At the recent Bricks Cascade LEGO convention (Feb 29th / March 1st) in Portland, Oregon, about half of the cast of contestants from the LEGO Masters TV show (Wednesday nights at 9pm on FOX in the USA) were there.
If you like LEGO and haven’t been living under a rock, you’ll know about the LEGO Masters TV show. It’s already been on in Germany, the UK, and Australia I believe, but the USA version just launched this winter. I heard from their casting people last fall when they were looking for contestants but I decided not to apply, not least because it’s done in pairs and I have no experience working with another builder like that. But BayLUG’s own Flynn DeMarco and Richard Board did apply, and competed on the show.
Anyway, as my partner Rosa and I were driving up to Portland a few days before the convention, I inquired to see if there was a way to view that week’s episode, as the house we were going to be staying at didn’t have a TV. We learned that out that contestants (and Portland area residents) Boone and Mark were hosting a viewing party at a bar just south of Portland. That worked out great, and we made it to Portland about 10 minutes before the show started and went straight to the bar. Besides Boone and Mark, contestants Sam and Mel were also at the bar, along with a bunch of local LEGO fans. Here’s a photo of Boone and Mark celebrating:
It was a surreal experience – like watching your favorite sports teams compete in a sports bar, but with some of the athletes right there in the bar with you! We got to congratulate Mark and Boone on that week’s win as soon as the episode was over.
At the convention, Flynn and Richard flew up, along with several other contestants. There was a “special builders panel” that just happened to be composed of the attendees who were on the show (Flynn & Richard, Sam & Jessica, Boone & Mark, Amie & Krystle, Mel, and Corey). It was great to hear some behind the scenes stories, but of course they couldn’t say anything about the episodes that were yet to be aired.
Also, during the public hours on Saturday and Sunday there was a special “meet the LEGO Masters” booth at which people lined up for hours to get a chance to meet the contestants. The 10 contestants who were there rotated in and out at the booth so they weren’t always there all day. Here we see a couple of kids thrilled to meet the TV stars in person. It’s wild enough seeing friends of ours on TV, and being treated as celebrities is just amazing. I was so happy for them!
You can see these and my other LEGO Masters photos in a Flickr album.
Sorry for the delay in getting these posts up — dealing with COVID-19 has been more urgent and it’s taken a while to get back to the blog. At the time of the event, we were only a couple of weeks into the show. By now of course many of the teams have been eliminated, but in case you’ve managed to avoid spoilers and are still planning to watch it though, I won’t say more about that here.
