Category: Conferences

LEGO Conferences such as Brickfest, BricksWest, or Northwest BrickCon

BrickFair 2008, Day 2

Well, the first of two public days is over, and the hotel was absolutely swarmed with people. They raised over $8000 for the SladeChild Foundation charity, which is great news.

Crowds at BrickFairAfter the public cleared out, there was a game of Bingo, a few awards were handed out, and three games were announced: a chess tournament, a speed build of the new Taj Mahal set, an Agents Turbocar Chase set build-off, and a chess tournament. Participation in the games was by raffle, and sadly I didn’t make it into any of them, so I just wandered around, taking photos and chatting with people.

I took over 200 photos today, and they’re all up on Flickr. Hopefully soon I’ll have a chance to sort through them and pick out the best ones, which I’ll put into a new set. Also, some of them probably require some editing, to rotate the images or fix color balance, exposure, etc. I have RAW images of each photo so I may be replacing some of the photos if they’re worth the effort.

Now, it’s time for bed and I have to also get my things partially packed to go home tomorrow…

BrickFair 2008, Day 1

I flew from San Francisco to Washington DC on Virgin America, and I have to say that it’s been the best air travel experience I’ve had in decades. Can’t say enough good things about that airline. Here’s hoping when I go home Sunday I have as good of an experience.

Anyway I got to Dulles airport and took a SuperShuttle to the hotel and checked in without incident. I got here just in time for the keynote speech by Tormud Askildsen, LEGO’s head of community development. After that, I set up a few of my recent models (some that have been blogged about here, and others that haven’t yet…) and found some guys who were heading out to dinner and then over to Pontiac Mills for the 50% off scratch-and-dent sale at the LEGO outlet. We got there too late for the best deals but I did score an Indiana Jones set (#7623) and four train motors, all for under $60!

Now I’m heading to bed (3am local time). Tomorrow I plan to take some pictures of exhibits etc.

Roommate wanted for Brickfair

I just bought my plane ticket to Brickfair in Washington DC.

Now, I need to find at least one roommate. The room is about $100/day so it would be nice to be able to share it. I have a room reserved for both Fri & Sat nights, Aug 29-30. Hit me up if you are interested. (If you already have a room too, that’s OK – the reservations can be canceled up to 4pm on check-in day.)

LEGO fan convention in northern California?

UPDATE – The convention, Bricks by the Bay, took place on April 9-11, 2010, and we’re in the planning process for the 2011 event. You can read more about it at the Bricks by the Bay site.

Some of us in BayLUG have been talking about having a LEGO convention here in northern California. This would be similar to some of the existing ones that have been taking place around the country for years:

Brickfest (Washington DC and Portland OR)
Brickswest (San Diego CA)
Brickcon (Seattle WA)
Brickworld (Chicago IL)
Brickfair (Washington DC)

There’s a thread on LUGNET about it started by Russell Clark, the BayLUG president.

If you haven’t heard of these before, here’s the basic idea. We take over a hotel or convention center for a weekend (hopefully a 3-day weekend), and 100+ LEGO fans descend upon it from all over the country (and maybe a few from overseas). The LEGO company usually sends some high level executives and other representatives. The local LEGO store usually has some special discounts and an after-hours sale just for con-goers.

We’re currently looking at hotels in and around Santa Clara and San Mateo, since that’s where our two local LEGO stores are. If you have any ideas for venues or would like to offer support, please let Russell or me know.

Another 2006 Garden Gnome by another Bill posted by another Ward

In Ted Ward’s pictures from Northwest BrickCon 2006 I came across a picture a while ago of a garden gnome, created by Bill Volbrecht, former LEGO Master Builder.

Bill Volbrecht's Garden Gnome

As far as I know, Ted Ward is no relation to me, and neither is Bill Volbrecht.

As to why this is interesting, I built my own garden gnome in 2006 as well – while I was in Fairfax VA for the Brickfest convention (it wasn’t at the convention; I built it from parts I bought there, in my hotel room afterward). I posted it here shortly after I built it in September 2006. Here’s mine for comparison:

Bill Ward's Garden Gnome.

As for comparing the two, well I think that he did a better job on the mouth and eyes, but then I was limiting myself (as I’ve done for almost all of my sculptures) to only basic bricks, not plates or slopes or round parts. However if I may be so bold, I like my hat better: it is asymmetrical. I also think the details on the belt are better on mine. But the clincher is that his is functional: I believe that the hands are designed to hold business cards. Mine are hidden behind his back because hands are too hard to model :)

Save 9V Trains Minfig Protest

In BayLUG‘s recent exhibit at MoAH, Bruce Chamberlain set up a display of minifigs protesting to save the 9V trains line. Here’s a pic:


The Save 9V Trains campaign is a grasroots movement by adult LEGO fans to try to persuade the LEGO company to not discontinue the old, rail-powered, 9V train system. Last year LEGO introduced a new battery-powered, IR-controlled system which may be better for little kids, but the motors are underpowered and the system is not considered practical for adult train displays such as put on by the various LEGO train clubs.

If you want your voice to be heard, visit the Save 9V Trains site and register your opinion![tags]lego,trains,9v,save 9v trains[/tags]

No NWBrickCon for Me

It’s official, I’m not going to Northwest BrickCon. Having just gone to BrickFest a month ago I really can’t justify another trip right now, and besides BayLUG is having a meeting that weekend.

I was really hoping to go to NWBC to meet some of the folks who weren’t able to come to BF. I met a lot of west coast LEGO folks at BricksWest 2003, but haven’t seen any of them since, except for a few who made it to BF this year. Hopefully next year, NWBC and BF won’t be so close together!

I am still hoping to make it to BrickSouth next spring in Atlanta. I met a few of the Georgia classic space guys at BF and am looking forward to that event. Hopefully I can build some kind of impressive spacecraft to show there.

Best of BrickFest 2006

I’ve finally had a chance to go over all the photos I previously posted from BrickFest, and selected what I feel are the best. Best of Brickfest Some are great photos, while others are photos of great things. Still others are just photos of things that are quintsentially BrickFest. Click the picture to the right to view the 79 pictures I selected, or go straight to a slide show.

I also added tags and titles to all the photos I had uploaded, and deleted a few that were redundant or out of focus. If you would like to see all the pictures, click these links:

[tags]lego, brickfest, brickfest2006[/tags]

BrickFest 2006, Day 3 – Turn out the lights, the party’s over…

So that brings us to the final day of BrickFest 2006. My pictures are up on Flickr and just about everyone’s gone home.Brickfest Day 3 I started the day by attending a discussion on Capital Ships run by some of the experts from classic-space.com, including Jon Palmer, Adrian Drake, Mark Sandlin, and Chris Giddens. We met in a conference room on the first floor where we discussed some of the techniques and challenges for building and transporting very large spaceships made of LEGO, and then we went up to the exhibit hall where some of these things were demonstrated on the ships there.

After that I went to a discussion on LEGO as art vs. LEGO as toy, which was led by Roy T Cook, who in addition to being a LEGO builder is also a professor at Villanova University. I think the consensus was that while LEGO is a toy, it can be used as an art medium, but it depends on a number of factors including the context in which the model is made. I learned a lot about the philosophy of art and it gave me a lot to think about.

The afternoon was taken up with dealing with the crowds who attended the public exhibition. After they cleared out around 4 pm, we started tearing down the displays in the exhibit hall. My vignettes took about 30 seconds to tear down, but some of the guys didn’t finish until after midnight. We had closing ceremonies in the evening with a lot of door prizes being handed out. I didn’t win any, but I was pretty happy winning the small vignette contest.

Holly and I went out to dinner at a great Japanese restaurant in Fairfax called Blue Ocean (where we had also had the most amazing lunch on Friday). The food was great, but they were very busy so the service was slow.

After dinner we returned to the hotel where I hung out with the Classic Space guys and we stood around chatting until they were done tearing down, then we retired to the (closed) hotel bar where we all sat around talking until about 1 am. I drove Tom McDonald to the airport, came back to the hotel, and went to bed. I can’t wait for next year! In the meantime I hope we can attend Northwest BrickCon in Seattle and/or BrickSouth in Atlanta next spring.[tags]lego, brickfest, brickfest2006[/tags]