LEGO Christmas Tree at Federation Square

Thousands of Melburnians watched in awe last night when the Southern Hemisphere’s largest LEGO Christmas Tree lit up the heart and soul of Melbourne, Federation Square, kicking off the festive season in spectacular style.  

This year, the remarkable Christmas tree features a stunning new star built by LEGO Master Builder, Chris Steininger and his family who were special guests at the event. The spectacular star is made out of 13,195 LEGO bricks and twinkles with the power of 3,456 LED lights making it the ultimate tree-topper!

 Fed Square’s Christmas Programs runs from 27 November to 27 December.

Time Lapse Video.

Interestingly, from what I understand, this is the very same tree used in Sydney last year (albeit the star) that was built by Australia's own master builder Ryan Mcnaught.  Yet there is no mention of him or his team this year...

Full press release below... 

MELBOURNE SHINES AS AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST LEGO® CHRISTMAS TREE
LIGHTS UP FEDERATION SQUARE
LEGO Australia gives Melbourne the gift of Christmas with a magical new star

Saturday 28 November, 2015: Thousands of Melburnians watched in awe last night when the Southern Hemisphere’s largest LEGO® Christmas Tree came to life at the heart and soul of Melbourne, Federation Square, kicking off the festive season in spectacular style.
 

Putting the Christmas star on top of the tree officially signifies the beginning of festive season celebrations and this year LEGO Australia wanted to make it more spectacular than ever. The remarkable Christmas tree features a stunning new star designed and built just for Melbourne fans by LEGO Master Builder, Chris Steininger and his family.
 

Melbourne’s Christmas star is made out of 13,195 LEGO bricks and twinkles with the power of 3,456 LED lights making it the ultimate tree-topper. The spectacular new star sits proudly on top of the beloved LEGO Christmas Tree, which took more than 1,200 hours to make, is almost 10 metres tall and made from half a million LEGO bricks.
 

Chris Steininger said, “It was such an honour to be invited to Melbourne to unveil the newest addition to the LEGO Christmas Tree. Putting the star on top of the tree is a magical moment for families across the world, and everyone has their own unique one - for my family, it is made out of one of our favourite things, LEGO bricks!
 

“I hope we can inspire families across Australia to come together and make their own special Christmas memories this year by building their very own LEGO Christmas star. The beautiful thing is that you can’t go wrong! Stars made from LEGO bricks can be any colour, shape or size, the only limit is your imagination,” he said.
 

Chris and the LEGO team have also ‘Aussie-fied’ the tree with some fun new additions this year including cricket bat-wielding elves and mischief-making kookaburras.

Visitors can see the enchanting tree at Federation Square come to life with a daily light show set to much-loved Christmas carols until 27 December. It’s guaranteed to bring a touch of awesome to the city’s festive celebrations.
 

Director of Marketing for LEGO Australia, Troy Taylor said “We are extremely excited to bring the largest LEGO Christmas Tree in the Southern Hemisphere to Australia.
 

“We are proud to be partnering with the City of Melbourne and Federation Square to create this fun and memorable LEGO experience to the people of Melbourne. This event plays a key part in our Christmas campaign where we encourage Australian families to celebrate the fun traditions of Christmas through the creative use of LEGO bricks,” he said.
 

The LEGO Christmas is part of Federation Square and the City of Melbourne’s Christmas celebrations that includes a charming Christmas forest in Swanston Street Christmas Square, the Gingerbread Village at Melbourne Town Hall and a citywide festive decorations program.

LEGO Christmas Tree and star fun facts:

• The LEGO Christmas Tree is built from half a million LEGO bricks 
• The LEGO Christmas Tree weighs 3.5 tonnes
• It stands almost 10 metres tall – that’s taller than a two-storey house and wider than the average family car
• The LEGO Christmas star is made from more than 13,000 LEGO bricks and twinkles with the power of more than 3,000 LED lights
• It’s the biggest LEGO Christmas Tree in the Southern Hemisphere
• The LEGO Christmas tree took more than 1,200 hours to build 
• Features kookaburras, cricket bat-wielding elves and Santa in his sleigh, built from thousands of LEGO bricks 

Happy Force Friday!

Happy Force Friday everyone!

Today is Force Friday!  New Star Wars: The Force Awakens toys were launched in stores across the world from Midnight last night!







Big W have put together some fun videos focusing on the unboxing of some of the new Star Wars range

Here is their first video showing you a glimpse of the new 75102 Poe's X-Wing Fighter and 75101: First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter being constructed.

What sets are you most looking forward to? 

Personally we would like to get our hands on the "new" 75105: Millennium Falcon and the 75102 Poe's X-Wing Fighter. 

Australia's first BrickPak "Loot Box" Review.

Well Here it is! For over a month, we have been waiting in anticipation to finally see what we will get in Australia's very first BrickPak Box! Monday (02/03/2015) afternoon it arrived on our door step.

This is March's BrickPak and it was limited to only 100 subscribers. The plan is for it to be a month by month subscription where the subscriber will get a box sent with LEGO/Brick related products, over $50 in value.

Depending on what subscription plan you choose the more savings you potentially get. You have 3 options; 1 Month ($29.95 plus $7.95 shipping per month), 3 Months ($27.95 plus $7.95 shipping per month) or 6 Months ($25.95 plus $7.95 shipping per month).

The Brickpak team have kindly donated March's "Brickpak Box" for review.



 Here is the front of the Aqua coloured box. The packaging folds open much like a LEGO Ideas or Architecture box would. If you have a YouTube channel they encourage you to do an "unboxing" video using the hashtag #Brickpak and by doing so have a chance at winning prizes. The prize is revealed at the very end of this review.

Once we open the box this is whats revealed to us. As we pull away the layers... the more we find.

From Infomation provided by the BrickPak team, they stated that at least 6 items will be included in every month's box.  Being it's very first outing they have packed in 9 items. Below we will take a closer look at each of the items that were included.

First up is this cool stress brick with the BrickPak Logo on it. It hasn't come up very well in the photo but the printing is a metallic silver, which has a really great look and effect when it's bounced off of a light source. Plus you can stand on this and it will never ever hurt like the real bricks do.

This months apparel inclusion is a custom printed truckers cap featuring "Mr Smith's Ice Creamery"  logo on the front, designed by the BrickPak team. I must admit I was totally surprised by it because I was actually expecting a T-shirt, given as it asks you for your size when subscribing. Sneaky! lol

Keeping with the Green theme we also get the newly reissued Classic Space Man Minifigure in Green. It is the very same one we reviewed some months back.

The minifigure has the standard smile we have grown up with over the years. (If you're an 80's child that is...) The back of the card gives a bit of information about Minifigures.com.au who supplied him or her for this months BrickPak.

We also get some stationary, a 4 pack of LEGO MOVIE erasers. Some BrickPak subscribers either got this style or the normal yellow LEGO packet version.

When both my wife and I first saw this guy we both thought it was white chocolate... lol. (It's Google redoing the contrast AGAIN!!) But in real life the colour of him is like the old white chocolate buddies you use to get at your local Milk Bar for 0.02 cents each... (Another 80's reference).
Buuuut I digress... Because it's NOT chocolate, in actual fact its a soap bar shaped as a Minifigure. (Gasp! He's naked!) The soap is Mandarin scented and is made from essential oils. Apparently friendly on the skin too. Just because of the novelty factor, we all know it will never get used.  ;-) Who wants to get rubbed up by a minifigure anyway? and a naked one at that... Don't answer that! :-P

Not only do you get a Mr Smith's Ice Creamery hat (seen above) you also get a couple of "custom sticker sheets" that you can cut out and use on future MOCs. The print quality is outstanding on these, they are very sharp and have crisp printing on a glossy paper finish. The BrickPak team would love to see them used and for you to upload any of your creations by using the Hashtag #brickpak or you can email your photos to info@brickpak.com.au.

We also get a Polybag set! Certainly a hot item in this house as the wife instantly tried to swipe it out of my hands before I could look at it. It's a City set 30013 Quad Bike from way back in 2010. It consists of 34 pieces. We don't get to many Polybags sets in Oz so it was a nice surprise to see it in the box.

One thing I was excited to look inside of was this resealable ziplock bag! High quality I might add! Inside we get...

• 1 x Black lamp post (compete) 4 base flutes (Only available in 4 sets)
• 1 x Large Leafed Plant in Bright Green (I totally love this piece! I was going to go with Large Leafed Plant as my name but went with Tan Tile instead. It rolls of the tongue easier Haha)
• 4 x flower stems in Green
• 3 x flower - Sprue of Four (Yellow, White and Bright Pink)

A neat parts pack! Our LEGO City's need more of this stuff! What I think would be a great idea, is if this turns out to become a little vignette that you build up month by month.

And finally a look at the brochure that is included in the box detailing what is inside your BrickPak box. A checklist if you will.

You Tube your "unboxing" the the Hashtag #brickpak for your shance to with the awesome Monster Fighters Vampyre Castle!

All in all this was a great first outing! I certainly wasn't disappointed with any of this months contents! It's fantastic to see that we finally have the chance to get something like this out here in Australia!

Too often I see videos on You Tube and wonder why we cant get them over here. Now we don't have to... And the best part?! No third party brick pieces like the others have! Any parts so far are have been genuine LEGO pieces and reading from the site it will stay that way too.

I believe these will be great for adults and kids alike. If you have a child, they will get a real kick out of getting a parcel delivered in their name each month! If you are an adult you may not get the same kick out of it as a child would but I'm a big kid and I loved it!

I look forward to April's BrickPak!

I hope you enjoyed this review

Tan Tile signing out!

P.S - A Huge Thank You to BrickPak for allowing us to be one of the first to review this new Subscription service!