It wasn't an exhibition, but a whole series of zones that you could freely wander around in, each one a show in itself. I recall going through the learning zone, and seeing the huge doors where you could hear the headmaster yelling behind them, to remind you what it felt like to be at school, and then as we were moving through to the end of that space, the lighting all changed, the music shifted and the walls fell away to reveal a forest full of trees to everyone's delight. Extraordinary.
The musical acts that surprised us as we were walking between zones, the huge scale of the artworks and sculptures that we actually had to walk through, it was an absolute delight from start to finish. I had been given two tickets as a gift from a friend, and I took a mate who I didn't know super well, we had zero expectations and that day definitely helped turn us into very close friends - I was his best man a few years later. I then bought tickets and took my girlfriend, who was left speechless by it all (she was a trained actor) who then bought her own tickets and took her entire family there.
The dome suffered from the worst PR ever, and it was a national joke but only for people who hadn't read the book, so to say, people queuing up to criticise something in copycat fashion, but the joke was on them, it was amazing.
The budget for the show was there for a year and I'm sure it underperformed but I'm also sure it provided a seed for the success of things like the 2012 Olympics, which was simply amazing. It was empty for a while, and Crisis used it as a homeless shelter in 2003 I think, I was volunteering as a chef and we were in an annex outside the main building, catering for people with dependency problems, while my then-girlfriend was cooking at the main kitchen inside the actual dome. I took my skates and skated around the whole empty-ish structure, was very cool.