Castle at BrickFest 2004

[Glencaer]

BrickFest DC is a mere few days away and things are begining to come together for the largest 3CS Display, by far, ever! If you are bringing something for the 3CS Display, the Castle Coordinating Team has a few new ideas for you to participate in!

The primary new idea is that each house will be identified with its builder by flags. Marc Nelson, Jr has spearheaded this idea, and has volunteered to make the chart defining who's house belongs to whom. Reserve your favorite flag combo today!

This is also the first year for the My Own Castle Competition (MOCC). The idea of the MOCC is for attendees to make their own TLG style castle (think like the BFF, Black Monarch's Castle or 6080 King's Castle) to sit on a 48x48 base.

Lastly, with several Classic-Castle admins making an appearance (Lenny, Ben, Troy, and Kevin) - expect to see periodic updates and As-It-Is-Happening reports keeping you up to date on everything of importance that happens at fest.

BrickFest 2004 is shaping to be the best fest ever!!

Can't wait to see all you guys there!!

-Lenny, City Admin

[architect]

I just submitted my request for a flag combination. Brickfest will be great! As Lenny said, the admins will try to post updates and maybe photos (if technology allows it) to the best of our ability. We will definitely have a full report of the castle festivities in the week following fest.

Ben E.
Sets Admin

[Bricksidge]

This time, we hope that Lenny doesn't lose his camera..

Oh, and I can't wait to finally see Lenny and Ben face-to-face

[architect]

ok, it has been hard to get online, but here is a small brickfest update. I and lenny will post more in a few days.

The castle display contains an awesome concentric castle by Magnus L., a keep by Jeff Byrd, great buildings by Lenny, Larry P, Marc Nelson, etc, etc. The entire room is stuffed with castle. I will have a few photos up when I get back home. As many of you must have heard, the new set announced here is a BNSF train engine. Everyone here has been great to meet and the moc's are outstanding.

More in a few days...

Ben E.
Sets Admin

[Bricksidge]

Just got back, and it was amazing.

Met Lenny and Ben for the first time ever, had a great time!

Met Jeff Byrd as well, he's a great guy! Sweet armor and weapons. (he looks like he could break me in half easily )

The display was awesome, but I'll leave that to the people who took pictures and such.

Moral of the story: Go to BF, you've just got to. Even just for sunday, its still awesome. Do everything you can to go: schedule it around vacation, or a college visit, or just about anything, just get there!

[The Josh]

Moral of the story: Go to BF, you've just got to. Even just for sunday, its still awesome. Do everything you can to go: schedule it around vacation, or a college visit, or just about anything, just get there!

Ditto.

Brickfest = glorious

Does anyone have pictures of Brickfest? I know many people took pictures, but I don't see any on brickshelf. If you do have pictures, please put them online. Thanks!

- The Josh

[Magnus]

Hi,

Still recovering after an extended weekend of late nights, early mornings, many beers and hundreds of tremendous MOCs. Lots of new very cool people as well of course. I'm not sure how good I'll be at remembering names, so if we met, feel free to send me a little greeting so I can link you to your screen names. I won't try to name all of you who I met, because I know I'll forget some, but I'd like to take time to thank Lenny Hoffman for his help with the 3CS display. And I know at least two member of this website discussion group ended up winning awards with some outstanding building - Josh L. and Marc N., congratulations to you and other of the other wonners who ar reading this.

Running a castle room is a lot more than just telling people where to put their MOCs, and it was great to have so much help from so many people on the less than thrilling necessities of moving tables and chairs, putting up that annoying table skirting, and the like. So thanks to all who helped out!

The Castle room was a HUGE success! Thanks to all who came along and contributed with MOCs and their fine company! The 3CS display was I believe the largest ever assembled and seemed also one of the most impressive! We began talking about the future of the 3CS concept, and while I'm not sure we really finished, we planted the seed for some great ideas. So let's keep it going!

Thanks also to all those of you who attended my talk on large scale castle building. I wasn't sure how many to expect, but was quite flattered to have so many eager people show up - and I hope I may have planted some new ideas here and there.

Connected to my biggish castle was an interactive siege display where AFOLs, and later the public, got to vote on the outcome. This proved to be a great way to introduce some fluidity and interactivity to the Castle Room. There are many ideas for continuing this theme - the key being a display that changes in some way. Next year perhaps there will be wargaming or something of that nature?

Thanks also to all those who took pictures. Being both digitally challenged and pretty busy this past weekend, I didn't get to take any pix of Falconsgate Castle myself, so if you have any pics of it, or indeed of the castle room in general to share, please don't be shy.

BrickFest gets bigger and better every year. This year we had I believe over 350 AFOLs and enthusiastic support (spouses, parents, offspring) for the weekend. And on Sunday about 1500 members of the public came along to see our stuff, which I think is about 5 times as many as last year. There was just a whole mass of awesome stuff being shown, and I think equally importantly lots of social interaction and talking betwen AFOLs both within and between the various themes. We can do wonders with the internet now, but it is in the face to face interaction that communities get built and how building ideas get exchanged the very best.

I'm already looking forward to next year!

thanks all!

Magnus

[Duke_Dave]

BF sounds cool!! But I have a question, is it in DC every year or does it move around?thanks.


Dave

[architect]

For the past five years the main LEGO fan conference has been BrickFest and it has been held in August in Washington D.C. But during February, there are smaller BrickFests. First there was BricksWest in Carlsbad, CA. Then this year, BrickFest PDX was held in Portland Oregon. I believe the location for this February Brickfest has not been finalized yet.

Also, some people are lobbying to have a BrickFest Chicago to have a more centralized one. But if you live near the east or west coasts, there should be a fest somewhat near you. And of course if you live in Europe, there are events like LEGOWorld and 1000steineland.

Ben E.
Sets Admin

P.S. check out www.brickfest.com for more information

[Duke_Dave]

thanks! Sadly I live in south central Kansas, so it would even be had for me to get to chicago.



Dave

[Glencaer]

thanks! Sadly I live in south central Kansas, so it would even be had for me to get to chicago.

?!?

Dude, I live in Tallahassee Florida, (North Fla) - which is a good 15 hr drive from BrickFest DC. At BrickFest this year, one of the key contributors was Casper from the NETHERLANDS!!

Maybe I missed out on geography class, but Kansas is just a few states south of Chicago.

But, I understand you're probably young - but there are ways to get to fest if you look for them. If you save a little money between now and next fest, a plane flight would be easy to get. ($10 a week until next fest would save you $500)

-Lenny

[Neverroads]

Dude, I live in Tallahassee Florida, (North Fla) - which is a good 15 hr drive from BrickFest DC. At BrickFest this year, one of the key contributors was Casper from the NETHERLANDS!!

Casper who did indeed had to safe some money in order to get to Washington DC But, it was worth it!

Brickfest was an amazing experience for me too, some of you I already "met" in the chat, and to actually meet you in real alone was worth the trip! (And new people ofcourse, thanks Magnus for the Castleroom supervising )

Also fun was to meet Eric who, like me, likes to do anceint stuff, man I'm not alone in this passion!

Most of all I want to thank Joshia for the replacement helmet. Something was missing in my temple after the public part of the sunday was over and your gesture really made this from something bad into something that made Brickfest such a wonderful event. The fact that people are willing to do such a thing together to make an event work, was the best to see in Brickfest. A big Thank You for doing just that.

Casper