Report
[Steve in a schleiming good position]
Dear LEGO Fans!
Slowly the lack of sleep
is over and the office live got me back. But there are still many
many unordered impressions around. Even while sleeping I should have
murmured something in English.
We (René,
Axel, HoMa, Ben) didn't only traveled to BrickFest PDX to have fun –
which we had – also we presented ourselves as embassadors of the
German fan plattforms 1000steine.de
and FGLTC.org.
Besides this we also wanted to collect information on "community-development",
how to organize, finanze and run such a fest. And picking up ideas about
organisation issues, dirty brickster (as a nice game to get to know
each other) and PR work. Finally the fun around and with the bricks
and the fans wasn'T shortened at all.
[James and Jake
showing a 6-wide traincar]
James Mathis, Todd Lehmann,
John Neal, Lenny Hoffmann, Ben Fleskes, Teunis Javier, Ross Crawford,
Frank Filz, Dan Parker and Dan Husby ... just to name a few extraordinary
personalities which I was able to meet in person. But I will start
to go along the timeline.
The idea about a BrickFest
visit raised shortly after the 2003 LEGOWORLD in Zwolle (Netherlands)
where I allready met some US LEGO fans. HoMa also meet Steve and Christina
while visiting Billund in autumn 2003. By this time we were separatly
asked to join the PrickFest PDX. To gether some more ideas for the
1000steine-Land in Berlin, René and Axel also joined in.
HoMa organized
some really cheap flight tickets on the web and times and dates where
fixed in November last year. On Tuesday (Feb 10th, 2004) we flew from
Frankfurt to Chicago (8.5 hours) and another 4.5 hours to Portland at
the westcoast of the USA. Due to the different timezones it was 2:00
a.m. so we were heading for the Oregon Convention Centre (OCC) right
after our arrival at the Red Lion hotel. It was overwelming huge, there
isn't anything in comparision in Germany.
[Convention Center
model by Jeremy Rear]
The part of the OCC where
the BF was held would have been cost 15.000 $ for three days. But
Jeremy Rear build a LEGO model of the Convention Centre which will
be displayed at the real OCC for one year. So the rooms were for free
... sometimes it needs luck and good conections to run a LEGO-Fest.
Pudie, Tretty and Axel might confirm this.
Even on Tuesday (our first)
day we were invitated for dinner at Steve's house and had a very warm
welcome from Steve and his wife. The next day we did some sightseeing
in Portland. It was 15 °C warm, Portland has 2 million inhabitants
and is 100 miles south of Seattle ... which you can see on a huge
number of music stores and often very rainy wether ;-)
On Thursday afternoon the
first actions started in the OCC. The German crew was the first team
apearing on the site and we sat up our MOCs and welcomed the first
other visitors. Many friendly "Hellos" and some chaos. There
was a table layout ... but to many different version. It seems to
be a bit unorganised – but the chaos came to an end till Sunday
(open for the public).
Due to an accident with
the family, Ben Fleskes the train-coordinator was late and the chaos
on the train layout went even bigger. On Friday we discovered the
first islands of finished and beautiful worked out layouts. But BrickFest
isn't an expo, it has more like a meeting and get-together character.
There was a misunderstanding on our side. The PNLTC (Pacific North
West Train Club) for example runs a train layout for the audience
at least every 8 weeks ... so they might be less interested in setting
up a perfect layout for other LEGO fans.
Only on Sunday the event
was open to the public (tickets at 5 $). Everything looked great on
Sunday, including the table covers. The MOC quality was extremly high
– very impressive. And there was every LEGO theme in the main
room: Trains and Town, Technic and Model Team, Space !!! and Moonbase,
Castle and Pirates. There was also a huge foyer to meet people, two
session rooms with high tech mulitmedia equipment, an auditorium with
150 seats, and a smaller expo room.
Every evening
we had a 2 hour ceremony (which was never too short) with reviews on
the day, announcements for the next day, doorprizes and other speeches.
Steve did a brilliant speech about LEGO magic at the beginning of BrickFest
PDX. Probaly the best man I ever heard talking to a huge group. But
Steve wasn't only a brilliant presenter, he also did excellent jobs
in organisation, leader of his team, sportsman, familyman, full of humour,
and always friendly and helpful – just a great guy!
[Ben's presentation]
Another important part
of the BrickFest were the presentations and sessions. There was a
full range of themes: Bionicle, new websites, LDraw.org, The Brick
Testament or the BBB train wheels. HoMa talked about being a LEGO
fan in Germany and his Desert Express MOC and his trip to Namibia.
I talked about building in odd sizes (7-wide) ... all chairs were
covered in my session. I discussed pros and cons for different width
for LEGO trains (6-, 7- or 8-wide) and I talked about some building
techniques like offset building with the AZMEP
brick. The atmosphere was very relaxed and I really enjoyed my talk
and the presentation.
[Afterhour party]
The whole days in Portland
were charaterized by many many friendly and nice LEGO fans, lots of
talks and good and too much (fast) food. On Sunday evening everything
was cleared up very fast and most of the fans met another time at
the hotel bar "Windows" on top of the Red Lion hotel and
some "after work" partys in the rooms :-)
On Monday morning John
Neal showed us McGriddle at McDonald's ... a US-must-have-breakfast?
And by lunchtime – too early – we left Portland city with
the MAX streetcar to get the airport.
I'd like to say thank you
to all whom welcomed us so friendly, gave us food, bricks and shirts
and to those who had partys with us, who showed their MOCs ... to
all who made the BrickFest PDX 2004 an unforgetable experience! Thanks!
P.S.: some
more highlights form the BrickFest PDX::
-
"Dirty Brickster"
-
All visitors
got a perfect T-Shirt, name batches, the BrickFest PDX minifig, the
event program, LEGO brochures, a CD-ROM with all presentation files
and a Valentine's heart.
[Schleim guys]
-
Schleim
... not much more to talk about :-]
-
Derek's
Mum
-
Q+A with
Jake, Tormod and Kate also joined in ...
-
New record
in the LEGO-ISD build: 01:09:22! And the fastest disassembly also:
1.4 sec. form a heigtht of 5 metres. No LEGO brick was broken in this
toss.
-
We realised
that there are many many people out there reading or digging for new
pics at 1000steine.de
-
A 3 x 8
baseplates mosaic form Portland
-
A huge USA
mosaic showing the places all the US guys are coming from
-
Larry P.
did his best at live-ebay
-
This was
our funniest and coolest LEGO event ever!
[(report
by Ben, February 19th, 2004, pics and translation by HoMa]
|
... a schleiming experience