The Brick Connection– A novice Lego fan explores the great brick world of LEGO

Hello my LEGO peeps!

Boy do I have a crazy story! But I can’t tell you anything. Here’s what I can say…this sh*t is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Seriously, it’s been difficult to focus on work, knowing what I know.

What I will talk about is Brick Fest Live, the Lego convention I worked this past weekend. Despite my worries that it would be an excruciatingly long weekend, it was actually not bad at all.

Granted, the location of the BrickWarriors booth within the convention center was not ideal. And by “not ideal” I mean we had the worst location of all the vendors, but what can you do? No seriously, what can we do to get a better location?

Here is a picture I took from where our booth begins. And yes, this picture was taken while the convention was OPEN!! Seriously. Can you believe people didn’t want to hang out here? Because I can.

No, that concession stand was not open. The food was sold at a better location in the room.

We were in the back corner and the BrickFest Theater was right by us, which means I got to hear the same 20 trivia questions, six different times. By Sunday, I was shouting the answers out before they even finished listing the multiple choice. Don’t worry. No one could hear me so I didn’t ruin anything. But you wouldn’t believe how many kids thought Harry Potter was Lego’s oldest theme. Harry Potter?! The first book came out in 1997! Might as well have been 1897 to these kids I guess.

Anyway, like I was saying, despite our unfortunate location I had a nice weekend. For all the conventions I have attended in the past I have taken my mother as my helper. She has been very kind using vacation days from her job and giving up her weekend to help me out. This time the dates didn’t work for her, so instead I got to take Ryan’s mom, Rhonda.

Rhonda knows BrickWarriors very well because the company started out of her house. That makes her a very useful partner to have at conventions. She knows our board game “Chains to Champions” extremely well since she helped Ryan and Amanda test it in the early stages of production. She also says it’s her favorite game to play, so yeah, I let her do all the talking whenever someone was curious about it. She also knows Ryan and Amanda’s books very well since she helped edit them before they were released. (For those who don’t know, BrickWarriors owners, Ryan and Amanda each wrote a fantasy novel. I’ve only read Amanda’s, the Curse of the Moira and I can say, in my slightly biased opinion that it is great. I haven’t read Ryan’s yet, Riddle of Regicide, but I’m excited to because I’ve heard great things from those who have.)

        
Pretending to read while in the Brick Fest Live reading lounge

Sometimes what can make or break a convention in terms of fun and excitement are your fellow vendors. In Massachusetts my mom and I didn’t have anyone close to us to talk to. This time, Classic Plastic Bricks was next to us, run by the awesome Todd and Julie. That was really nice, I mean not necessarily for them, since being next to us meant they had the second-worst spot in the room, but it was great to be by friendly people. Julie even supplied us with lots of Kit-Kat bars. And they both told me how much they love my video about annoying convention customers, so basically they’re my favorite people. FYI, Classic Plastic Bricks have a location in Ellicott City, Maryland. Check out their website here.

OMG THIS IS CRAZY!!

Sorry, I was thinking about that thing I can’t tell you about.

Anywho, since I’m doing this blog and going on this Lego journey, I wanted to take advantage of getting to walk around a Lego Convention when it’s not open; something I’m sure some diehard Lego fans would love to have the opportunity to do. I played mini-golf outlined in Lego bricks, read Lego books, made a Lego mosaic, and sat in a pit of Lego. You know, all the normal Lego fan activities. Let’s go to the photo evidence…

A mosaic of my name. 3 of the 4 letters are curved so I'm very proud of this.

I don't know why I took my shoes off before going in this. I am a huge idiot!

Smiling through the pain

I also did some sight-seeing, which was basically a couple glances of the New York City skyline and MetLife Stadium. I don't know where people in Secaucus, New Jersey live because all I saw were hotels and restaurants.

Of course I had to bring my Eagles hat to the Giants' stadium

Taylor Swift was doing shows at MetLife Stadium Friday and Saturday, so I got a picture of her trucks. It was A LOT of trucks.
(By the way, I went to her concert in Philly last month and it was amazing!!!)

So that’s my recap of Brick Fest Live New Jersey. I hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look of a Lego convention. Before I wrap up, here are a few more notes related to the convention.

*Proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover and that generalizations made of certain groups of people are stupid: This really buff, muscular guy with arms 3 times the size of mine came by the booth and spent about 30 minutes picking things out to buy. Some people might think that an adult that really loves Lego accessories probably looks “nerdy” or “geeky.” Well this guy did not fit that stereotype. Lego fans come in all shapes, sizes, and colors and that is awesome.

* According to one of the trivia questions I had to hear a bajillion times, Blacktron is the greatest Lego theme. I will have to look into this. In the mean time, anybody want to agree or disagree with this claim?

* Armed with my new Lego knowledge at this convention, I was able to find a slightly better way to answer the question I hear the most: Where are the bodies (heads)? This time, after explaining that we only sold the accessories, I also mentioned that all our accessories are custom and that you can’t get them from Lego. I don’t know if it actually helped get me a sale, but I think I at least got those people to stick around a little longer, knowing that unlike most of the vendors at the convention we are selling original products.

Thanks for reading everyone! Next week we will go back to normal....whatever that means. Please leave comments or questions if you have any. I'd love to hear from whoever is actually reading this. :D

*Compliments, general feedback, and constructive criticism are welcome. Any haters that are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate can go step on some Lego with their bare feet.*