become lost and spellbound as their senses join this timeless journey.
Recommended for adult audiences.
Style: Laser Light Music show by AVI
Runtime: 50 Minutes
Laser Metallica
Considered to be one of the pioneering groups in what would become the heavy metal genre, the musicianship and force of this band has been hailed by critics and fans worldwide. Now Metallica’s tempos, instrumentals, themes and sound are joined with laser lights of the same caliber and style. Your pulse and body will pound as the music fills both your ears and eyes.
Song List
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ain’t My B#tch
Fuel
One
Nothing Else Matters
Master of Puppets
Unforgiven II
Sad But True
Enter Sandman
Recommended for adult audiences.
Style: Laser Light Music show by AVI
Runtime: 45 Minutes