LEGO event at Barnes and Noble 25 Jan 2014 (US)

dannyrww

Found that there is a Lego movie event at Barnes and Noble for kids 6-12. Never been to a Lego event there so have no idea if there is any major give aways or anything like that. The one closest to em says I need to register my kids for it so I guess I'll give it a try tomorrow...anyone have any idea what this event will be like?

sidersdd

Oh, right. I forgot to post about this last week. I asked someone at the Barnes and Noble and they didn't know anything about the details.

rocao

I've only been to one LEGO event at Barnes and Noble: a Chima event at the end of last year. No real queue, and they gave out #70110 to every child that participated. Based on that, I would say it's worthwhile to attend.

dannyrww

Thanks for the info...hey its free so you can't go wrong with it.

scotty12

I stopped in and asked a manager today about the event. He said you DIDN'T have to sign up....not this time because there's nothing(LEGO) free they're giving away. He said there'd be stickers and group building and talk about the movie? (or the commercials since the movie won't be out yet)
He also said they were having another LEGO Movie event in March but he didn't know any details about it yet.

margot

Signed up for my store today.

Thanos75

So did I.

margot

Just got a phone message from a Barnes and Noble employee stating "this will not be playing with Lego but will be giveaways from the Lego Movie"..

OH DARN!

Xybot

There are also events at certain locations on Sunday, 1/26. I'm going to one at 3 that day. I called and they said they have giveaways for the kids ... a Lego set in a small bag and a "secret" poster for the movie. The manager I spoke with said they definitely recommended signing up because they were only allowing 50 kids per store. I signed my son up and she said there were only a few spots left.

Looks like it will be a fun event!

Farmer_John

Just signed the kids up. My wife will be out of town and it'll be the perfect memorable father-kids activity. I'm expecting some serious crayon pictures to be coming my way as a result... ;-)

legogregors

Has anyone attended a 11am session? Any feedback/giveaway information? Thanks,

Farmer_John

Ours ended up being very weak. They did a puzzle and the only giveaway was a small movie poster...no polybags for the kids. There were a lot of adults and kids hacking, so I hope none of us caught the flu.

TheLoneTensor

This was nearly the worst Lego gathering I've ever been to. ~40 kids got together in front of a 19" monitor to watch a horribly buffered copy of two trailers that have already been on the internet for weeks or months. Then they had a 3-page workbook with an Emmet letter cipher puzzle, a Wyldstyle word search, and a Batman word unscramble. Cute, but I've seen better kids placemats at Bob Evans. Then they got a small movie poster. No lego whatsoever to play with or take home. Would it really have killed them to give away a movie CMF pack to each kid?

Plus, it was funny, when they handed out the worksheet packs to the kids, they each got a big Lego sticker book of various themes. I though "cool, that's a nice giveaway," and so did all the kids, when they started opening their books and placing stickers. At that point we were all informed that whoops, those sticker books were only given out to use as a writing surface so the kids wouldn't have to do their worksheets on the carpet, and were to be turned in at the end. Doh!

Anyway, a complete waste of time.

dannyrww

It wasn't too bad...no give aways but my daughter had fun (My oldest missed out as she had a party to go to). She was happy to get the poster and to spend time with other kids doing the activity sheet. They asked who everyone's favorite character was and she said unikitty and got a funny look from the ladies running the event who had no idea what she was talking about. They did have a poster saying their would be a Lego Movie building event on March 1st (It said "Build the movie" with this event being listed as "learn about the movie")....anyone else hoping the building one is a double decker couch....just saying....

dannyrww

also they listed some facts about the movie and one of them was about how many sets they used to make the film...Maybe I'm crazy but I'm still confused if this is stop motion or cgi made to look like stop motion and that fact did not help me at all.

Farmer_John

TheLoneTensor said:

This was nearly the worst Lego gathering I've ever been to. ~40 kids got together in front of a 19" monitor to watch a horribly buffered copy of two trailers that have already been on the internet for weeks or months.

LOL! Ours showed the same trailer on a 9" nook. I could hear sound, but couldn't see the picture.

margot

I think my BN staff was embarrassed by this event. So they added some special Chima ripcords and a mini donut keychain/charm thingy to the giveaway. They didn't show the trailers, they were on the nooks in the front of the store for anyone to look at. They also mentioned the build coming up next month.

Xybot

Our B&N was embarrassed too ... I overheard a couple of the managers talking about what to do next time they get "such a weak event." They ended up giving away a few sets as trivia prizes. My son won a Chima rider set (the white gorilla?)

It was a little bit of a mess ... they did a raffle for movie tickets. They had all of the registered guests put their name in a bowl. Although I did see a couple of people who had nor registered enter, and a few enter more than once. The store asked a girl to draw the name, and she picked her family's card. :) Everyone got the activity sheets and a free poster. The B&N folks played the trailer on a Nook too ... but it was laughably bad. We couldn't see it or hear it ... and then they were swaying it back and forth to pan the audience.

I was so happy my son was able to win an item but all in all it was an uncomfortable event for the B&N employees and most of the customers.

TheLoneTensor

It wouldn't have taken much, just give away a Movie CMF to each registered kid and everyone's happy.

aimlesspursuits

This was an odd event. I took my son and it was a similar experience that everyone else had. But the store I went to did do few giveaways, I think about 10 in all. A few Chima Speedorz and some other miscellaneous clearance toys.

It wasn't a total loss since my son did enjoy the event. He liked doing the puzzles and seeing the trailer. Plus there is still the build event coming on 3/1.

dannyrww

Okay we are signed up for the March 1 event now. Anyone have any idea what they are doing....what I do know is it is a building event and that they are "building a scene from the movie"... not sure what that means.

dannyrww

And here it is...and they get to keep what they build...why is it only for ages 4 to 8 though...how odd....http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/loved-the-lego-movie-get-your-hands-on-the-blocks-at-this-in-store-event/

dannyrww

Round two was much better...they basically came and were put at a table and were told to build some vehicle or device to defend Bricksburg with. We got there early and I helped the lady set up. There were a lot of diffferent bricks and elements and we spread them out in piles on the different tables. Then there was a huge bag of common pieces we spread around. At 11:00 am we started building. The biggest problem is that there was no one checking to see if anyone was signed up and there were a lot people commenting that they did not. My two daughters were at a table with maybe two or three others so there were plenty of bricks to go around...we ran into some trouble with wheels....but Hope like that she only had three in the end as it led to a very creative space ship with two wheels in back and a wheel coming out the front kind of like a propeller. I built with my four yer old and we came up with a really neat car with white wheel covers and a lot of dark pink bricks (not sure what the actual color names are on those). There was a little cardboard display of bricksburg (with pictures of the CMFs) that you could take a picture of your build with when done. I asked if we could take our builds home and the lady nidded yes to us, though I got the feeling that she may not have had said that to others as it was getting very crowded. ALl in all it was fun but the dump a pile of bricks and let them build events c an be tricky. We tried not to be greedy and thankfully were at a table where others were not. We gave each other parts and were all willing to give up something if someone else in our group needed it. The high demand parts like windshields, car hoods, and such were enough for us to each have one. Looking at other tables some people looked like they were trying to get as many bricks into their build as possible hoping to take it home. We tried to be fair and be done when we built what we wanted to build. The book that came with everything was nice too. It has a story and activities about Emmet and the other master builder trying to build a machine to travel through the worlds. There are pictures throughout of pieces needed for the machine which you can build at home. It also has ideas and links to combine sets from themes out right now (A creator car with the lion legend beast for instance). Over all the book was a nice value by itself even if we could not take our builds home. So anyone else have stories from their events?

margot

Forgot all about it. Oh well.. doesn't sound like we missed much.

SirBen

I attended this event today with my four and six year-olds. The event we attended was very well organized and run in an orderly fashion. A store associate was checking the RSVP list at our location, and they had tables ready with the booklets set out like place-mats. The pieces were sorted by type in clear plastic containers on a table at the front of the area. A few minutes after 1:00 the store associate running the event announced that she would be dismissing the children by table so that they could come get the parts that they thought they would need for their creations, and that once everyone had a turn they could come back up for additional parts as they needed while they were building. She also announced that she would be handing out bags for the kids to carry their pieces in and that they should keep their bags so that they could carry their creations home. There was also a small backdrop of Bricksburg for the kids to get a photo taken of their creations. We were told the photos would be posted on the store's website, but I've not been able to find them yet but will link them if I can find them. The kids were all courteous and there were plenty of pieces to go around. Each of my kids had fun and ended up building 4-wheeled vehicles. The Adventure Builder's booklet is printed on a nice thick, glossy stock, and regularly references downloadable instructions at lego.com/adventurebuilder It was a good experience for our family, and I won't hesitate to attend another B&N event like this one.

dannyrww

Wow. Sounds much more organized than ours...not saying we didn't have a good time but your store really knows how to run an event. We took pictures of our own builds. No one was taking pictures for their website at ours. I'll probably post ours up Monday (left my usb cord up at school for the camera I used).

SirBen

Yes, having been to a number of chaotic TRU build events, I was very impressed by the staff and organization at this store.

I also wanted to note that most, if not all, of the pieces seem to have come from set #70804: Ice Cream Machine. Thus the abundance of Modified 4 x 4 Black Plates with 2 x 2 Cutouts and dark pink & lime green pieces.

dannyrww

I was thinking that too. Not quite everything you would need to build the ice cream truck but quite a lot of pieces from it. I was thinking my younger daughters car looks a little ice cream truckish. We built the portal machine from the book when we got home (rather I did..the girls want me to read the book to them and build it while I read it). We had all the parts just not in the colors listed. Interesting note that the one in the book has a slight difference in parts from the directions online.

starfire2

Does anyone have pics of the book?

dannyrww

Not yet but go to lego.com/adventurebuilder and you can see the cover and directions for the combo builds

aimlesspursuits

@starfire2 I've uploaded the pictures to here

bige1998

I took my two kids on 3/1 and I have to say it was the most disorganized event I have attended.

The start time was 2pm, we arrived early and at 2pm they were just setting up the tables. Around 2:10 they had the kids who RSVP'd for a line to check in. Once they were checked in they were handed a clear bag with parts. They went to tables and started to build. Then they announced to the kids to form a line and take five bricks from each bag along the wall. I would say there was about 15 bags of assorted shapes and colors. By the time our kids got up to the bags it was 2:50.

They missed out on getting windshields for the build and only had two wheels. I think each kid walked out with close to 100 bricks.

aimlesspursuits

I took my son to one and it wasn't bad. It was organized. They handed out the Adventure Builder books to the kids first. (The book was quite nice even though its just a big advertisement for LEGO products.) Then they had the kids start building around two long fold out tables which were almost spilling over with parts.

My only surprise at the event was that my son was reluctant to build at first. He actually does a lot of free building at home with his LEGO as his sets never stay in one piece. (There are a lot of battles that occur in our home between mini-figs.) :) But after he started building he got into it and had a fun time.

I hope B&N and LEGO do more of this type of event.

^^I the scanned pages of the book and uploaded them to Dropbox, https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5bzvci40k1atrx1/wA4QEwDjsG. I was in a bit of a rush when I originally posted the link.

dannyrww

A mixed bag it would seem...some organized some not and some in between. Makes me think of the early days of Toys R Us builds where it was just chaos.