Visitors to Bradford's new national museum will be given a ticket - to sample life as someone of a different faith.

They will be able to try birth, marriage, death and even the afterlife as a virtual character at the Lifeforce Gallery, the multi-media arena in the National Millennium Faith Experience.

New details of the attraction at St Peter's House, Forster Square, were revealed as Bradford Cathedral prepares to welcome tomorrow Janet Anderson MP, Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting.

She will officially launch the building work, scheduled to be complete for the opening in Easter 2000.

Project Champion Canon Geoff Smith said the entrance ticket given to visitors will contain a type of bar code.

When it is fitted into a computer they will become a virtual character with a randomly chosen religion, home and history.

"You will take that through all the rituals in the path of life, whether that be bar mitzvah, confirmation or the way the faiths celebrate marriage," said Mr Smith.

"There will be an experience of death in relation to different faiths. That might be reincarnation, death as the end or a Glen Hoddle 'life is a game of two halves' version."

Unique new visual and audio technology will be used in the attraction, designed by Past Forward, the firm behind the acclaimed Jorvik Centre in York.

As well as Lifeforce, the centre will include two other arenas: the Observatory, featuring talking interactive statues and Digital City, where visitors will be able to leave a permanent record of their own life, thoughts and beliefs.

Funding for the NMFE includes a £2.2 million grant from the Millennium Commission.

It will help build a steel and glass structure to link St Peter's House to the cathedral.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.