{"id":25418,"date":"2019-12-18T19:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T00:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25418"},"modified":"2020-01-02T18:01:02","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T23:01:02","slug":"step-back-in-time-with-retro-games-at-family-first-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/step-back-in-time-with-retro-games-at-family-first-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Step back in time with retro games at Family First Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ring in the New Year by trying your hand at some classics\nof the past this New Year\u2019s Eve as the Town of Aurora hosts Family First Night.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A firm favourite with local families, Family First Night\nreturns to the Aurora Family Leisure Complex on Tuesday, December 31, from 6 \u2013\n9 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featuring free skating and swimming, as well as popular\nreptile and magic shows, revellers will also be able to step back in time to\ntry their hands at some full-size retro video games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany of the elements of Family First Night stay the same\nyear to year because of how overwhelmingly popular they are,\u201d says Shelley\nWare, Special Events Supervisor for the Town of Aurora. \u201cWe will be continuing\nwith our free reptile shows, presented by ZooTek. We will have two magician\nshows this year featuring the Pickpocket Magician and, in theme with the\nhottest movie right now, we will have a Frozen II-branded inflatable as well as\nsome interesting hands-on games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNew this year, we will be moving all the spinners out of\nour Cycle Fit room and turning that into a retro games room. We have the\noriginal-sized arcade game of Pac Man and the original arcade game of Donkey\nKong. We\u2019ll also have a life-sized Operation game. A lot of adults and parents\nattending this event will have memories of when they themselves played Pac Man,\nDonkey Kong and Operation as a kid and this is an opportunity for them to not\nonly play it \u2013 although it might be a challenge to see how many parents will\ngive up their turn for their child! \u2013 but for their child to actually experience\nwhat those infamous games were.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Retro Games Room has been in the works since the\nspring as Ms. Ware searched high and low to incorporate a new experience into\nthe Family First Nigh roster. Once she had found a provider to supply the\ngames, it was full steam ahead to make it a realty \u2013 including finding a space\nfor these rather large games at a recreation complex that will be packed wall\nto wall with demonstrations, crafts, rock climbing and other activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnything retro is really on trend right now and we do\ntry to stay on trend, but when I came across a provider that could offer these\ngames to us, I was so hopped up with excitement I think people had a hard time\nkeeping up with the pace I was talking about it,\u201d says Ms. Ware with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retro Games will be available all evening, as will the\nswimming and skating opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reptile Shows with Zootek will take place on the hour\nbetween 6 and 8 p.m., with Magic Shows running at 6.30 p.m. and 7.45 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children\u2019s activities will also be running throughout the\nevening, including the rock climbing, crafts, face painting, and inflatables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is certainly a tradition in Aurora and although it\nis obviously celebrated in many communities there isn\u2019t, to my knowledge, any\nevent of this scale with this number of diverse activities that are all free on\nNew Year\u2019s Eve,\u201d says Ms. Ware. \u201cThis is an excellent way for a family to\ncelebrate the New Year without being out super late at night. This is the\nfamily\u2019s time and then after 9.30 or 10 p.m., that\u2019s when the adults might have\ntheir own time. But this is a coming together of the community and year after\nyear we see families who make this their annual tradition. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve\ngone to such great lengths to create the Retro Games Room so there really is\nsomething different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven if perhaps Retro Games aren\u2019t something of your\ninterest, come out for the feel and the sense of community. This is the\ncommunity\u2019s chance to come together, reminisce about 2019 and be able to\nembrace the start of a brand new year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on Family First Night, visit aurora.ca\/Thingstodo\/Pages\/Special Events\/Family-First-Night.aspx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ring in the New Year by trying your hand at some classics of the past this New Year\u2019s Eve as the Town of Aurora hosts Family First Night. A firm favourite with local families, Family First Night returns to the Aurora Family Leisure Complex on Tuesday, December 31, from 6 \u2013 9 p.m. Featuring free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6BY","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 06:03:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}