Last week LEGO announced their first LEGO CON will take place on June 26. It will be streamed live on the LEGO website on June 26 at 5 PM (London), 12 PM (New York) and 9 AM (Los Angeles). The event lineup includes sharing of secrets from inside the LEGO Headquarters amongst other announcements and activities featuring familiar LEGO product themes.
Click to find more about LEGO CON
BrickCon today announced that its 2020 convention in October will be moving from the Space Needle to cyberspace. BrickCon is TBB’s “home convention” that usually gathers hundreds of talented LEGO builders in Seattle to exhibit their creations and meet fellow AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO) from around the world. As you might expect due to the current state of the pandemic, a gathering of 500 attendees with more than 10,000 people from the general public isn’t feasible, so BrickCon organizers are translating the full convention to an online format.
BrickCon 2020 will be held online Oct. 2 – 4 with builder registration opening on Aug. 1st. The convention will feature a keynote, online MOC exhibition, building awards including Best of Show and People’s Choice, games, prizes, workshops, social events, and a virtual marketplace for LEGO-related vendors. The convention will also offer registered builders “BrickCon Bundles” for purchase that include mailed swag like exclusive t-shirts, engraved bricks, a custom LEGO kit, activities and “other surprises.”
For this year’s exhibition, BrickCon 2020 will also accept photorealistic renders of LEGO creations since the online format is capable of showcasing them well. An online convention also means that adult builders from anywhere across the globe can attend BrickCon 2020 at home without traveling. With everything going on in the world, The Brothers Brick is excited to see our fellow builders online at BrickCon 2020 in October!
The full BrickCon 2020 announcement, registration details, and contact information are included below.
Click to read more about the BrickCon 2020 LEGO fan convention.
Earlier today, LEGO Singapore revealed for the first time to the worldwide public at the Singapore Comic Con (SGCC) 2019. The announcement was revealed together by Kevin Ahn (the Asia Pacific Market Integration & Community Engagement Manager) and Rohan Mathur (Marketing Director for Emerging Asia). Rohan says “The LEGO business has grown very strongly for the last couple of years and Asia is leading the growth” which is one of the many factors that led to the decision of having the global unveiling here.
During the past week, the recently announced LEGO Education SPIKE Prime sets made their first appearance during the Moscow International Education Fair 2019. Certified LEGO Education teacher and LEGO Ambassador Vera Senyuta, PhD, attended the press-conference and brought us the latest details about LEGO’s most advanced educational solution.
The press conference and the presentation covered both LEGO SPIKE sets, 45678 LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Set ($329.99 USD) and 45680 LEGO Education SPIKE Prime Expansion Set. The event was hosted by Tom Hall, General Manager, LEGO Education International; Yannick Dupont, Content Manager; and Thomas Rose, Training Program Manager. Together they told the audience about the idea behind the new sets and how the set will play a role in modern schools, as well as answered questions about the products.
Editor’s note 4/15: Since publication of this article, LEGO Education reached out to us to share some clarifying information about SPIKE Prime that we have incorporated into the article and quoted below.
Keep reading about the new LEGO Education SPIKE Prime set
As you’ve surely noticed from reading our site in the last few days, this weekend marked the 116th annual New York Toy Fair, North America’s largest toy trade show and the site of LEGO’s product reveals for the first half of 2019. As always, The Brothers Brick was on site to bring you in-person coverage of all the latest sets, which we’ve covered with hundreds of photos in our theme-specific articles (see the full list below). As Toy Fair is the gathering for more than 30,000 toy industry professionals, LEGO is eager to put its best foot forward, so let’s set aside the new sets for a moment and look at LEGO’s presence at the show, along with our experience there.
This was my third year attending the show to bring TBB hands-on coverage, and I followed the news from the show for years prior to that. One thing that never struck me until I attended was how different it is to most other venues where I interact with LEGO. Toy Fair New York is not a fan convention and it’s not a comic book or geek/nerd convention. It’s an industry trade show. Everyone in attendance — the people manning the booths, the people walking around, the people taking photos — is at work, and is there because it’s their job. Make no mistake — most people are having fun (how can you not have fun in seven football fields’ worth of toys?), but you won’t see cosplayers or even families, since children aren’t permitted. What you will see is every type of toy imaginable, from infant toys to RC cars to board games. Continue reading
Last weekend saw Live Company Group, owner and operator of BRICKLIVE exhibitions, announce their acquisition of Bright Bricks, the UK-based LEGO-building business, in a deal worth £8.5m {$11.1m). This is a significant investment in the business of LEGO shows, and highlights Live Group’s ambitions for their BRICKLIVE brand of events and touring exhibits. They have previously stated their aims of expanding and increasing the number of BRICKLIVE shows across the world, with a particular emphasis on Asia and the US.
You can read the press release about the announcement here, but we wanted to know more. We spoke with Ed Diment, one of the directors of Bright Bricks, to find out more about the deal, the ambitions of the new business, and what this might mean for the world of LEGO shows.
Click here to read our interview with Ed Diment
Early this morning, Leicester Square witnessed the biggest gathering of Harry Potter fans since the final film premier was held there in 2011. Fans of LEGO and J. K. Rowling’s famous wizard were out in force, excitedly queuing outside the store, some camping out overnight for the highly anticipated 71043 Hogwarts Castle set, which is now available.
At over 6,000 pieces, 71043 Hogwarts Castle is the second-largest LEGO set released by the company to date. Packed full of amazing architectural detail and showcasing almost every important scene from the series, it certainly lives up to its billing. Earlier today we posted a full review of the Hogwarts Castle LEGO set that covers every nook and cranny of the impressive build.
Little more than a week ago, I had the pleasure of attending Bricktastic, in Manchester, England. It is a somewhat different kind of event than ones I’ve attended before: not organised by a regular LEGO Users Group or with a commercial goal, but run by and on behalf of Fairy Bricks. This is a UK Charity that donates LEGO to children in hospitals.
Bricktastic was a two-day public event, that attracted LEGO builders from all over the UK, as well as sizeable contingent from Ireland and small numbers of builders from other countries, including Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands. UK professional LEGO building company Bright Bricks are one of the sponsors of the event and they brought along a collection of “Mythical Beasts” including a stunning seven-headed hydra built using roughly 200,000 bricks, that greeted visitors near the entrance and surely was one of the highlights of the show. During set-up I got to whack some bits of the hydra into place with a mallet, which is certainly not a sentence I ever expected to write.
A 200,000 brick model of a hydra built by Bright Bricks
Bricktastic ticked all the boxes. The quality of the models on display was fantastic. Noteworthy is also that the exhibition room, at Manchester Central, was very nice: it was carpeted and surrounded by curtains. Because of this, the atmosphere was a lot cosier and quieter than is common in exhibition halls. Such a detail may seem unimportant, but imagine spending two days in a bare concrete box with harsh strip lighting and hundreds of excited children. That’s what you normally get an an exhibition hall. The public were wonderful. We didn’t even need barriers to protect the displays, which meant that everybody got a good view of the models and which made it easier to talk to people. The children could get creative themselves using large play areas. Fairy Bricks arranged the hotel for the exhibitors and organised a social program for both the Friday and Saturday evenings. Everyone seemed to have a great time and the proceedings went to a good cause. What more could you want?
See a few highlights and our extensive gallery
Summer is here, and that means there are only about three months left until BrickCon 2018. As we announced in May, The Brothers Brick will be hosting a public collaborative display of Ninjago City open to any full convention attendees. Check out that announcement for detailed instructions on the guidelines and how to participate. In the meantime, we here at TBB have been busy little builders, and have over a dozen city blocks underway, not to mention a massive volcano lair for Garmadon. Today we want to share some tips and tricks to help get you started, as well as some of the building techniques that we have used so far in the construction of the lower levels of Ninjago City. Let us know in the comments below if you would be interested in more detailed guides or additional techniques shown in our city blocks.
Ninjago City is a layered city, with the oldest buildings on the bottom stories, rising to modern, nearly sci-fi architecture at the top. As such, we’re approaching the building of our modules from the bottom up, starting with the oldest, lowest level. Nearly all of the buildings shown here will have additional structures placed on top to complete the upper levels–in many cases several more stories. Look for additional articles as we continue building the upper levels. Each of these modules conforms to our standard to ensure the whole layout will fit together well (except in the few special modules we’ve noted).
To celebrate May the 4th and the upcoming summer blockbuster Solo: A Star Wars Story, LEGO Master Builders created a Millennium Falcon pedicab out of 20,300 bricks that you can take a ride on if you are lucky enough to be near Bryant Park in New York City today.
(Jessica Hill/AP Images for LEGO, Inc)
Click to get a closer look at the Millennium Falcon pedicab
The Brothers Brick managing editors Chris Malloy and Andrew Becraft will be presenting insights and observations about 19 years of LEGO Star Wars at two events in Seattle later this week. On Friday, February 23 at 7:00 PM, the authors of Ultimate LEGO Star Wars will share a presentation and autograph books at the Seward Park location. Then, on Saturday, February 24 at 7:00 PM, they will do so at the Ravenna store.
The previous event at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon (pictured here) was well-attended, so be sure to arrive early for seating and copies of the book.
For those of you lucky enough to be attending the sold-out Emerald City Comic-Con the first weekend in March, Chris and Andrew will also be doing a panel and signing in the Writers Block area on Sunday morning (March 1st at 10:45 AM).
Well folks, this is our final article from here in midtown Manhattan at Toy Fair New York 2018. Today we’ve brought you hands-on coverage of LEGO’s latest, including new Harry Potter, Jurassic World, and Star Wars sets, among others. Our day started this morning at 7AM when LEGO gave us an early-access tour of their booth before the Toy Fair officially opened.
