Santa's Workshop Unveiled at Bricks by the Bay

[Hapori Tohu]

Bricks by the Bay is taking place this weekend in San Francisco, CA and attendees there are being treated to a set reveal tonight. LEGO is announcing 10245 Santa's Workshop, the latest in the Winter Village theme of sets. The set will be available via VIP Early Access starting September 17th and for everyone else on October 1st. To see the designer video, more images, and the full press release, read on!

 

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[Vorahk1Panrahk2]

Very nice! Liking the build of the conveyer belt, and Santa's chair is pretty cute, too.

[Takanuinuva]

is that santa the same one as the Collectible Minifigures one?

[Ballom Nom Nom]

What, no Rudolph? That would have been so easy to do, with swapping the brown round stud piece used for the nose out for a trans-red one.

 

~B~

Edited August 9, 2014 by Ballom

[Smitty]

is that santa the same one as the Collectible Minifigures one?

He looks the same, mine is packed up with the rest of the Christmas stuff so I can't be 100% sure. The only difference I see is the Collectible Minifig came with a tan sack, this one has red, but the minifigs appear to be the same.

[Spiderus Prime]

I so getting this set so I can finally get a Minifigure Santa.

[Lyichir]

This set looks great! I love all the details... the vacation photo, the doormat reading "Welcome Ho-Ho-Home", the "Santa Needs YOU" poster in the workshop itself, the GORGEOUS armchair, and the fact that one of the toys the elves are making is a SPACESHIP!!!

I wonder if this will be the last of the "Winter Village" sets... it would certainly make a good capper for the series if they decided to do something different for the Christmas season next year.

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention... this DOES make me a little bitter about the lack of official Lego presence at BrickFair VA this year. For the past few years, it had been the site of the Winter Village reveal... but this year we didn't even get a Q&A session.

Edited August 9, 2014 by Lyichir

[xccj]

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention... this DOES make me a little bitter about the lack of official Lego presence at BrickFair VA this year. For the past few years, it had been the site of the Winter Village reveal... but this year we didn't even get a Q&A session.

They didn't want to face the barage of Bionicle questions. Obviously that must be the driving reason.

 

I don't know, this set just doesn't appeal to me. The brick built reindeer seem a little sloppy to me compared to other animal designs we've seen in the past. The minifigures are underwelming in that they hardly utilize any new designs. And the building just doesn't call to me. Not to say this is a bad set by any means; it does a great job of capturing the theme, and seems to have a good parts value to it. I guess it's just not something I'd want personally. But hope those who do like it can get their hands on it.

 

[Toa Smoke Monster]

What, no Rudolph? That would have been so easy to do, with swapping the brown round stud piece used for the nose out for a trans-red one.

 

~B~

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought Rudolph would've made a great addition to this set.

 

Anyway, I like how the minifigs looks. The reindeer, however, don't have the best designs. Like xccj said above, they kind of look a little sloppy. But everything else about this set looks good to me.

[Black Six]

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention... this DOES make me a little bitter about the lack of official Lego presence at BrickFair VA this year. For the past few years, it had been the site of the Winter Village reveal... but this year we didn't even get a Q&A session.

BrickFair Virginia is hardly the only event not getting Kevin Hinkle this year. With so many events, the CEE Team had to scale back their participation, so Kevin is only going to six events in the Americas this year: Philly Brick Fest, Brick Slopes, BrickWorld, Brick Fete, BrickFair New Jersey, and an event in South America whose name escapes me.

 

That said, BrickFair Virginia did have Peter Espersen come give a talk about LEGO Ideas and he answered questions for quite a while afterwards. Other events have still gotten LEGO employees as well - Bricks Cascade had Keith Severson (Kevin's boss) and BrickFair New England had Jamie Berard and Tim Courtney (among others). So the company is doing their best to support the fan events as much as they can.

 

As far as the set reveals go - it's up to the Direct 2 Consumer division of TLG to decide when those will be announced. The CEE Team just works to find a fan event happening near that time that they can be revealed at.

[Crunchyn]

Bricks by the Bay takes place at Santa Clara, not San Francisco though it's all San Francisco Bay Area. Am going there myself tomorrow for the public exhibition.

Edited August 9, 2014 by CrunchbiteNuva

[believe victims]

is that supposed to be a Classic Space spaceship on the conveyor belt? nice touch.

[Lyichir]

 

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention... this DOES make me a little bitter about the lack of official Lego presence at BrickFair VA this year. For the past few years, it had been the site of the Winter Village reveal... but this year we didn't even get a Q&A session.

BrickFair Virginia is hardly the only event not getting Kevin Hinkle this year. With so many events, the CEE Team had to scale back their participation, so Kevin is only going to six events in the Americas this year: Philly Brick Fest, Brick Slopes, BrickWorld, Brick Fete, BrickFair New Jersey, and an event in South America whose name escapes me.

 

That said, BrickFair Virginia did have Peter Espersen come give a talk about LEGO Ideas and he answered questions for quite a while afterwards. Other events have still gotten LEGO employees as well - Bricks Cascade had Keith Severson (Kevin's boss) and BrickFair New England had Jamie Berard and Tim Courtney (among others). So the company is doing their best to support the fan events as much as they can.

 

As far as the set reveals go - it's up to the Direct 2 Consumer division of TLG to decide when those will be announced. The CEE Team just works to find a fan event happening near that time that they can be revealed at.

 

Yeah, I understand Peter Espersen was there, but honestly he didn't have much to talk about that hadn't either been covered online (in blog posts and discussions about the development of the Exo-Suit) or the year before (at the Lego Cuusoo panel with Tim Courtney). Otherwise, we got nothing—no set designers, no CEE Team members, no one else whatsoever. While I understand that Kevin Hinkle has a busy schedule and there are more and more Lego fan events each year, Brickfair VA is the biggest Lego convention in North America, and was bigger this year than it had ever been before. They ought to be able to spare more than one employee to represent the company.

 

Lego's presence at San Diego Comic Con this year was enormous, with four panels each featuring people I'd love to have gotten to listen and talk to, and I worry that that also may have come at the expense of BrickFair. If so, there's nothing keeping the same thing from happening next year. I've gone Kevin-less for two years straight and don't want that to happen again next year.

Edited August 9, 2014 by Lyichir

[Black Six]

Yeah, I understand Peter Espersen was there, but honestly he didn't have much to talk about that hadn't either been covered online (in blog posts and discussions about the development of the Exo-Suit) or the year before (at the Lego Cuusoo panel with Tim Courtney). Otherwise, we got nothing—no set designers, no CEE Team members, no one else whatsoever. While I understand that Kevin Hinkle has a busy schedule and there are more and more Lego fan events each year, Brickfair VA is the biggest Lego convention in North America, and was bigger this year than it had ever been before. They ought to be able to spare more than one employee to represent the company.

Peter's talk may have been old hat for you, but not everyone follows the Ideas blog or reads all the stories that come out.

 

As far as Kevin's presence goes, in talking to him, part of the decision to leave large events like BrickFair VA and BrickCon off his list was because they are so big. A large event has enough momentum of its own to keep it going and doesn't need Kevin or a special guest to help draw people in. This was the biggest BrickFair ever and there wasn't even a CEE team representative - that should speak volumes about the community and how awesome we are.

 

Lego's presence at San Diego Comic Con this year was enormous, with four panels each featuring people I'd love to have gotten to listen and talk to, and I worry that that also may have come at the expense of BrickFair. If so, there's nothing keeping the same thing from happening next year. I've gone Kevin-less for two years straight and don't want that to happen again next year.

LEGO is made up of many different groups and teams (and on an international level, different companies). The group responsible for the Comic Con presence is the marketing group. The CEE Team is responsible for LEGO's presence at fan conventions. Each has their own budget that reflects what they do and how much business they bring into the company. Comic Con is over 130 times larger than the AFOL presence at BrickFair VA, so obviously they get more money for more panels, more set reveals, and a huge booth. The CEE Team instead uses their (much smaller) budget to provide free sets for attendees, provide bulk brick to the event, and, if they can, send employees. But they only have so much budget to spread among a lot of events, and they can't be everywhere.

 

In my opinion, I'd rather they do things like this to support the community rather than host a Q&A answering the same questions over and over again. We're already LEGO fans, and what many of us want is more LEGO! Now don't get me wrong, I missed not having Kevin at BrickFair, but I understand why he wasn't there.