There’s only one thing cooler than giant robots, and that’s giant robot dinosaurs. Sorry, but we don’t make the rules.
Friday through Sunday, the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds is hosting more than 100 animatronic dinosaurs as Jurassic Quest, a traveling exhibit from Texas, transports the fairgrounds back in time a few hundred million years.
On Thursday, a crew of 30 people worked to set up the exhibit. Scenes coordinator Kendra Culla said setup takes all day, as a flurry of people worked to unload the semitrucks filled with dinosaur parts parked outside. Inside the expo center, forklifts wove around giant, half-constructed prehistoric robots.
“It definitely is a production,” Culla said. “This place will look like a jungle, filled with true-to-life-size dinosaurs.”
If You Go
• What: Jurassic Quest.
• When: Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Where: Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds, 17402 N.E. Delfel Road, Ridgefield
• Tickets: $20 for kids and adults, $34 for kids VIP and $18 for seniors.
• Information: jurassicquest.com/events/vancouver-wa
The dinosaurs are built around massive frames, with rubbery heads and bodies propped up on metal stilts that are then surrounded by exterior leg pieces. Built to life-size, they move around in their pens and interact with visitors. Some of the adolescent dino robots walk freely through the crowd.
There’s also three baby dinosaurs that Jurassic Quest staffers will carry through the crowd to play with children — “if they’re game for it,” Culla said. “In our baby show, we have three dinosaurs. That would be Trixie the triceratops, Cami the camarasaurus and Tyson the T-Rex.”
But the wow factor, the piéce de résistance, is the looming, massive dinos.
There’s the obvious crowd-pleasers: the toothy Tyrannosaurus rex, the spiky stegosaurus, the horned triceratops. But there’s some lesser-known dinosaurs, as well, like the massive apatosaurus and the therizinosaurus “goose” covered in down and feathers.
For the kids who already know everything there is to know about dinosaurs, attention to detail is crucial in creating an authentic experience.
“It takes a team of really educated and knowledgeable people to bring something to life. We actually work with paleontologists to make sure all of our dinosaurs are as factual as possible,” Culla said. “You might come here and see a dinosaur with fur or feathers, and that may not be how that’s portrayed in media, but that’s how it actually was.”
Apart from the animatronic dinosaurs, Jurassic Quest includes a variety of activities. Visitors can also make a cast of a fossil, ride on the back of a dinosaur, get their face painted or jump in a bounce house.
