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.

LEGO trains at NMRA 2009 – this weekend

As part of the National Train Show on July 10-12, 2009 in Hartford, CT, Jamie Berard, set designer of the newly released ‘Emerald Night’ and employee of The LEGO Group (TLG), will participate as part of the show. Jamie will be giving a talk on both July 10 and 11 (Fri. and Sat.) about the design process and thinking that led up to the final ‘Emerald Night’ set, and about the Power functions components that support it. Fans are encouraged to participate to offer their views on the new platform. Jamie will also be available during the show for any questions you may have about his other excellent creations – Fast Flyer, Cafe Corner, Cool Convertible, Green Grocer, and newly announced Grand Carousel.

Also as part of this year’s show, Steve Witt, LEGO Community Relations Coordinator for North America, has graciously offered to host the traditional ILTCO pizza party at LEGO corporate headquarters in Enfield, CT after the show on Sat. July 11. Along with pizza and hanging out with Steve, Jamie and some of the LEGO Master Builders from Enfield, other events such as tours of the model shop and parts of the campus will occur. All AFOL train show participants are invited to attend.

Posting a heads-up for those on the East Coast of North America. If the pictures of past NMRA shows are anything to go by this promises to be a very impressive display of LEGO.

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Call for presentations/sessions at BrickCon 2009

Three months to BrickCon!

BrickCon 2009 is looking for any talks, roundtables, and special activities you would like to see at the Con this year. Going to and putting on sessions are one of the things that makes a Lego convention fun.

Past talks have included manufacturing custom parts, an introduction to LDraw, and packing Lego models for shipment, among many others.

Roundtables, or moderated discussions, have included Moonbase standards and design, landscaping, and anything that someone can think of.

Activities already planned for this year include the Dirty Brickster and the Wacky Race.

All we need for more talks, roundtables, and activities are ideas and people to run with them. Projectors and a computer will be available (although bringing your own laptop ensures compatibility). All spaces can be configured with tables and chairs as desired.

Any registered attendee who would like to run a presentation or activity should e-mail proposals or questions to me (my first three initials @ morfydd.net—please mention BrickCon in the subject). If possible, please include a possible title, brief description for the event program, and any time constraints or facility requirements. Events are typically scheduled to run up to fifty minutes but can be scheduled for more or less time.

I need proposals by September 6 to have time to prepare the schedule and the program. Earlier is better.

BrickCon is an annual adult Lego hobbyist convention and exposition in Seattle. BrickCon 2009 will be October 1–4, 2009, in the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. For more information or to register visit
http://www.brickcon.org/

—
TWS Garrison
http://www.morfydd.net/twsg/
LEGO: CA+++ SW++ GA+c #++++++ LS+++ P+++++ YB77m

The Brothers Brick’s video coverage of BrickWorld 2009

This year at BrickWorld, we shot a video coverage of the convention that features short clips of fans and builders talking about LEGO. This started when Tyler (Legohaulic) brought the idea along with a brick-built TBB microphone. Everything happened spontaneously and we are able to share with you the faces and voices of many LEGO fans for the first time on the blog.

I’d like give special thanks to Tyler for doing pretty much all the work with the video and everyone who shared their moment of embarrassment with us. We certainly wished to get around to more of the great people there, but the four days went by too fast! I hope you enjoy our first ever video coverage of a LEGO convention.

In this clip: Jay Hanes, Mark Kelso, Brian Alano, Tyler Clites, Kyle Vrieze, Jenn Wagner, and Rae McCormick.

In this clip: Liam Heeger, Lee Jones, Brian Kescenovitz, Matija Grguric, Dennis Price, Chris Edwards, Fradel Gonzales, and Jon Walden.

In this clip: Dave Sterling, Stacy Sterling, Heather Braaten, Alex Eylar, Sean Kenney, Matt De Lanoy, Brian Bonahoom, Steve Witt, Mikael Sjostedt, and Mark Larson.

LEGO fan weddings feature LEGO cakes, toppers, bees, and even garter belts

Space-zombies need a chaser. Since LEGO unicorns are in short supply, we’ll go with LEGO weddings. Ryan and Katie aren’t the only ones who’ve celebrated their love with little plastic bricks.

Chris Wunz created a series of five vignettes as his cake toppers when he married Erin last year (see all five on Flickr):

One of my favorite LEGO-themed cakes is the one Louise and Greg Tudor had at their wedding (full photoset). Greg made LEGO cufflinks for the groomsmen, and a Classic Space minifig even adorned Louise’s garter belt!

Even celebrities get in on the LEGO wedding action. Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz commissioned Nathan Sawaya to create this enormous bee as a wedding gift for Ashlee Simpson:

Finally, Cake Wrecks had a great roundup a while ago of some very cool LEGO cakes, including this wedding cake for Alex & Adrian:

Congratulations to all the happy couples!

LEGO pirates ply the crystal-clear waters of Portugal

Portuguese LEGO fan group 0937 hosted the 2nd TomarLEGO between June 11 and 14 in Tomar.

One of the centerpieces of the event was an enormous, custom-built tank full of water, plied by a fleet of LEGO Pirates.

See lots more photos from this event in Rupi’s Brickshelf gallery.

UPDATE: Biczzz has a full roundup of all the photo galleries from attendees, along with a few videos like this one below.

BrickWorld 2009, Saturday and Sunday

My apologies for slacking off on the last two days of our 2009 BrickWorld coverage (unless you’d rather read what I write at past 3 a.m. for both nights). Now that the event is over and I’m back with a nightmare of bricks to sort, I’ll wrap things up with a few concluding words. This year’s BrickWorld set records in every way. With over 550 attendees, 25,000 square feet of LEGO, special guests from LEGO execs and more, we’re left to wonder how this year’s even can ever be topped.

Planning for BrickWorld 2010 has already begun, and this time the coordinators have booked the entire Westin hotel just for us LEGO fanatics.

See more pictures of BrickWorld on Flickr.

BrickWorld 2009, Friday June 19th

Continuing coverage of this year’s BrickWorld, I bring you photos from Friday of the four day weekend event. A few noteworthy news items to mention include an unofficial announcement that LEGO will be producing Disney themed sets starting with Toy Story, Cars, and Prince of Persia. Also, BrickArms and BrickForge bring new items and colors to the show, which will result in our usual review soon. Stay tuned as we bring you more coverage from the front line.

Meanwhile, check out more pictures taken by Chris Edwards, Bill Ward, and Bluesecrets.

LEGOLAND California is hiring model builders

Some of you may already be aware because this announcement came out earlier this week. I ran across it when reading posts by Ryan Wood on From Bricks to Bothans (FBTB) and Mariann Asanuma on the flickr LEGO group. I post it here for good measure. Apologies for not giving the scoop on this earlier, but here’s the quick and dirty: LEGOLAND California (LLCA) is hiring model builders.

Not only are they hiring, part of the application process looks fun. On Wednesday June 24th and Thursday June 25th, they will be holding a competition at LLCA in Carlsbad, where applicants will be tested on speed, skill, teamwork and creativity. Initial events will be on the 24th and finalists will move on to additional activities on the 25th. The 6 winners will be helping design the Dune Raiders attraction in California as well as advance design work for the parks being developed in Dubai and Malaysia.

Go to the online application here and search in the “CREATIVE/DESIGN” category. Model builder will be the only option in that category. I won’t reinvent the wheel as far as giving the details of the job qualifications. Ryan, Mariann and the official job description all do a good job at that, so I encourage you to link to those resources.

Believe it or not, the picture above is relevant. The silly person posing with Jabba is Andy Grubb, a model designer at LLCA, and Jabba was built by Bill Vollbrecht, who is also a designer there. From hanging out at LLCA all weekend with several model builders, one important tip is that handinesss is handy.

BrickWorld 2009, Thursday June 18th

BrickWorld kicked off today in Chicago with over 550 attendees displaying 25,000 square feet of LEGO creations. The event tops records as the largest convention in the US. Over the course of the weekend I will be uploading pictures to my Flickr gallery in addition to collecting links to photos by other attendees. For now, here are pictures from the setup day.

Meanwhile, you can also see more photos from Joe Meno and Bill Ward. Coverage of the opening ceremony and more will begin tomorrow.

The force was with LEGOLAND California

LEGO builders and Star Wars fans, including the San Diego LEGO User’s Group (SandLUG) and From Bricks to Bothans (FBTB) converged on LEGOLAND California last weekend (June 13 and 14) and set up several tables across from The Big Shop. This isn’t an effort at self-promotion, but more a desire to share a few of the great creations that I’m pretty sure the builders don’t have time to post online or the creations are just too cool to pass up.

In addition to Mark Borlase’s gigantic Hoth diorama (it tragically took a “humpty dumpty” on the way back to Las Vegas) has been featured on The Brothers Brick before, here are a few of the other notables:

Cooperatively built Sarlacc Pit by Andy Grubb (anderson.grubb) and Gary McIntire (MrGSnot). Check out my other photos which show Sarlacc’s stomach contents, perhaps the coolest feature. Yummy.

Probably the most coveted creation at the display, people were quite literally offering to buy this “Star Wars: A New Hope” chess set created by Brandon Griffith (icgetaway) right off the table, thinking it was an official set. That good. Playing with toys are (left to right) Ryan Wood (lights) and Andy Grubb.

SandLUG member Brian Heins built this Ronto that has such great coloration and was quite playable.

(Edit: misspelled Brian Heins’ name. Corrected.)

Love of the Brick – a LEGO documentary

At last year’s BrickWorld, Dr. Jay Hanes from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and collaborators captured the marvels of LEGO fans and their exhibition and produced a documentary about the love of the brick. At this year’s BrickWorld, you can watch a screening of the documentary and meet the producers and many of the featured builders. You can learn more about “Love of the Brick” here and watch the trailer below:

2009 LEGO Technic Rally

The idea of rolling around our creations in the dirt is anathema to most of us LEGO SYSTEM builders. Not so a group of LEGO Technic engineers who gathered in Prague last month for the 2009 LEGO Technic Rally.

I was rooting for this Tatra by Nikolas Tepper.

Read more about this event on TechnicBRICKs.