Last week I attended Brick Fest Live! at the New York Hall of Science with my wife and son. The event lasted from June 20th through the 28th. This was the first Brick Fest Live! to be held so close to home and I was curious to see how this event “stacked up” with other LEGO conventions I’ve attended.
After we entered the Hall of Science we walked past a giant LEGO sculpture of Woody from Toy Story. Then we went to the lower level where the majority of the BFL events were taking place. As we neared the staircase all we could hear was LEGO being sorted through, and tons of it as this noise carried upstairs. The Germans have a word for this noise, GRUSCHTELING, which is pronounced groo-shte-ling. As we reached the stairs I could see “the pit” below us where the noise was coming from. There were many young builders sitting atop of thousands of red 2×4 LEGO bricks creating whatever they could think of using this sole element. These creations were on display atop of short partitions that surrounded the “pit.”
My attention was grabbed next by the Brick Fest Live merchandise table. For sale were some Chima sets, BFL branded merchandise, and Brick Warriors custom minifig elements. I noticed a vendor who I knew from Brickfair New Jersey and he said there were only two vendors at this show and because of that he was doing better than expected on sales.
Next we visited the Duplo building area. We stayed in this area for a short while and then my son built a plane out of LEGO to be displayed in the nearby BFL Inspiration Station which housed the public creations as part of a LEGO cityscape.
Just around the corner from the Inspiration Station was the Mosaic building area. This is where we spent the most time at BFL. My son completely filled a 16×16 plate with 1×1 bricks of many colors. I built a mosaic of Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and my wife built a sign with our initials on it. A large wall of blue baseplates stood at the back of the Mosaic area and we attached our mosaics to this wall. The public created come fantastic artwork as you can see in the picture. This activity was well received, though the lighting provided was inadequate as I had trouble telling black from dark blue. There was an ample supply of 1×1 bricks in tons of colors (though they were kept in a plastic bin meaning you had to sift through tons of bricks to find the color you were looking for-more GRUSCHTELING came from this area as well!). The organizers also supplied the public with simple to follow instruction cards to build different mosaics such as houses and cars.
Outside the Mosaic building area was the NYCLUG display and Victor Ty. He was in attendance with his son and they were displaying their own LEGO creations as part of their LUG layout. The display was quite impressive and was made entirely by Victor and his son. Some highlights included the apartment building from Wreck-it Ralph, a greenhouse, a running LEGO train, and buses made entirely from Pick a Brick elements. ILUGNY was asked to display at this event and we decided not to do so. Victor said he wasn’t sure who would be watching his stuff while he had to work during the week. He said the organizers met his request of a stronger barricade between his LEGO display and the public because the tensabarrier used earlier wasn’t effective. Great work Victor!
I ran into ILUGNY honorary member Xavier at the other vendor table and after chatting with him I went upstairs to see what was left of BFL. This floor housed another BFL merchandise table, a building area to construct LEGO cars and then race them down ramps, and another large LEGO sculpture, this one from Exo-Force. Also on this floor was the coolest display area I have seen at a LEGO event, a black lit tent that showcased LEGO creations built solely using trans colored elements. These beautiful models looked as if they were glowing under the black light.
Overall, my family and I had a great time and I would recommend other families with young children attend BFL next year. My son enjoyed the activities, the venue offered more than LEGO for us to experience as we had a nice picnic on the grounds by the Rocket Park, and the public enjoyed the event as well. I found a promo code online bringing the cost of our tickets down from $42 to $27. We were done in about 2 hours so if time is tight the event can be done rather quickly. We could have spent more time in the interactive areas though if not attending on Father’s Day. Much like LEGO, this event is child centric, not to be confused with the LEGO conventions that are marketed towards both children and the Adult Fan of LEGO in mind.