BrickUniverse Wrapup Part 1

[Hapori Tohu]

Late last month BrickUniverse took place in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was a first-time event, so no one was quite sure of what to expect, but the turnout was great and I think we all had a lot of fun. There were a lot of great MOCs on display, with a whole bunch from BZPower members; in fact, the display had a heavy Bionicle vibe to it. To take a look at what was there, read on!

 

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[Aanchir]

I enjoyed this event, small as it was. I got a lot of positive comments on my MOCs and art, and Delwyn Buckler actually won the "Best Small Creation" award! The public days were surprisingly busy for an event so new and so small. My favorite public visitor had to be the guy with the awesome BIONICLE tattoos!

 

Shame there was nobody on hand to supervise the BZPower guest book this year... a lot of kids signed it who clearly didn't understand the point and thought it was there for anybody to scrawl their name in, regardless of whether they were a BZPower member. Some people even started signing the pages for earlier conventions.

It was cool to meet Imatron and see his MOCs. They're a lot more impressive in person than in pictures thanks to all the creative functions he integrated into them. I also got to spend some quality time hanging out with other BZPower members who I don't often get a chance to see, and other LEGO fans in general.

As I more or less expected, there was some griping from AFOLs on other sites like Brickset about so much of the display space being dominated by BIONICLE (some were bothered by it being BIONICLE in the first place, others by the BZPower area not consisting of local creations). But from my experience many of the public visitors were very impressed by the event.

[Saint-14]

The display looks impressive (and the mural looks fantastic!)

 

Small note, though: I'm unfortunately not from Delta Junction, although I'm sure it's a nice community I'm actually from a city in Ontario, which I'm sure is probably just as cold as Alaska right now

[Makuta Pokaryon]

I enjoyed this event, small as it was. I got a lot of positive comments on my MOCs and art, and Delwyn Buckler actually won the "Best Small Creation" award! The public days were surprisingly busy for an event so new and so small. My favorite public visitor had to be the guy with the awesome BIONICLE tattoos! 

Yeah that was me Its still a work in progress, just had Gali added a few days before the event. I plan on posting pics when it's finished.

[Imatron]

Thanks Aanchir! It was great meeting you and the other BZP people too. Everything you guys brought in was great, and I wish I could have had a better look at all the Bionicle stuff that wasn't mine, but I was busy guarding my tanks all day XP. Having you and the other BZP'ers show me the little details up close was the best part of the event, when I took video of the creations I tried to go over each one and even went behind to get the backs of the creations. And after all that work trying to play any of them crashes my computer >__<

 

As far as the AFOLs complaining about it being mostly BIONICLE goes, Greyson had more than enough space for anyone who wanted to register and bring in brick based creations, the problem was that not many people actually brought any in. If it wasn't for the Bionicle community bringing in their stuff, the fan zone would simply have been half the size, and not populated instead with more brick creations. If you look at how wide the aisles were, and how Greyson had room for building tables, bounce houses, a duplo zone, coloring stations, even how much space the fan zone had inside the ring of tables, you could see he had a surplus of space, and was doing his best to use it up. He could easily have made room for 8 times the content that was brought in by condensing the surplus space down. I really have to give Breyson credit, as small as I felt the event was, it was well planned and the turnout for Brick Universe's public days was huge compared to the last Brick Magic. With any luck this means he has enough attention to get a much larger afol community to attend next year.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Imatron