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Yorkshire Brickshow
SirKevbags
Fairy Land Member Posts: 4,030
The good folks at Brickshire are hosting a fantastic event at the National Mining Museum at Wakefield on the 22nd and 23rd of February. Lots of amazing mocs on display and Fairy Bricks will be there. Thanks to @TheCableGuy we will be raffling off a new and sealed Tower Bridge. Also lots of great smaller prizes, many from Brickset members, donated at various times but more suited for prizes than children in hospital.
Entry is free so if you're in the area pop along and say hello. Another Tower Bridge will be live built over the weekend and you can have an hour on the bricks if you fancy it!
http://yorkshirebrickshow.co.uk/
Entry is free so if you're in the area pop along and say hello. Another Tower Bridge will be live built over the weekend and you can have an hour on the bricks if you fancy it!
http://yorkshirebrickshow.co.uk/
5
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Comments
:D
The room we're in is pretty much full, so plenty to see.
There's a lot of cardboard under table legs now...
There were definately more than three trestle tables... And DEFINATELY more than a handful of people! The place was heaving! I thought the 'spot the hero' sheet was a great idea, and enjoyed looking at all the MOCs (and recognising peoples name tags).
Traders seem a bit optimistically priced, but personalised figs seemed to be doing a good business and had a good spot by the exit.
I think I'd ban buggies in future as they were potentially a hazard, but over all there's obviously a market for a northern lego show!
It's all a learning curve, and I'm sure next year most of these issues will have been ironed out.
To put the numbers in perspective, if they'd been able to let everyone in, we'd have beaten the (one day) turnout for STEAM today - in a far smaller space. No-one expected that kind of turnout.
Arrived with my family at 10:10 am, joined the queue, finally got into the exhibition room at 11:55 !
To be honest we were not impressed by the exhibit's, the train layouts were basically Lego modulars, with road plates and current City vehicles, and a few Lego trains running around.
There were a few Mocs, IMHO the best was a four stud wide " Boris Master", but was disappointed that Mocs were few and far between.
As for prams, yes we took ours, try holding a baby for the best part of two hours queuing, far more dangerous were the idiots with rucksacks, I was hit once, my children several times, not once did anybody apologise, indeed my 7 year old gained a black eye thanks to a middle aged man, whom seemed annoyed that any child was even allowed in the place.
To those that didn't get in, tbh you didn't miss much, as quite a few others people agreed, the number of times people leaving the hall said as much to those queuing to get in, indeed we lost count of the times we were told.
As for parking, when we left at 13:00, the car park was full, and the line of parked cars on the roadside stretched down the road to the next village, approx 1/4 mile away.
As has been stated earlier, the museum staff were fantastic, but the Brickshire members seemed to be in their own little clique's, it would have been nice if at least one of them wandered amongst those queuing to thank them for coming, and apologising for the long delays.
Sorry to rant on, I have no wish to start any arguments, indeed I have thought long and hard before posting, but maybe there can be some lesson's learnt for tomorrow, or indeed in future events.
Thanks
I noticed the advert on brickset but it was mentioned in quite afew places due to the films release etc. Glad we didnt miss much. Ill take a look at the pictures, just sucks we drove all the way for it to not get in. On the plus side we did buy alot of chocolate and sweets from castleford.
Tip for anyone going tomorrow get there for when it opens.
The turnout was way beyond what either us as exhibitors expected and more importantly what the museum staff expected. A new event is always a gamble and the amount of work that goes into pulling this kind of thing of can't be underestimated. I stand by my opinion that the staff did a wonderful job. People can suggest that's easy for me to say as I didn't have to stand in line, fair enough but when there are more people than space what exactly are they supposed to do, beyond being polite. The venue can't be made bigger.
In my opinion there are some fantastic displays. Some featured retail sets but those were very much in the minority.
I spoke personally to over 500 people today. Not just a quick chat but conversations. All of the feedback was positive. Yes some found the standing in line with children difficult but accepted there wasn't much else that could have been done.
I witnessed Brickshire, Brickish, and Northern Brickworks members having a great time with the public all day. We had children building a Tower Bridge without drama and happy visitors so to suggest there were cliques between members is bordering on the ridiculous.
Was it a perfect day? Was it a perfect event? Of course it wasn't. Show me one that is. But enough of the negatives. For the first day of a first time exhibition to attract 3500 visitors is in my opinion to be applauded.
Yes, there was a lot of people there, but the way the people were managed needs resolving.
I speak from experience, having run a few events in the past.
You need to keep the general public happy, otherwise you have problems.!
Not wishIng to have a go, but feedback has to be acknowledged.
I can understood that the event was far more popular than anticipated, but I standby my obsevation of the standard of the exhibits.
Feedback is being acknowledged by both the venue and LUG members with regards to how the volume of people is managed. However in the thick of the action I doubt a perfect solution can be found. I've not planned an event like this so I'm not going to offer a solution. I would think though without knowledge of the venue and available staff that would be true of everyone else despite their experience.
On the whole the public were happy yesterday. Of course there were some people unhappy with the wait times and I completely understand that. Again though at 11am when way more people have arrived than expected I don't see what more could be done. You can't get a pint in a half pint pot.
As for the standard of exhibits, that is very much a statement of opinion. In mine there were some fantastic displays from the large like the LEGO ARENA to the smaller scales like those offered by Jim Walshe. I can't see how a brick built football stadium that can be played with in a table football manner could be considered a retail set. I think everyone going to the time and expense of displaying should be congratulated. Not everyone can produce something like James Pegrum at STEAM and I doubt when he had been displaying for a year, as many members were yesterday that he could have either.
Shows and skills develop over time. It's never going to be perfect. STEAM which is on a yearly basis is the largest UK show has faced similar criticism in the past yet remains a huge weekend in the UK calendar. Of course there are lessons to learn here. Some changes will attempted to be made for next year but it will never be 100% perfect.
I appreciate this post is rather defensive but I honestly feel that there have been some over critical comments here, especially those directed at the "standard" of exhibits and I find that disappointing. Constructive criticism I'm sure would be welcomed by all builders but just saying that you didn't miss much by not getting in I personally feel is rather dismissive of everyone's hard work.
As for the modulars, I spoke to quite a few people who asked about them (about half of them were mocs), and everyone I spoke to or saw talking seemed impressed.
I say you do. Feedback I agree does have to be acknowledged but yours is not constructive it's is pointed and hurtful to people that it in a lot of effort.
Could it have been better yes. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. Lemons were given lemonade was made. The show was good I saw loads more happy faces than sad (the sad ones were normally kids who didn't get a toy from the shop.)
There will probably be q's again today. Nothing can be done about that now. But we will take on feedback for next time but even then not everybody will be pleased!
The comments about congestion are more representative, and I suspect that I'd also have been disappointed if I was queueing for hours. That having been said, it was the first time this event has ever been staged and you've got to start somewhere. Who could have known when the event was conceived, for instance, that the LEGO Movie would have captured the imagination of the public in the way it has ? Most wrote it off as a flop long before it appeared. No doubt lessons will have been learned, and next time the organisers will I'm sure try to find a bigger venue and/or charge for entry, both of which should ease the congestion.
And finally, well done to the organisers for putting on their first show !
They also stopped people joining the queue from 1pm, as the queue length at that point was about 2 1/2 hours, and the place closed at 4. Everyone who was in the queue got in and got a good look around though.
For a first event, I think it went really well, and the issues that there were, to be honest, weren't really foreseeable in advance. I'm absolutely certain that next year will be even better, and hopefully there'll be even more people displaying there next year too. It'd be nice to see some people from down south make the journey up to display some of their models ;)
I have only ever organised 1 event before, and it was tiny in comparison, so when I first booked the mining museum, I was worried that we wouldn't fill it with models, let alone people.
I was really chuffed when I contacted Northern Brickworks and Brickish members and they wanted to attend, as I realise that our LUG had a bit of a shaky start with other LUGs, which i've worked hard to repair. There are no cliques, just good friends, some of which know each other more than others. I've never personally met or spoken to a lot of the people who exhibited this weekend, and now I have new friends who I hope to see at more events in the future.
Everyone's displays were fantastic, even the ones with retail sets. Who wouldn't want to see an 8 carriage Metroliner running around a massive track? We also promoted 2 TFOLs at the event, and they did a fantastic job dealing with the public, and generally getting stuck in, they have now formed a friendship that I hope will lead to a TFOL specific LUG in the UK, supported by Brickshire, which something that TFOLs are crying out for.
I was up and down the queue several times asking how long people had waited, and most people were in reasonably good cheer considering the wait.
Yes we learned a lot, so did the museum. Since they opened 25 years ago, they have never had that many visitors... Even when princess Margaret visited a few months ago, but they adapted as quickly as they could. Next year we'll have more space, and a better plan.
I'm proud of each and every person that made the event a huge success: exhibitors, vendors, museum staff, the 6,600 patient public, and the hundreds of people who couldn't get in, but gave their time to get there and give constructive feedback. All of them deserve kudos for a show in the north that WILL happen again!
Sorry for the essay :)
I may be responsible for the crying about retail sets as I am an Architecture fan and took the opportunity to show off a selection of retail sets plus an Architecture Mod/MOC.
Whilst most kids took a glance then moved on to the bigger flasher MOCs I had loads of interest from adults who were surprised that Lego did such models and had lots of questions that I was more than happy to answer.
One of the keys to a good show must be a range of themes so as to appeal to all and I'm happy to have done my bit in promoting a very neglected theme.
I spent most of today overseeing the building table for the kids and had a ball. All the parents that I spoke to were happy despite the long wait to get in and it was nice to chat to them.
We talked to as many people as possible which, at times wasn't the easiest thing to do.
It was good to see such a wide variety of MOCs from everybody especially the TFOL's.
KT
It was indeed a pleasure to meet you too.
I'll be writing a full report for the FB website later in the week but huge thanks to everyone that took part in the building and ticket selling. Still some coins to count but it's looking like £1100 was raised :-)
I would have taken more but didn't want to impede the crowds.
I asked my friends kids what they enjoyed most, and he said the one with all the blood (can't remember who, but someone had made a custom zombie scene), so they made one 5 year old's day.
As a side note, I personally quite enjoy seeing sets/modulars 'in the brick', just as I do at an official Lego store. Especially if they've been used creatively in a scene. I'll never own the majority of these sets so it's fun to see them close-up.