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I’ve been taking a lot of photos of LEGO people and their creations
over the past 18 months, and right after I got back from NWBrickCon 2003,
I thought it would be fun to see what all those photos looked like in
an ultra-fast chronological photo montage ripping by at 24 frames per
second. The result was a 9-minute “movie”:
- Small (120x120, 49.7 MB, MPEG video, 00:09:05)
- Medium (240x240, 145.2 MB, MPEG video, 00:09:05)
- Large (480x480, 410.7 MB, MPEG video, 00:09:05)
If you want to see the photos at a slower pace, load the large version
into Apple’s QuickTime player and use the right and left arrow keys to
go through the images. (Hope you have fast net connection. :-)
Somewhere in the middle of the montage are two time-lapse sequences taken
during the PNLTC show last April at the Oregon Convention Center. These
sequences can be viewed separately -- at high-quality wide-screen DVD
resolution -- in the following two files:
- Neverending Crowd (768x320, 66.7 MB, QuickTime video, 00:02:22)
Tens of thousands of people showed up to view the PNLTC layout. If it weren’t for free food and drinks from Starbucks, everyone in PNLTC would have passed out from exhaustion and dehydration (except Steve Barile, who was busy causing train wrecks). This is a 2,589-frame time-lapse sequence taken between 12:45pm and 4:21pm on Saturday, April 18, 2003. See if you can find Jon Rasmussen’s infamous “Teriyaki Shuffle” (hint: it’s in the first 10 seconds). - Teardown (768x432, 110.0 MB, QuickTime video, 00:01:31)
Teardown of everything took only 90 minutes. This is a 1,656-frame time-lapse sequence taken between 9:12pm and 11:30pm on Sunday, April 19, 2003. My favorite parts are the tables coming apart, the carts filling up, and the banner coming down. Incidentally, this video proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jeremy Rear is indeed bionic.
People (and/or their creations) captured in the montage include
TJ Avery, Steve Barile, John Barnes, Mark Benz, Ross Benz, Jamie Berard,
Cris Berneburg, Dan Boger, Jennifer Boger, Lindsay Braun, Kai Broderson,
Daniel Brown, Doug Carlson, Ken Cefaratti, Bruce Chamberlain, Will Chapman,
Matthew Chiles, Cary Clark, Jennifer Clark, Rick Clark, Russell Clark, Joe
Comeau, Scott Costello, Tim Courtney, Gregory Cross, Jonathan Dallas, Sid
Dinsay, Shiri Dori, Adrian Drake, Tom Duggan, Remy Eagan, David Eaton,
Frank Filz, Abner Finley, Stephen Fisher, Ben Fleskes, Jim Foulds, Tim
Freshly, Thomas Garrison, Matthew Gerber, Chris Giddens, Jared Gilbert,
Ashley Glennon, Keith Goldman, Neal Goldman, Felix Greco, Jim Green,
Suzanne Green, Matthew Greene, Nicholas Greene, Mark Hafner, Tony Hafner,
Constantine Hannaher, David Harris, Michael Harrod, Joel Hart, Bob Hayes,
Rob Hendrix, Christina Hitchcock, Dean Husby, Xandria Husby, Wayne Hussey,
Gus Janssen, Daniel Jassim, Jenny Johnson, Brad Justus, Eric Kingsley,
Edward Kohl, Jason Krish, Todd Kubo, Joel Kuester, Rick Kujawa, Bram
Lambrecht, Terri Landers, Magnus Langlo, Chris Leach, Joe Lee, Henry Lim,
Benjamin Liston, Kevin Loch, Bruce Lowell, Andrew Lynch, Scott Lyttle,
Chris Maddison, Thomas Main, Jason Mantor, James Mathis, David Mayhew,
Bryce McGlone, Gary McIntire, Jake McKee, Brian McLean, Fuzzface McMahon,
David Michon, Susan Michon, Ted Michon, Thomas Michon, Judy Miller,
Jonathan Mizner, Randy Morrison, Aaron Muhl, Marc Nelson Jr., Mark Neumann
and Raven, Erik Olson, Jon Palmer, Jimmy Park, Dan Parker, Kenny Paul, Greg
Perry, Chris Phillips, Larry Pieniazek, Dave Porter, Scott Quirk, Thomas
Rafert, Jeff Ranjo, Jon Rasmussen, Jeremy Rear, Michael Ripley, Soren
Roberts, Roger Rothar, Jason Rowoldt, Ryan Rubino, John Rudy, Mark Sandlin,
Robin Sather, Andrew Schilling, David Schilling, Derek Schin, Ben Schwartz,
Richard Shamus, Adam Silcott, Paul Sinasohn, Daniel Siskind, Brendan Powell
Smith, Robin Smith, Aaron Sneary, Eric Sophie, Barbara Sproat, Jeremy
Sproat, Mark Staffa, Tom Stangl, Jeff Stembel, Shaun Sullivan, Kate Sutch,
Todd Thuma, Kim Toll, Calum Tsang, Lewis Valentine III, Jeff Van Winden,
Bill Ward, Brik Wars, Christopher Weeks, Teddy Welsh, Robin Werner, and
Sun Yun. (There are about 50 portraits too, but those aren’t part of the
montage.)
--Todd
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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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