To celebrate 50 years since the first moon landing, Birmingham Hippodrome and surrounding areas will be transformed into a lunar landscape for the free two-day family festival - Summer in Southside - on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 July.

This year the festival will explore the spectacle and wonder of Outer Space, complete with Luke Jerram’s Museum of the Moon, a stunning seven meter model with detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface.

Visitors will have the chance to see Hippodrome Associate Company, Motionhouse, perform its remarkable dance piece, 'Gravity' and witness Highly Sprung’s walkabout physical performance featuring an astronaut suspended 20 feet in the air using a flying machine. They can also see an asteroid crash land in Southside and watch as scientific police explore the aftermath.

Other extra-terrestrial guests include alien-like i-Puppets and Ljud’s The Invasion, a roaming performance telling the story of intergalactic immigrants who have accidentally landed on Earth.

Festival-goers can take a seat in the Astronaut’s Caravan, which uses a unique optical illusion to create a gravity defying sensory experience and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s sci-fi tunes will create an astronomical atmosphere.

Elsewhere over the weekend, Birmingham Hippodrome has teamed up with Bullring & Grand Central for Summer in the City where visitors to the centre will be able to enjoy various performances in Rotunda Square. The Dream Engine’s Heliosphere will see a seemingly weightless acrobat suspended beneath a helium balloon spiralling and spinning, while Mind the Gap’s interactive performance, Mirror Mirror, will see two robotic creatures from a far-off land exploring their newly found planet and mirroring their findings.  

Everyone’s welcome at Birmingham Hippodrome and the theatre aims to make as many of its events and performances easily accessible. For any additional needs, there will be an Access Hub in front of the theatre’s main entrance during the festival and many performances will be audio described and signed.

Recruit your space-crew and blast off into the galaxy this summer at Birmingham Hippodrome’s annual free family festival. For more information about Summer in Southside, you can visit birminghamhippodrome.com/summerinsouthside.