Category: Conferences

LEGO Conferences such as Brickfest, BricksWest, or Northwest BrickCon

Bricks by the Bay 2011 Registration now Open!

I’m happy to report that the registration form for the Bricks by the Bay 2011 LEGO convention is now available for general registration. I’ve been working hard with a team of volunteers (we can always use more help if you are interested) to get the convention organized and planned.

So if you’ve been waiting for this news to register for the convention, your wait is over. Head on over to the site now and sign up!

http://www.bricksbythebay.com/register/

Bricks by the Bay Photos

My Bricks by the Bay Pictures are available on Flickr if you want to take a look at some of the great models on display and the crowds on the public day. The convention was held Friday-Sunday, April 9-11, 2010 in Fremont. We had such great media coverage that throngs of people flocked to the hotel to see the LEGO models on Sunday, April 11. People waited for hours in a line that snaked out the lobby and through the parking garage and we had to turn people away once we realized the line was so long that people at the end might not get in before closing time. It was a huge success and we’re looking forward to having an even bigger and better convention in 2012.

Grand Ballroom

Click the image to see the pictures or view them as a slideshow.

BBTB: Some good, some bad, some ugly… but mostly great

So, that was what it’s like to run a LEGO convention.

I’m sitting in my hotel room, having just finished up the cleanup after the Bricks by the Bay LEGO convention. It was an amazing experience! The convention itself was so much fun and great to see so many of my ideas coming to life and actually working. We had nine themes, each with its own coordinator and judging categories, keynote speech by LEGO’s EVP-Marketing Mads Nipper, contests and games, and lots of door prizes. And though there were a couple times when I got really stressed out trying to make sure everything went off without a hitch, for the most part it was a seamless experience.

The public day though, was a bit of a debacle. We had such great publicity that the turnout was tremendous. I was interviewed for television several times, and the people came out in droves. People stood in line for hours in the cold and rain and the ballroom was packed elbow-to-elbow so much that we had to stop letting people get in line at 1:30. We had a few irate people after that, but most people understood that even if they got to the head of the line, they wouldn’t be able to stay long since we had to close at 4.

For the most part though, it went pretty well. We had a lot of positive comments and those who did get in seemed to have a great time. I just have to remember to not let a few bad apples spoil the barrel.

I’ll post my pictures online soon but right now I think I just want to rest and recover…

BrickCon 2009

Last weekend (October 1-4) the BrickCon LEGO convention was held in Seattle, Washington. I drove up to the convention and had a wonderful time!

As it turned out, my friend Donia who I met dancing in Santa Cruz was moving to Seattle that weekend, so I was able to combine helping her move with attending the convention. It also got me a place to crash so I could save the cost of a hotel room. I drove her car to Seattle, while she followed in a van she borrowed from a friend of hers. After the convention, I drove the van back home. On my way north, I stopped in Portland for the night Thursday night, and stayed at the apartment of another friend I knew from dancing. While I was there I went to the Waltz Eclectic and had a great time! In the morning I did a little Goodwill shopping and had lunch with yet another dancing friend before heading to Seattle.

BrickCon 2009

I got to the convention Friday in the early afternoon and unpacked my LEGO models. I brought the Scrambler, various cars and trucks and RV’s, a few train models, and my DC-3 airplane. The Scrambler and DC-3 were motorized, so in keeping with the theme of the event, “Bricks in Motion,” I thought it was especially important to bring those.

Friday night we had the opening ceremonies, where the new 10210 Imperial Flagship was revealed. There was much oohing and aahing. Afterward we all went to the LEGO store in Bellevue where we were able to get discounted LEGO sets – 50% off “scratch & dent” sets (prize tickets were used to determine order for selecting up to 4 items) and 20% off everything in the store. It was quite crazy, as it always is at these events, but a lot of fun too. I think I restrained myself pretty well, all things considered, but I still spent a lot of money.

Saturday was the first day that the exhibit was open to the public. We had about 4500 people go through looking at all the LEGO models on display. Most of the day I spent with my nose in the computer, avoiding the crowds. I didn’t go around and take pictures at all Friday or Saturday, though. A few people had to leave Saturday night, so I missed a few models, but Sunday (even more people came on Sunday; over 4700!) I made up for it in terms of picture-taking. I managed to go around to all the tables and take pictures Sunday, mostly during the public hours. Also, the friends I was staying with came by Sunday and I was able to see the exhibit through their eyes which was a lot of fun.

Sunday was Donia’s birthday, so we went out for sushi and chocolate. We were going to go to a swing dance featuring Gordon Webster but didn’t manage to get around to it. (But it’s OK because he played at the Friday Night Blues in San Francisco this past Friday, and I was able to go to that – the music was amazing!) But back to the BrickCon trip… On the way home I stopped in Portland for the day, and met with a colleague from Oracle who was based there. I went to Random Waltz in Portland that night (If you like dancing and ever find yourself in Portland on a Thursday or Monday night, you gotta check out those waltzes. The dance community there is very welcoming and friendly, and I had a great time at both of them!), stayed the night in a hotel paid for by the company, and then went home the next day. I got home around 2am Wednesday morning.

My pictures from BrickCon can be seen on Flickr (or view as slideshow). Warning: there are over 400 photos so it may take a while to see them all!

Train show this weekend, then off to Seattle for BrickCon

This coming weekend, I’ll join members of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club (a subgroup of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group) at the Great Train Expo in San Jose. We’ll put out a large train layout, about 25×25 feet, with lots of trains, a city, and the usual stuff. Come on down and say hi. It’s at the Santa Clara County fairgrounds in San Jose. Admission is $7 for adults (good for both days) and kids under 12 get in free.

And then, I’ll be driving up to Seattle next week for BrickCon! A friend of mine happens to be moving to Seattle for the first of October, so I’ll be borrowing/ferrying her car up, while she follows up in a van she’s borrowed from a friend of hers, which I’m driving back home in. Sounds complicated – wish me luck! Anyway I’ll be coming up with an assortment of MOCs, though probably not as much as I took to Portland for BrickFest this spring – I’m carrying some of her stuff up, and anyway I ought to be able to see out the rear window.

Turn out the lights, the party’s over…

Well, Brickworld was a lot of fun – the biggest LEGO event I’ve ever attended, for sure. There were 35,000 square feet of ballroom space, about 600 attendees, and 4 days. I took well over 1,000 photos and had a great time.

Brickworld 2009: Setup
Setup (18 photos) 		Brickworld 2009: Serious Play
Serious Play (28 photos) 		Brickworld 2009: Presentations
Presentations (10 photos) 		Brickworld 2009: Opening Ceremonies
Opening Ceremonies (6 photos)
Brickworld 2009: MOCs
MOCs (1,081 photos) 		Brickworld 2009: Crowds
Crowds (7 photos) 		Brickworld 2009: VIPs
VIPs (32 photos)

I arrived late Wednesday night and checked into the hotel for one night on my own, since my roommate was arriving Thursday afternoon. After he and his son arrived, I moved my stuff into his room. Sharing a room for an event like this is a really good deal from a financial point of view, but it raises some interesting etiquette questions, sharing living space with a near-total stranger. We got through it just fine though.

My LEGO contribution took about 10 seconds to set up, since all I brought was a block for the Micropolis display. On Thursday, I attended a workshop on Lpub, a program that automatically generates building instructions for LDRAW LEGO CAD files. I also attended several talks on Friday, the highlight of which was a talk by a 13-year-old girl named Olivia who was talking about LEGO from a girl’s point of view. That talk was a huge hit, so much so that she was invited to give it again on Saturday and Sunday, and all the LEGO executives and VIP’s wanted to talk to her – she was clearly the belle of the ball. She used PowerPoint to explain her talk, and avoided all the common pitfalls of PowerPoint – not a single bulleted list! And her speech was very well delivered, with just the right combination of opinion, facts, and wit. She has a career in public speaking ahead of her, in case the LEGO plans don’t work out… (but it sounds like there’s a ticket to Denmark with her name on it!)

I spent most of the weekend taking pictures. There were a lot of great models on display, filling three ballrooms at the hotel. One of the best was by Jenn Wagner (“The Brick Chick”), a great undersea diorama featuring a big blue fish surrounded by corals made out of Clikits and other organic-looking parts. It was amazing, especially under black light. She built a bunch of colored lights into it, and when they turned off the lights at night (since the theme of the event was all about light, we had lights-out times each night to see the models’ self-lighting) it was truly stunning. And the best part was that it was Jenn’s first-ever MOC (“my own creation”)!

A big part of the fun, though, was getting away from the hotel. I had several lunches and dinners with convention attendees who shall remain nameless (partly to protect their privacy, but more in case I forget someone). Last night there was a party in the suite, which I tore myself away from to go to sleep around 1am.

But now, I took the train to Union Station, Chicago, stashed my luggage, and am exploring the sights. I found free WiFi in the food court at the base of the Sears Tower, after I just got done visiting the observation deck on the 99th floor. Next I am going to go wander around Da Loop. If you’re in the area, send me a tweet or something. My flight back to San Francisco leaves around 8:40 pm.