Since The Brothers Brick contributors can’t be everywhere all the time, we’re going to try being more consistent about bringing you coverage of important LEGO events from guest contributors. To start things off, here’s Carl Merriam to cover the recent Bricks by the Bay!

It’s been a little over a week since the doors closed at Bricks By the Bay 2012. It feels so much longer. Getting back into the flow of real life is always difficult after such a fun and rewarding convention. This year BBtB had more floor space, full use of the convention center theater and breakout rooms and quite a few more attendees and visiting public.

At the opening ceremonies we enjoyed some playful banter from LEGO Company representatives Kevin Hinkle, Jim Foulds, Steven Canvin, and Jenn Wagner. Hinkle also unveiled the new R2-D2 UCS set. I played with it myself and it does have some very nifty features, including folding computer interface and buzzsaw arms, as well as a “retractable third leg”.

There were plenty of great MOCs. Some of my favorites included The Last March of the Ents by The OneLUG, Bill Ward’s Rainbow Connection: Kermit the Frog with Banjo, Benjamin Newitt’s fully transforming Megatron, Tim Inman’s Heron Building, Kevin Smith’s T.A.R.D.I.S., Bruce Lowell’s prolific replicas, Remi’s Technic Dinosaurs, Norbert Labuguen’s Hero Factory Octopus (made from 10 of the new Joker sets), Chad Mealey’s pair of zoetropes, Brandon Griffith’s simply perfect Soylent Green, and, of course, my own miniland scale Pier.

On Saturday night the fire alarm in the hotel went off and everyone had to leave the exhibit hall. Most groups of people would have been frustrated. We took it as kind of an impromptu meet and greet. Talking about all things LEGO and getting to know the new people who were nearby, the time passed quickly. It turns out that the fire alarms were malfunctioning.

Attendees may have noticed BLARE Media running around all over the convention, filming scenes for the upcoming feature film Brick Madness. Justin McAleece, the film’s director, was kind enough to put together this brand new mashup of some scenes shot at BBtB 2012 for us to enjoy:

BBTB 2012/ Brick MADNESS clips from Justin McAleece on Vimeo.

My only complaints about this year’s BBtB were the absence of both the Bricks of Character category (Iain, you know LEGO is more important than that work nonsense you’re always going on about) and the Nova Albion steampunk convention that we all so enjoyed cross-pollinating with last year. However, their absence was totally circumstantial and not controlled by BBtB. I wore my commemorative bricks for both all weekend in memorandum.

The Local ABC affiliate did its own wrap-up:

Photos of everything can be seen here:

• BBTB 2012 & BBTB2012 tags
• Bricks by the Bay group
• Bricks by the Bay 2012 group