October 24, 2018 11.17 am This story is over 65 months old

This weekend only: Arcade games come to life in Lincoln

You can even dress up as Pac-Man

Take a nostalgic trip back and help retro arcade games come to life as the LPAC celebrates its 10th birthday with a free pop-up experience at the Waterside Shopping Centre.

Inspired by classic 8-bit arcade games The Actual Reality Arcade is a large-scale interactive game zone for all ages, which will take place in Lincoln on Saturday and Sunday, October 27-28.

A partnership between the LPAC and Waterside Shopping Centre will see the pop-up arts space in a vacant shop unit on the ground floor of the shopping centre.

Mixing interactive fun with physical play, the arcade has previously proved a hugely popular social experience and visitors will get the chance to pilot spaceships, dodge barrels, build Tetris walls, fire rockets, shoot space invaders, play human whack-a-mole and dress up as Pac-Man.

The majority of artist Matthew Harrison’s work combines traditional hands on techniques with modern technology and often involves coordinating large numbers of people.

He said: “We loved working with Waterside last year, so when they contacted us a couple of weeks ago about a shop unit that had just become available we snatched their hands off!

“Since then it’s been a mad-scramble to pull together a programme of free events for families and we’re really pleased with the response to our storytelling and craft sessions. However, what I really wanted was something special to round off the pop-up and The Actual Reality Arcade is the perfect set-piece.

“It’s interactive, light-hearted fun and is a great social experience, which for an Artistic Director obsessed with the idea of art as a means to creating connections in the now, is ideal, as it takes familiar characters from the dawn of the digital age and places the human and a sense of live-ness right at their heart. Forget Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality – we have Actual Reality!”