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With Brad Justus now moving on to bigger and better things, this seems as good a
time as any to share something I threw together almost a year ago, just after
coming back from BricksWest 2003:
http://www.thereverend.com/brad_justice
Though it has a little fun at Brad's expense (which is why I hesitated to share
it in the first place), it was more meant to parody the whole nature of Q & A
sessions at AFOL LEGO events, where 90% of the questions are ones that just
can't be answered. I honestly think Brad did a commendable job at such events,
and no disrespect meant! I wish him the best of luck in his future career, be
it as a superhero or as an employee Informative, Inc. @8^)
-The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith
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Hopefully people have archived whatever they needed to archive from the site.
In particular the presentations are good to have archived. ILTCO has most if
not all the train presentations in the library (and Mike is busily adding the
BF 03 ones as we speak) but the ILTCO site is unreachable at the moment.
That’s just a temporary thing, I am sure.
Hope that helps.
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I have all the BW 2002 and 2003 presentations and stuff archived on the
“offical” Brickswest gallery on Brickshelf. (Matt gave me his blessings in 2002
to make this account for the BW stuff)
You can reach BW2002 here:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=12626
You can reach BW2003 here:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=30726
-AHui
A&M LWorks
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In lugnet.events.brickswest, John Cooper wrote:
> The BricksWest.com website seems to have disappeared off the web. It was
> available a week or two ago, even though it had not been updated since
> BricksWest 2003. Draw your own conclusions.
At first I thought maybe this was just another site hosted on NorthStar that was
having temporary trobules, but WHOIS seems to show the domain as recently (24
Aug 2003) expired.
http://www.register.com/whois-results.cgi?212c22764453f50e94b497a0207a7998d68de78af5ca947f188dd24c248841216a5fa70a6225be5e785ab5187b44e1abe064a7f657b570f9
(not sure if that link will work for you or not, if not, just go to register.com
and do a search on brickswest.com then follow the WHOIS link)
Hopefully people have archived whatever they needed to archive from the site. In
particular the presentations are good to have archived. ILTCO has most if not
all the train presentations in the library (and Mike is busily adding the BF 03
ones as we speak) but the ILTCO site is unreachable at the moment. That's just a
temporary thing, I am sure.
Hope that helps.
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The BricksWest.com website seems to have disappeared off the web. It was
available a week or two ago, even though it had not been updated since
BricksWest 2003. Draw your own conclusions.
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In lugnet.events.brickswest, Frank Filz wrote:
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That will help (last year the public did continue past the 4 PM time
frame as I recall).
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Last year we were unable to control the venue since we were spread out all over
the Center House. This year, since we have our own room, we will be able to
close the doors and tell them to come back the next day.
Having more private hours was a priority in our planning this year.
-Grand Admiral and Keeper of Fleebnorks
“Adopt a fleebnork. They’re DYING!” -Sally Struthers
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Grand Admiral wrote:
>
> In lugnet.events.brickswest, Frank Filz wrote:
> > - pirate game unlikely (after last year's experience, I just don't see it
> > happening, there isn't time or energy)
>
> Whoaaaa there, son. We recognized that downside from last year, and made efforts
> to rectify the situation this time around.
>
> We specifically are separating public and private hours this year to accomodate
> things like your Pirate Game. Since we have a single large conference room, we
> are having public hours from 10am-4pm, then we close the doors and have private
> attendee hours from 4pm-12am. There will be LOTS of time for the Pirate Game to
> take place.
That will help (last year the public did continue past the 4 PM time
frame as I recall). The concern I still have is having enough energy
after catering to the public for 6 hours. I know that when a show is
over for the day, I don't feel like doing a whole lot.
I'm just going to have to decide which event I want to go to, and then
assuming I do go to NW BrickCon, I'll have to see how it actually goes.
Note also that there have to be players who feel like it...
Frank
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In lugnet.events.brickswest, Frank Filz wrote:
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- pirate game unlikely (after last year’s experience, I just don’t see it happening, there isn’t time or energy)
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Whoaaaa there, son. We recognized that downside from last year, and made efforts
to rectify the situation this time around.
We specifically are separating public and private hours this year to accomodate
things like your Pirate Game. Since we have a single large conference room, we
are having public hours from 10am-4pm, then we close the doors and have private
attendee hours from 4pm-12am. There will be LOTS of time for the Pirate Game to
take place.
So don’t count that as a minus. :)
-Grand Admiral and Keeper of Fleebnorks
“Adopt a fleebnork. They’re DYING!” -Sally Struthers
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> I wonder why this must be the case. BrickFest started quite well as a
> purely fan event
For a time. But it is growing and incorporating the public. Is it not?
Take SciFi cons for example. You pay to get in, boy to you pay, but I can
go and wander about if I wish. I won't get the extras but I can wander about.
Now I believe your average attendance for a SciFi con goes into the hundreds, if
not thousands. That's what supports that SciFi con. They don't really need the
public wandering about. It has a healthy fan base to support it.
We don't have one hundred LEGO fans in Seattle, much less a thousand. We
need as much public as possible to pay for what the fans cannot. Also, I'm
looking for converts. Then we can have our more propper "con." We'll have a
base to support it.
> Are people in the North West really that stingy?
Not really but no one wanted to pay $75 to see the same people on the weekend in
downtown Seattle. Plus, that's our carrot. Keep the costs for the fans
minimal. Heck, we got LEGO to buy! Priorities man!
I hope you'll make it out. Our public will be locked out at 4PM. We got the
space til midnight. There will be time for mingling. Also, we're looking at an
established sign in volunteer sheet, so no one gets stuck in the same spot all
day long. We're growing and learning, I hope you'll stick with us.
Mark
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Mark wrote:
>
> > The public attendance factor is an interesting one. To me, it matters
> > not much.
>
> I'm glad you brought this up.
> If we want cons to live we need the public. Let that sink in for a sec. For as
> diverse a group as we have here in the NW, it cannot support a regional
> convention by its fans alone. Won't happen. People balk at the money. So what
> do we do, we comprimise. We try to give time for the fans, this year we have a
> space that we can lock, but the public is coming, and they'll pay to get in.
I wonder why this must be the case. BrickFest started quite well as a
purely fan event. We didn't even really have an idea what the draw of
the outlet store would be. Obviously it was some draw, and there will be
some number of folks more willing to attend an event with a LEGOland or
outlet store draw. Are people in the North West really that stingy? Of
course we do have a lower population within reasonable driving distance
than DC has, and it's more of a pain to fly to than DC. There may also
be some differences in how available space is (though I know the GMU
space is not free - I had assumed it was very low cost based on the low
price for BF 2000, of course we also only had 3 class rooms and some
lobby space).
I'm not saying that the public attendance is a bad thing, but I have to
say that I'm very torn between NW BrickCon and the truck tour this year.
To me either one is basically a public show. The plusses and minuses I
see. I've also included a hypothetical BrickFest 2000 like con that I
would have to fly to for example.
NW Brick Con:
+ more AFOLs will participate
+ larger display
+ maintain my complete US brick con brick badge collection
+ support brick cons
+ will have at least some fan interraction
- entry cost
- drive to Seattle
- need for arranging a place to stay
- pirate game unlikely (after last year's experience, I just don't see
it happening, there isn't time or energy)
Truck Tour:
+ local
+ direct interraction with LEGO
+ support the local folks
+ free
- smaller display
- limited fan interraction
- no pirate game
Hypothetical BrickFest 2000 like con:
+ lots of fan interraction
+ pirate game for sure
+ medium size display (BF 2000 had less on display than NWBC 2002, plus
flying would limit how much I could bring for display)
- entry cost
- need to fly to
- hotel room
This hypothetical brick con is probably still a tough sell (I'm starting
to smart from all the costs of flying). Now if the hypothetical brick
con was within 6 hours driving (so I didn't need to use any vacation
days for travel - though the travel would be brutal), it would win hands
down.
But I'm me. I know from talking to some people at NW Brick Con last year
that they got a lot out of showing to the public. I do agree that we
need more ways for non-train folks to share with the public.
I also agree very much with Stephen that the Sunday open doors at
BrickFest was a good thing. Without it, I might have run a pirate game,
but I also very much liked sitting and selling parts, and I might have
still chosen to do that instead of running the pirate game (and would
not have sold as much without the public - almost all of my sales on
Sunday were to the public). Of course for me the thing that recovered
Sunday the most was that I had done my outlet shopping on Friday (though
that killed Friday somewhat but not entirely).
Frank
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Mark P wrote:
> This is a community here, and it does not look like that was taken into
> consideration by the planners (whoever they are) of this BFpart2. I am sure many
> of us would have been more than happy to lend a hand but now it just seems like
> we were left out in the cold - and thats just not a cool feeling in any way.
I'm sorry that people feel left out, but an event can't be planned with
100s of people. While some (all?) of the brick cons were initially
kicked off with a public call for interest, they quickly took the
planning private (however, I believe this years BricksWest invited too
many people onto the internal discussion - causing unecessary strife).
Unfortunately there is a bit of an information vaccuum because Steve
made an announcement Saturday, but presumably won't really have net
access until today.
I also know that numerous people have been involved in the initial
planning for this event. Now that a public announcement has been made,
more people will be invited to be involved. I also know that people in
SC were consulted about the feelings on doing 2004 in Portland. Perhaps
not everyone who should have been consulted was, but I know Steve felt
he had to contain this discussion.
There is a big problem that now is the time to get the ball rolling.
Unfortunately, due to how things were playing out with Brick Media
Productions, people felt they had to walk on eggshells. That means
keeping the list of people in discussions small. We still don't know
what all has transpired, and until some people come public with how they
have been affected, some of us don't feel comfortable talking about all
the details that led to the decision to go forward.
Frank
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