Success Stories

Ben Wiehe describes a successful Science Café he hosted:

The Café's subject was "Why we can't palm a basketball" and featured a geneticist. Although he had arranged for the venue in advance, in this case a sports bar, he did no advance promotion. The date was the afternoon of a Celtics game in Boston. Ben knew that after the game was over, there would be lots of people still in the bar milling around. So about 30 minutes after the game ended, Ben went around the bar and just told the people at the bar that he and the scientist were going to be doing the Café on this subject in a few minutes and if you want to participate feel free, and by the way, there will be some free food (which he had negotiated with the bar owner). He then went over to the corner of the bar where he was going to do the Café and made a brief announcement over the bar PA system that the Café was about to start. He then turned on a video he had brought. He had previously arranged with the bar owners to show the video on the bar's own TVs, and since it was a sports bar, they had lots of them. So when the video went on, everyone in the bar saw it. The video ran for a couple of minutes and then he introduced the scientist. The scientist spoke for 5 minutes and then Ben asked if anyone had any questions. Pretty soon the Café was in full swing and people were participating and having a great time.