INSIDE it will be -3ºC, but Scotland's latest attraction aims to be the hottest ever.
The first look at the inside of the £70million Xscape centre at Braehead was unveiled today.
It will feature a 200-metre indoor real snow slope, housed in a giant freezer.
Sixteen snow-guns will fire cooled water into air that
has been chilled to -20ºC degrees to create 1500 tonnes of snow.
The temperature will gradually rise to accommodate skiers – but it will still hover around -3ºC.
"It will be the best indoor snow slope built pretty much anywhere in the world," said the man in charge, former
Disney Paris boss P Y Gerbeau, as the countdown began today to the venue's opening on April 6 .
Xscape will combine extreme activities with cinema screens and shopping. The aim, Mr Gerbeau said, was to "make people happier."
Step inside the giant freezer that houses the ski slopes and you realise winter has been brought indoors.
It is freezing, and the warmest jacket seems
inadequate at this temperature. Overhead, icicles have already formed, and hang from the rafters.
The tumbling snow is so dense you cannot make out the rear wall of the building. It is as soft and powdery as the real thing, and crunches satisfactorily underfoot.
It covers everything – the button-lifts that are awaiting their first paying customers, the specially-equipped vehicles that distribute it evenly about the slopes.
The slopes are so authentic they can be adapted to imitate the bumps and depressions of a real slope.
In response to expected demand, the beginners' slope is twice the size of its counterparts at Xscape's two other venues, at Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, and at Castleford, near Leeds.
The indoor skiing is the only Xscape attraction the ebullient Mr Gerbeau has not tried – he cannot ski because of a shattered ankle suffered during his ice hockey days.
Mr Gerbeau, who hit the headlines in the UK in 2000 when he took over the troubled Millennium Dome in London, was bullish about the new centre's attractions.
The chief executive of X-Leisure said: "It will be an all-inclusive operation, where people of all ages can park their car in the morning and enjoy themselves for the whole day at the attractions, or by shopping, or eating, or going to the cinema.
"This is the most exciting thing I have been involved with since my days with Mickey Mouse in Paris."
Today, he joined Ronnie Burns, Renfrewshire Council Provost, and schoolchildren in unveiling a countdown clock at Braehead Shopping Centre.
Xscape, which will open with a giant party for 10,000 people, will create around 1000 jobs.
Its other attractions will include one of the UK's largest freestanding climbing walls, and a 15m-high aerial adventure course.
It will also feature Robocoaster, the world's first
passenger-carrying robot.
The Fandrop, with its twin fan descenders – the first of their kind in the world – will allow visitors to bungee-jump until the fans slow down to a gentle landing.
Xscape will also have 22 lanes of bowling, a 12-screen multiplex cinema, restaurants, and nearly 3780 square metres of shops.
Publication date 06/03/06