Tag Archives: Events

LEGO fan events and conventions happen all over the world, from LEGO Fanwelt in Germany to BrickCon in Seattle. Follow along at home with our coverage of the people, news, and models from events everywhere.

Brickvention 2012: Jan 21-22 Melbourne [News]

Registration for Brickvention 2012 and tickets for the public days are now open. The 2012 event will be held in the same place as the 2011 event (Melbourne Town Hall) with public days on the 21st-22nd January 2012 and a registered attendees only day on the 20th (with setup on the 19th).

As ever I expect this event to be heaps of fun. Last year’s event was huge and if past growth continues we can expect this year’s to be even bigger. I’m sure details of collaborative events will be announced closer to the time so keep an eye on the website for future announcements.

The timing makes BV 2012 a bit closer to Australia Day this year so if you’re coming from interstate or overseas try booking your accomodation sooner rather than later.

Please note that this year a new system is in place for registration. And especially note that a pre-purchased ticket will be required to attend the public days. This is to ease waiting times for those attending.

To become a registered attendee able to attend all days and display your models:

Follow this link to the Brickvention 2012 registration page at TryBooking
http://www.trybooking.com/ZYA

Registered memberships cost $60 (plus booking fee).
Make sure you bring along your printed tickets to the event.

Due to venue size, there are only 150 registrations available. The first 50 people who register will be entered into a special competition organised by LEGO Australia.

If you want to just check out the displayed models on the weekend:

Saturday 21st and Sunday the 22nd from 9.30am – 5.30pm are the Public Expo days, allowing the general public of all ages to watch LEGO® builders at work and view LEGO® creations and displays.

You will need to pre-purchase tickets for this display.

Adults – $10 (plus booking fee)
Children – $6 (plus booking fee)

Children under 3 are free

You can purchase tickets at TryBooking

Make sure you bring along your printed tickets to the event!

And if you don’t know where and when it is:

The next Brickvention will be held over the weekend of 21st and 22nd January 2012 at The Melbourne Town Hall, corner of Swanston and Collins Streets Melbourne Victoria, where anyone can come along and view the amazing creations made out of LEGO.

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

ExpoLego 2011 – Nov 19 & 20 in Concise, Switzerland [Event]

LEGO fans in Switzerland are hosting the ExpoLego event November 19 and 20, 2011 in Concise (near Yverdon). With a display space of over 300 square meters, the event will feature Star Wars, System, Trains, and many custom LEGO models built by LEGO fans.

The public exhibition costs 3 swiss francs for kids and 6 for grown-ups.

Sylvain says, “In Switzerland, LEGO events are too rare, so enjoy!

Creations for Charity deadline approaching, new MOCs listed

Each year, Nannan and several other organizers run a fundraising event for Toys for Tots called Creations for Charity.

The team has just listed several new creations in their online store.

Fine print: Creations for Charity is a fundraising event for the Toys for Tots charity organization. As such, donations to Creations for Charity itself are not tax-deductible. Creations for Charity is not affiliated with The Brothers Brick.

If you’d like to donate a creation yourself, the deadline for doing so is November 15.

Don’t miss Nannan’s writeup about last year’s fundraiser, which resulted in over $14,000 worth of LEGO for underprivileged children.

Video from LEGO WORLD 2011

Peer Kreuger shares a short video capturing some great footage from LEGO WORLD 2011 that took place from October 19-26.

Thanks for the tip vmln8r!

Video from Brickworld Fort Wayne 2011

Brickworld Fort Wayne 2011 happened last month in October. This video by John Brune captured many of the stellar creations displayed at the event.

Great Western Lego Show 2011 – guest report by JasBrick

A certain LEGO convention here in Seattle wasn’t the only major event happening this past weekend. To share what was going on in England, we’re pleased to bring you this guest report by JasBrick.

Whilst pictures from Brickcon this weekend tantalised those of us that could not get there (I almost fell off my chair when I saw the Tower of Orthanc by OneLug) I am pleased to say that my own weekend was filled with a Lego event closer to home… Steam: The Great Western Lego Show.

Since 2002 the annual Great Western Lego Show has been held in Swindon UK and this year was another amazing event that proved that this is the biggest Lego event in the UK calendar. The event is organised by Martin Long and a team of dedicated volunteers from the Brickish Association and is set in the impressive surroundings of the Steam Museum that is dedicated to the history of the British Railways (which means a serious number of Lego train MOC).

Steam consists of two public exhibition days and some fantastic opportunities for AFOLs to socialise (some people are still hungover ;-)). One thing that really stood out for me this year was the fact that the Lego company really made an extra effort to support this event with the presence of two designers (Jamie Berard and Morten Graff-Wang) over the whole weekend and the simultaneous unveiling of the new Castle Joust set in conjunction with Brickcon.

In addition to a huge number of pretty amazing standalone MOCs like Eyrie Town by Rod Gilles (2 much caffeine, an online friend that I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time at this event).

What makes Steam really special is the number and scale of collaborative displays at the event. One of my favourites was The World of Harry Potter that included a series of amazing scenes from the films recreated in Lego. Here is one picture of the Great Hall from Hogwarts by Thorskegga:

And the defence against the dark arts classroom by Andrew Danieli:

One event that dominated the early part of 2011 was the Royal Wedding in April and Warren Elsmore and a team of helpers have created one of the biggest builds I have ever seen with a very accurate recreation of Westminster Abbey… just look at the size of that monster:

For those more interested in Sci-Fi there was plenty on display such as the amazing layout by the Peter Reid (legoloverman, who also impressed me with a few wonderfully detailed custom minifigs that he had created before finally seeing the light and putting such heinous behaviour behind him) and Tim Goddard (RogueBantha):

Humour and amazing building combined in The Seige of Haradford Castle where James Pegrum (peggyjdb) was ably assisted by Barney Main (slyowl) in a rather vicious battle fought between the fleshie and yellow armies over the battlements of a truly impressive castle built by James. The battle progressed throughout the weekend culminating with a win for James after sneakily taking advantage of the fact that Barney had to leave early.

The above are just a few of the highlights of this tremendous weekend and please check out the Gimme Lego blog by Dr. Dave Watford for more insight into the event and the following galleries to see what amazed the over 7,000 visitors to this year’s display.

Looking forward to next year already!

Jas

BrickCon 2011: A word from the Prize Goddess

Aaah, BrickCon. That magical time each fall when hundreds of LEGO fans descend upon the Exhibition Center in Seattle for a relaxing weekend of fun, friendship, and sleep.

Wait. I’m kidding. Sleep never enters the equation.

BrickCon has morphed quite a bit for me from my first event to now. I began attending BrickCon in 2005 (it was NorthWest BrickCon at that point). The ENTIRE event fit into the Rainier Room, which now is just the general assembly room. This year marked my seventh BrickCon and ninth overall event.

Time flies when you’re having fun, right?

What’s also changed quite a bit for me is how I experience BrickCon. In the beginning, I was simply an attendee. I registered, I went, I showed off my MOCs, and I went on my merry way. I’d help out coordinating the Castle display when I could. But in 2009, that changed. At one of the SEALUG meetings, it was mentioned that they needed someone to coordinate prizes. “I can do that,” I thought. So I stepped up.

So there’s the story of how I became Prize Coordinator for BrickCon. I can blame (thank?) Sean Forbes for the “Prize Goddess” moniker, and that’s the one that stuck.

Determining which prize goes what, where, and to who is an entirely scientific process, but not really. It’s taking a look once again at what I have to work with and spreading it across the four major ceremonies that have door prizes (Opening, Keynote, Awards, Closing). Making sure those are dividing properly and separate from what goes to the public is important, too. Part of my job ensures that any incoming prizes are dividing amongst the various pools, too, so that one event isn’t too overloaded. I try and keep Closing as short as possible, too, since by that time people typically are packing to head home.

This year we added a sort of “Santa Claus” prize pool for public and private hours. During the public hours, volunteers would wander around the crowds and hand small sets (provided by the con) and kid’s t-shirts (provided by the LEGO Store in Bellevue) to the kids. Watching their faces was amazing; the look of disbelief was typically first, followed by the giant smile. There was some suspicion that the gifts were completely free, but it was pretty easy to work around. Anyone who passed out those prizes had the same smile.

It’s incredibly busy working with the prizes. In terms of BrickCon, if it didn’t involve prizes, I typically had no information or clue about it. My focus was prizes; I needed to be available to receive incoming donations and prep for the next assembly. I had enough time in between assemblies to enjoy spending time with my friends and enjoying BrickCon for what it is.

Thanks to Joe Meno, Andrew Becraft, and Bill Ward for their photos!

Wrap up: Castle at BrickCon 2011

I have to say that Castle totally rocked this year. This was my sixth year being involved in the Castle section at the Con and I think this was the best so far. Everyone involved really stepped it up this year and they all deserve a round of applause.

The quantity of creations was overwhelming and we had to beg, borrow and steal more area (Many thanks to Steve Walker and Wayne Hussey for making that process virtually painless and to Scott Fowler for graciously giving up part of the neighboring Pirate tables). But quantity doesn’t really say much about a section. It was the quality of the creations that really blew me away. I knew that the builders who were coming had skills but they all out did themselves.

Our collaborative layout was packed with so many builds, flowing from one to another, that it was difficult to see everything and the section of stand-alone models was outstanding.

We had three categories for which builders could win a trophy and a LEGO set. The voters were very hard pressed to make their selections, but they finally did and the winning models and builders were:

Best Overall Castle Creation:
Hogwart’s Castle by Alice Finch
Photo of Hogwart’s by Bill Ward

Best Community Contribution:
Al Wahat by Sebastiaan Arts

Best Fly-in Dragon:
Whiskers by Myself

Hearty thanks also need to go out to the following people and companies: To Will of Brickarms for the awesome contributor packs and prototype weapons that he made especially for us, to Ryan of BrickWarriors for the sweet fig packs he donated and to Learning Loft Toys for the Lego set prizes they donated to our winners.

We all had a great time and plan to make next year even bigger and better. So if you want to ‘Go Medieval’ at BrickCon next year, please join us! BrickCon!!!

Wrap Up: Numereji 2421 at BrickCon 2011

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to the Numereji 2421 display at BrickCon in Seattle last weekend! Because of your skill and creativity people got a much clearer idea of our vision.

We plan on a Numereji 2422 collaborative display at BrickCon 2012 and look forward to the return of great creations, changes to reflect the passage of time, and phenomenal additions.

Congratulations to the winners in our four categories who were acclaimed by peer balloting!

Best Overall: The Ark by Drew Ellis (also Best Capital Ship for the entire Space display)
Best Building: Communication Station Iris by Alex Fojtik (counter-rotating arrays of awesome)
Best Terrain: Numereji Ranchero by Josh Wedin (and unofficial sillyness prize)
Best Vehicle: Scavenger by Shane Weckstrom (NPU purple basketball player pants)

Special thanks to Brandon Bannerman for his CSS Howland hull design and for working on the hulk up to the wire.

Justin Pyne also deserves a shout out for his very close second in the Terrain category and for embracing the challenge of a peaceful space town. Shows heart in a youngster.

I also enjoyed displaying my own Earthship House, and a barn built from a sections of Howland hull. More pics of that once I get a good light box set up and get rid of this stalker rain that followed me back to San Diego.

Registration now open for Bricks by the Bay 2012 [News]

Bricks by the Bay logo As announced at BrickCon this past weekend, registration is now open for next year’s Bricks by the Bay convention, March 16-18, 2012.

Here’s the full announcement:

For the serious LEGO® builder we again will offer a LEGO fan convention! The event will be held Friday-Sunday, March 16-18. Benefits of attending the convention include:

Custom engraved name badge made out of LEGO bricks

Access to speeches, presentations, and discussion sessions

Show your models in the Grand Ballroom for convention attendees and the public

Become a vendor (additional fee applies) to sell LEGO and related products at the convention and public show

Exclusive discounts at the LEGO store (TBD)

Chance to receive free LEGO sets in Prize drawings and contests

The event theme this year is “Green.” It is inspired by the fact that St. Patrick’s Day takes place that weekend, but we’re not limiting it to that: any creative use of the color green, subjects relating to the environment, and of course Ireland or St. Patrick’s Day themed models are suitable. In 2010 our theme was “The Brick Artistic” and in 2011 it was “Creative Combinations.”

If you’re interested in attending the whole convention, read all about the Convention, Hotel, Registration, and Schedule, along with more information about the weekend’s
events.

Not sure if you want to come to the convention or just the public day? Read our FAQ to find out more.

Check out the Bricks by the Bay website for complete details on how to register. And don’t miss coverage of last year’s BBtB on The Living Brick.

BrickCon 2011 – Day 1

We’ve had a wonderfully busy first day at BrickCon 2011, starting this morning with the usual setup that happens on Thursday (and into Friday). After a round of coffee, we started pulling all our LEGO models out and putting them on tables, but were quickly distracted by the OneLug team as they began erecting their 7-foot LEGO Orthanc before our very eyes.

Over lunch, Josh and I recruited Chris Malloy (again, welcome!).

With most setup out of the way — pending the arrival of more LEGO creations by other builders — we hung out for the rest of the day, catching up with old friends and making new ones. Even though the public exhibition isn’t until Saturday, my favorite day of BrickCon every year is Thursday because it’s the most relaxed. That said, BrickCon has over 500 registered attendees this year, so I’m preemptively disappointed I won’t be able to hang out with everybody. But it’s exciting to know that we’ll have that many builders contributing their amazing creations to the con!

We probably won’t have time to post day-by-day wrap-ups after tonight, but you can follow @AndrewBecraft — I bet you didn’t know I tweeted! — and I’ll be uploading photos from my phone over the course of each day. Of course, you can follow everybody’s additions to the BrickCon pool, too.

For everybody arriving tomorrow, safe travels, and see you all soon!

‘The Brothers Brick’ and ‘From Bricks to Bothans’ to host joint session at BrickCon

The Brothers Brick and From Bricks to Bothans will be co-hosting a panel and Question/Answer time regarding Lego Blogging.

Andrew (TBB) and Ace (FBTB) are on the official panel, but other staff from both sites will be there as well.

This will take place at 2 o’clock, Sunday afternoon, in the Orcas room (aka Classroom A). This will only be open to attendees, not people who come in during public hours.

Also be aware that things will probably be a little quieter around here through the weekend. I know most of us always mean to post in the evenings but fan conventions are tiring affairs. I seldom feel like opening the laptop when I get back to the hotel.

Lastly, if you are attending BrickCon and see one of us walking about, feel free to introduce yourself. We love to meet our readers. See you at the Con!