Festive programme at the Life Science Centre with a dinosaur trail, The Big Dino Den, a Christmas trinket workshop and the 360-degree Planetarium show 'What Santa Sees'.
Life Science Centre is giving its festive programme a prehistoric twist this year with Dinos and Decking the Halls, which runs from Saturday 7 November 2026 through to Sunday 3 January 2027. The whole thing is built around the dinosaurs being on a countdown to extinction, with The Great Dinosaur Escape leaving the centre on 3 January.
Young explorers get deputised as 'Dino Rangers', following a trail and using dinosaur facts to crack a code. That leads them to The Big Dino Den, home to a three-tonne T. rex alongside an Allosaurus, a Carnotaurus and some dino babies. Beyond the trail, there's a festive trinket you can make and take home, and the Experiment Zone has a challenge for the over-7s: trying to identify the contents of mystery presents. If you're after something calmer, Santa and his reindeer star in What Santa Sees, a 360-degree Planetarium show created by the centre's own award-winning in-house team.
It's a good one for families with kids of different ages, since you can do the active trail and the trinket-making, then wind down in the Planetarium. The whole thing runs until the dinosaurs finally make their escape on 3 January, so you've got a fair window to fit it in over the Christmas break.
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Tickets are £15 for adults (18+) with a donation, or £13.60 without; children aged 3 and over are £13.60 without donation, and under-2s go in for free. There's a £2.50 flexi ticket add-on available too. You'll find it at Life Science Centre, Times Square, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4EP.
