An Adult Fan Of LEGO (AFOL) can mean a lot of things- not just you never grew up. Seeing what happens behind the scenes at a LEGO show is one way to experience how serious and yet playful things can be. Over March 15-17 the Indiana State Fairgrounds hosted the Flower & Patio Show, a Gun Show, & Brickworld Indy. I displayed at one of them…
So what really happens behind the scenes? If I told you I’d have to kill you, or maybe make you step on a LEGO brick. For me it all started months before when I decided to make my intentions known at an IndyLUG (LEGO User Group) meeting. I was going to take my batcave build to the next level, it was going to be awesome (remember “everything is awesome”) so I started planning on ways I could improve the display that currently took up pretty much one table. After procrastinating for a while, something horrible happened- The LEGO Movie 2 trailers started to show up. I loved the whimsical nature of the the first LEGO movie and decided to be a part of the proposed collaborative display for it. Something simple, I envisioned a crashed ship being used as a camp in the post Taco Tuesday world. I could do that… or could I?
As time passed the collaborative fell apart, no one wanted to take a leadership role & I was one of those saying “not me.” I still liked the idea of Apocalypseburg, so I scrapped the batcave and decided to take various LEGO Movie 2 kits and build my adaptation of the that dystopian world. My original goal was to have an app controlled car drive around the landscape. Grande ideas- little time to figure out how to get it to work.
Life and work got in the way and soon I was two weeks out from Brickworld, still trying to make things work. I remember my first few displays that after building them, fell to pieces in the car while transporting them. My goal was to build everything in one baseplate sections that were sturdy enough to survive. Then build up the LEGO Welcome to Apocalypseburg set to close to movie standards. While I want my builds to be original to a point, I also want kids looking at them to see the sets they already have so as to inspire them to use what they have to build something amazing.
I finished up the major portion of the build the night before set up and crossed my fingers that it would work. Friday after school I headed to the Fairgrounds around 4:00PM and started setting everything up. Having done this before I knew it wouldn’t be close to what I wanted until sometime Saturday afternoon. This first go was a beta test and as the crowd made comments, I’d change things around.
The next morning I walked in and wandered the tables to see what everyone had built. If you’ve been to one of these you know how amazing some of the builds are. Sadly, some look the same year after year, mostly because as a viewer I don’t see the subtle changes and tweaks that have been made- the Easter eggs added. “Oh, it’s the same city I saw last year.” When it really isn’t, it just reuses a few buildings.
Then you have things like the GBC (Great Ball Contraption) a collaboration in engineering that is amazing no matter how many modules are the same each year. It is a loop of machines whose only purpose is to move a small ball to the next machine however it can. There are design constraints, but for the most part it is up to the builder to engage the audience in how it works. Google “LEGO GBC” and prepare to be in awe of the engineering behind such a simple task.
So what happens with those folks who have badges? We tend to run around and buy stuff from the vendors, compliment each other on what we brought, plan and scheme for the next show after seeing something amazing. Answer questions inspire people to build what they love. We aren’t in a competition, we all have our favorites for some it is Star Wars, for others it’s superheroes, castle, city, Technic, you name it and someone has either built a display or considered building a display. Here are just a few of what was out there this year in Indianapolis.
