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DelVaLUG, the Delaware Valley LEGO Users Group, successfully
exhibited a group layout at the comics and pop-culture expo
Wizard World Philadelphia
pop-culture expo on 15-17 June, 2007, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Participating members were Tim Caffrey, Roy Cook, Alice Leber-Cook, and Phillip
Thorne, plus new members and first-time exhibitors Arthur Stromberg and Amy.
Set up in a 10x10-foot parcel near the front of the show (amidst the major
corporate exhibitors), the layout was 6 Fleske-modules in size, in a “J” shape,
and featured one train loop, two trains, seven buildings, numerous vehicles, and
a plethora of minifigs; including:
- The Hall of Justice
- Four Freedoms Plaza
- Café Corner
- A dark variant of Café Corner
- Interpretations of robot-mode Bumblebee, Megatron, and Optimus Prime
- Vehicle-mode Bumblebee and Ironhide (from the new movie)
- The three-segment Fantasticar (from the new movie)
- Official minifigs from Batman, Harry Potter, and Spider-Man
- Custom minifigs from the Fantastic Four, Justice League, Spider-Man III, and X-Men
An article
about the show, with one photo of the exhibit, appeared in the Monday 18 June
2007 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer. About 80 people added themselves to
the club’s email announcement list (for post-show photos and upcoming-show
announcements), including several likely prospects for new members. The exhibit
cross-promoted Philcon 2007, which is likely to be our next
major activity.
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DelVaLUG, the Delaware Valley LEGO Users Group, will be exhibiting at the
Wizard World
Philadelphia pop-culture expo on 15-17 June, 2007. The event is held at the
Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Featured elements of the display will be custom models tied to three of this
summer’s action movies: “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” “Spider-Man
3,” and “The Transformers.”
Behind the scenes: This is an event that DelVaLUG members first proposed before
the 2006 show, but we finally approached Wizard Entertainment this April. You
have to be diplomatic when cold-calling, and cite the right advantages; but they
were very happy to have us. After all, the company isn’t just comic books -- it
does publish the magazines ToyFare and ToyWishes, so a toy-based display
that can adapt itself to the show’s themes is definitely appropriate.
We’ll be using this event for AFOL promotion and club recruitment; the product
literature distributed at BrickFest will be used. Since I’m deeply involved
with the Philcon SF convention, I’ll also be promoting
that. It’s not a big segue; a matter of “Oh, and we’ll be appearing later
this year at Philcon -- different theme, much more convivial, and you get to
build with the parts.”
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PHILCON is a three-day science fiction convention held
annually since 1935 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. As an AFOL and operator
of the con’s Children’s Program (since 2003), I initiated a LEGO sub-track in
2004. (Report to LUGNET.) This year it
had a slightly different location and a much greater turnout.
Although GardenSLUGger Eric Sophie was unable to return this year (his giant
robots are always crowd-pleasers), I instead had the assistance of fellow
DelVaLUG member Joe Cook. (The rest of DelVaLUG was exhibiting at a train show
the same weekend.)
Being an SF con, the sensible model themes were Space, Space Replica, and Mecha.
Since I had to carry everything to the hotel (models, bulk brick, other Kids
Prog supplies) the sensible scale was Micro. (Castle would also be compatible,
but it’s not one of my own themes.)
In addition to 20 of my own models, and 3 from Joe, I had 14 “virtual”
contributions from 3 well-known SF micro-builders -- that is, I recreated their
posted designs with my own brick supply, and identified the originators with MOC
cards. (To wit: Jason Allemann, Brian Cooper, and Chris Deck of Germany. My
plan to build a copy of Chris Doyle’s “Snack Sized Serenity” fell through.)
Over the weekend, some 20 attendees (both youngster and adult) built 28 models
(more if you count individual customized minifigs), some of them drawing upon
leftover fragments of my own models. There’s more exuberance than skill in
many, but that very separation from AFOLdom resulted in some very interesting
parts use.
Photos of the display, at-con MOCs, and happy builders are in
this Brickshelf
gallery. It also includes a spreadsheet (MS Excel and CSV versions) detailing
the models.
The Display and Build were located in the front of the large room dedicated to
Gaming, just off of and visible from the con’s Registration and Info area,
resulting in lots of foot traffic. They ran all-day Saturday and Sunday. On
Saturday it was adjacent to a contingent from the FIRST Robotics League. To
prevent the display of micro-ships from resembling a tabletop parking lot, I
built a “docking spire” of Znap pieces to elevate them.
Activities:
- Display
- Open Build
- “LEGO Gaming 101”
- “BrickQuest”-derived “Harry Potter”-themed game
- “LEGO Builder X-Treme” board game
Activities that did not happen:
- Micro Moonbase Themed Build fell through (I didn’t get to build any explanatory samples)
- Impressive MOCs slide shows (returning item)
- Stop-motion film fest (returning item)
- Large-scale space combat sim (the con’s semi-theme was Mil-SF, thanks to Author GoH David Weber and Artist GoH David Mattingly, his cover artist)
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In lugnet.org.us, Michael Gibney wrote:
> A New L.U.G in Pennsylvania?? I certainly don't want to see presumptious in
> naming a new L.U.G., but I figured it hadda have something more than "genricaly
> named until something better comes along Lego User Group" Are you in the
> Harrisburg/York/Lancaster area? Are you an AFOL? Would you like to try to
> continue what Jim Foulds started? you may email me at
> goldcreekbricks@hotmail.com or respond here. I know there are more out there.
> I saw your names on that list at zainy brainy for the maxifigs when it was going
> out of business!! You've exposed yourselves!
>
> hope to hear from many of you soon!
> Mike Gibney
Hello Mike,
I'm posting this to a few other groups in hope it reaches a wider, but still
focused area. I'm assuming "rea" is Reading. Did you see that DelVaLug has a
display at the Greenburg Show in Fort Washington - THIS WEEKEND! I was not even
aware of it until a few minutes ago. I may be able to get down to it tomorrow -
Sunday.
-Patrick
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In lugnet.events on 16 Dec 2004, Phillip Thorne wrote:
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The first annual LEGO Sub-Track at the Philcon SF
convention this past weekend was a great success. [...]
(Photos to follow.)
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Okay, so it took a while; but here we are:
MOCPages page describing the eight Open Build
MOCs
Brickshelf folder
(with subfolders) for Open Build, QuikWars, and exhibit.
The pics are intentionally small for bandwidth reasons; please contact me for
larger versions. Enjoy. And attend Philcon 2005, whooo!
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