Blueandwhite wrote:Honestly, I find this approach very disappointing. Conventions are the one place where we have hundreds of AFOLs coming together to display their works in a single event. It seems unfortunate not to try and make a more cohesive showing. Perhaps it's just me, but it seems that most older conventions placed a greater emphasis on display cohesiveness. Yes, there are recent conventions with some fantastic castle displays, however most events seem to focus on individual MOCs rather than a single large layout. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the CCC (Classic Castle City) standard, I still prefer seeing one large display over seeing a bunch of MOCs sitting separately on different tables. Honestly, I can look at a plethora of stand-alone MOCs by searching brickshelf or flickr. Events are the one place where we as AFOLs can actually see a kingdom of bricks established which makes things very exciting.
I totally agree. The first LEGO conventions I went to were Brickfests at GMU. Since GMU was divided up into many classrooms, it made perfect sense to let each room be its own theme. You would bring your MOC's and place them in the appropriate places. It worked. If you wanted to put all your stuff together, you could, but only if there was room and tables left after everything else was in place. It was the group first, individuals second.
When we started Brickworld, the head organizers didn't want to have "themes". (I can't remember their exact argument for this, but I recall it's pretty weak.) Of course 95% of MOC's fall into one theme or another. The first Brickworld (2007) was held at the Westin in Wheeling, IL just like it still is, but we just had a couple big rooms that year. There were no physical divisions in the rooms, unless you count the tables themselves. There were a couple people who whined about having their MOC's spread all over the place, so they planned to let everyone sign up for MOC tables. You would reserve a number of tables, and if you wanted, you could also put MOC's in the collaborative displays. It was individuals first, the group second.
I have setup my MOC's in different layouts at LEGO events numerous times, and I must say it works just fine. There does seem to be a recent trend for AFOL's to display their MOC's in a "look what
I made" sort of way instead of a "look what
we made" sort of way, and I think it lessens the overall effectiveness of displays. LEGO can often be a very individual hobby, but as you said earlier, there's Brickshelf and Flickr for that. I don't really claim to have a good solution. If we said that people coming to Brickworld
had to put all their MOC's into certain places with other like creations, that would probably deter some people, since we've been doing it the other way for 4 years.
Any ideas?
David