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CARLSBAD: LEGOLAND(R) Inauguration model still attracting crowds.
By Renee Ramsey - For the North County Times. Jan. 31, 2009
CARLSBAD - Ten days after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, crowds
still were lining up to see a facsimile fashioned from thousands of miniature
plastic bricks at LEGOLAND California.
“I knew it was going to be a big deal, because of the importance of the
inauguration,” said LEGOLAND Master model designer Gary McIntire. “I didn’t
think it was going to explode quite the way it did.”
At the Carlsbad theme park Thursday, McIntire signed autographs for
camera-wielding visitors at the 7-foot-tall fake Capitol building and described
his first Facebook message of the day. “It said, ‘Are you Gary the LEGO guy from
CNN?’” he said.
Kristi Klein, a toy model designer who worked with McIntire on the LEGObama
set, said she received 1,000 hits on her blog on one recent day versus a normal
10 or 12.
“It’s amazing,” Klein said, adding that some wanted tips on how to make their
own LEGO Obama.
Julie Estrada, one of three members of the LEGOLAND public relations team that
came up with the idea to create the toy inauguration, still was fielding news
media calls this week, she said. A New Zealand radio station wants an interview
in February.
“I don’t think any of us expected the international attention,” Estrada said.
The news coverage that has spread to 48 states and dozens of countries since the
faux inauguration Jan. 15 and real one Jan. 20, she said.
McIntire and Klein have adjusted the inauguration’s 4-inch-tall toy figures in
the park’s Miniland USA section to reflect clothing worn for the real event in
Washington, D.C. The original outfits had been based on guesswork, they said,
adding that the president’s dark suit and red tie proved a good guess.
Michelle Obama’s red dress now is made of yellow bricks. First daughter Sasha’s
outfit now is pink with an orange-brick scarf. An ornate letter “B” borrowed
from a Harry Potter Lego set was added to the swearing-in Bible.
Klein attached tiny gray blocks to “Aretha Franklin’s head” to mimic the hat
with a big bow that the legendary singer wore to the inaugural.
“Aretha was pretty challenging,” Klein said about creating one of the more buxom
figures on the fake Capitol steps. “She’s sort of a nonstandard Miniland shape.”
For McIntire, “the most challenging was trying to recreate Michelle Obama,” he
said. “Short girl hair on Miniland people is hard to do. Curly hair, no problem.
Pony tails, no problem. But shoulder-length female hair is the most difficult.”
Finding the Oprah figure on the set has become a Where’s Waldo?-style pastime
for many visitors, McIntire said.
“She’s up on the left side of the balcony,” he added.
Klein said she had the most fun creating the uniformed Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“It was fun to get each one right, and on such a small scale,” she said.
Estrada said she’s having fun trying to keep a straight face at the critical
reviews that began appearing on Web sites this week.
“One blog said they didn’t have Dick Cheney in a wheelchair, and this fellow
wasn’t bald enough. I said, ‘Seriously?,‘” Estrada said, smiling.
In addition to building 500 new figures for the elaborate set, hundreds of
other figures are on loan from other areas of Miniland USA. The borrowed cast
includes Las Vegas tourists, hundreds more children than appeared at the actual
event and even a banana-selling vendor.
Estrada found a way around a failure to add a minifigure of House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi to the set.
“We’ve had people ask, ‘Is that Pelosi?,’ and we’ve said, ‘Sure,‘” Estrada said.
“Minilanders don’t have faces, so they can be anyone.”
LEGOLAND Obama inauguration will remain on display through Memorial Day.
Monday, May 25, 2009
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/01/31/news/coastal/carlsbad/z7ac5dd79c5d0b3b98825754e0073f5eb.txt
-end of report-
If LEGO is reading this. Just a small thought, to management at LEGO Group &
LEGOLAND California invite President Obama, and his family a private visit to
LEGOLAND California. If he plans to visit California before Memorial day. If
he is not able to visit. It would a nice gesture and gift to send the small
model of the Obama’s miniland figures to the White House. Think of it... LEGO
in the White House and in the future in the Presidential Library.
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LEGOLAND(R) California unveils plan for 250-room hotel.
Jan. 19, 2009
CARLSBAD ---- The owners of the LEGOLAND(R) California amusement park will seek
permission Wednesday from the city's Planning Commission to put a 250-room,
Lego-themed hotel on part of their parking lot.
"I think it's something people have asked about for a long time," park
spokeswoman Beth Downing said Friday as she discussed the hotel, which is
proposed to occupy the RV parking lot next to the main entrance.
One of the LEGOLAND amusement parks in Europe already has its own hotel, and
"kids love the themed rooms," Downing added.
LEGOLAND California, which opened in 1999, occupies a roughly 128-acre parcel
south of Cannon Road and north of Palomar Airport Road. Until 2005, the company
that makes the children's plastic Lego building blocks owned it.
The park's new owner ---- British-based Merlin Entertainment Group Inc. ---- has
added a second attraction at the amusement park site. The Sea Life Aquarium,
which requires a separate admission ticket, opened last year.
With the aquarium and the proposed hotel, LEGOLAND is striving to become "more
than a one-day destination for families," Downing said Friday.
The hotel project will require both city and state Coastal Commission approval
because it falls within the state's coastal review zone. Construction is
expected to take two to three years, Downing said.
The proposed hotel won't be the only lodging facility within walking distance of
the park. Two independently operated hotels, including the recently opened
Sheraton Carlsbad resort, already exist just outside the park's gate.
The Sheraton, which will have 350 rooms once all phases of construction are
completed, is part of a wave of new hotels in town. Recent city statistics
indicate that Carlsbad now has 3,634 hotel rooms.
Some tourism industry watchers have recently said that there's already a glut on
the local market, given the recent national economic downturn.
At Carlsbad Tourism Business Improvement District board meeting in December,
several area hoteliers said their occupancy rates for November and December were
likely to be lower than last year, adding that forecasts also weren't likely to
be good for the coming year.
City officials have said the final 2008 hotel tax revenue figures should be
available later this month or early next month.
Initial indications were that November occupancy rates were holding somewhat
steady, but that city hotel tax revenue would be down, one city official said
during the tourism board meeting. That indicates that hotel operators are still
renting rooms, but at lower prices.
The Planning Commission meeting is set to start at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City
Hall, 1200 Carlsbad Village Drive. The commissioners will be asked to approve a
series of things related to the project, including changing the amusement park's
parking requirements.
The requirement is 94.5 spaces per acre of active theme park, while the proposed
standard would be 80.08, a new city staff report indicates. The report notes
that Carlsbad didn't have a parking standard for amusement parks until Legoland
came along and created the 94.5-space standard based on what other communities
had.
However, the report continues, LEGOLAND peak parking figure for 2007 showed that
it could get by with a lower parking rate standard and still meet visitors'
needs.
Plans call for the three-story hotel to include a 14,383-square-foot restaurant,
11,051-square-foot retail space, a 6,364-square-foot bar/lounge, an outdoor pool
and a water play area. It's proposed to be built in two phases, with the first
phase containing 175 hotel rooms.
<http://www.northcountytimes.com/articles/2009/01/18/news/coastal/carlsbad/zc5bec3f29ddd84758825754000604326.txt>
-end of report-
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Abner Finley wrote:
> LEGOLAND(R) California Miniland gets a 2009 presidential makeover.
>
> As the presidential inauguration nears, organizers are thinking big in
> Washington, D.C. On the West Coast, inauguration planners are thinking small -
> very small.
Snipage...
> Gary McIntire, who has worked in the model studio for two years.
>
> First, the six model makers gathered information about who will be on stage and
> what they will be wearing. After that, it's a matter of creating a likeness
> through hair style and color, facial hair, glasses, distinctive clothing and
> body shape.
>
> "You'd be surprised at what you do to make them recognizable," said McIntire,
> 28.
More Snipage...
> Designers are creating President-elect Barack Obama (red tie) and his wife,
> Michelle (red dress), and their children; Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his
> wife; President Bush and first lady Laura Bush; the Cheneys; and the Clintons.
> -end of report-
This was on the 6:00 pm news on the "local" Hamilton, Ontario (CHCH) television
station. My wife thought that these were a new "set" coming
out... I had to explain to her that these were at Legoland California.
Rolls eyes... goes to show you that even if the Significant Other is
Lego tolerable, they sometimes need to be "educated".
;)
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