Hello Oz Brick Nation readers. Today is a very special day. Why?... Because today we have a new member to the OBN family. I would like to introduce you to Chris. A fellow Melbournian with the same passion for the little plastic brick, as we do here at OBN. In his very first post he is going to give us his own account to Melbourne's very own LEGO convention called Brickvention.
Lets hear a little bit about Chris before we get straight into the review...
A couple of years ago in my late 20’s I rediscovered the joys of LEGO, and started buying a couple of the larger TECHNIC sets here and there, starting with 8292 – Cherry Picker. It was only after watching the Megafactories episode showing the LEGO factory that I realised just how much fun LEGO was again, and started with the 7498 Police Station.
Lets hear a little bit about Chris before we get straight into the review...
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A couple of years later now, my collection comprises over 250 sets, and over 100,000 pieces, and is rapidly growing. With 3 young children under 4, I’ll be able to share this joy with them over the next few years, and their DUPLO collection already comprises over 1000 pieces.
I mainly collect Modular Buildings, Creator City, Star Wars, and Technic at the moment, but have bought the full range of Galaxy Squad sets from last year, which, in my opinion, are amazing, as well as some Legends of Chima. I’ve started running out of space to display sets, so I’ve been gradually breaking down sets into pieces and sorting them, which in itself is a massive task.
I first heard about Brickvention 2012 from a work colleague, just after the 2012 Brickvention had happened, and made sure I got tickets early for BV 2013. Brickvention 2014 sold out in about 2 months (tickets go on sale October 1 every year), with approximately 20,000 tickets sold to the event. Adult tickets this yea were $12 and children (4-14) were $6 (free for under 3).
We bought tickets to BV2014 for the first public session, which is now 9:00am on the Saturday morning, and this year my wife and I took our 3 kids with us, who are 8 weeks, 2 years and 3 years old…challenging to say the least, especially when holding one of them whilst taking photos with the DSLR camera. The queue when we got there looked long, but it moved very quickly and we were inside within 20 minutes or so.
This year’s BV had a very diverse range of LEGO scenes, ranging from Star Wars to City to TECHNIC, Harry Potter, GBC’s (Great Ball Contraptions), Lord of the Rings. Interestingly, there was very little, if not any, Legends of Chima or Ninjago scenes. I’ve heard from AFOLs a lot that the Chima sets are very much aimed at younger LEGO fans, but, having bought a couple of the 2013 sets on clearance after Boxing Day, I was very impressed with the builds and the attention to detail in the minifigures.
The centrepiece of the event was a huge train layout in the centre of the exhibition building. Trying to get a photo of this was next to impossible due to the massive size and length of the display.
One of my personal favourites was the Star Wars theatre, complete with an iPad filling in for the screen, showing one of the Star Wars movies. The theatre was complete with an X-Wing that had crash landed into the side of the building!
My daughter’s favourite, a princess house of course!
The most eye catching creation was the Golden Gate bridge, and it is truly an amazing feat of LEGO engineering.
Each of the actors who has portrayed James Bond was captured in a LEGO mosaic, in great detail, to coincide with the “Designing 007” exhibition, which is currently showing next to the Royal Exhibition Building at the Melbourne Museum. The best Bond, in my opinion, is below!
There was also plenty of LEGO to purchase at the end of the exhibit, with multiple sellers attending the event, including Shopforme, ToyBricks, BTTW, and I’m Rick James Bricks. I would recommend that you do your research on prices before attending the event though…
Brickvention is a very well run event, and is run by hundreds of volunteers who give up there time over the event to ensure the event runs smoothly.
In summary, Brickvention is a must attend event for fans of LEGO of any age. I would suggest that if you are interested in attending next year’s Brickvention that you join the Brickvention Facebook page for updates throughout the year, to ensure you don’t miss out on next year’s Brickvention. Alternatively you can also join the Brickvention mailing list on the Brickventures web page (http://www.brickventures.org.au)
Anybody can exhibit at Brickvention, with applications opening in the second half of the year. Applications are reviewed by the Brickvention committee for suitability.
BV2014 has inspired me to start creating MOC’s, and I’m slowing coming up with ideas I hope to build and display at BV2015!
You can see more of my Brickvention photos on Flickr, send me an email and I'll send you the link.
Chris.
A Fantastic Review Chris! Thank you very much. Chris will also start doing some LEGO set reviews in the future too so keep a look out for them as well. Some Big sets coming from Chris!
Again we say, welcome Chris to OBN family!
Chris.
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A Fantastic Review Chris! Thank you very much. Chris will also start doing some LEGO set reviews in the future too so keep a look out for them as well. Some Big sets coming from Chris!
Again we say, welcome Chris to OBN family!
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