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To All,
Larry stole most of my thunder I had planned, but that's fine. I am
extremely tired after this weekend. I have over a hundred pictures from the
show, and I will try to get them on Brickshelf ASAP, I fought with it over 2
hours last night and gave up.
Anyway, we had an absolute blast this weekend, it was one of the funnest
LEGO events I have ever had. I think we had the real crowd pleaser, we had
to fight to get in and out of the display all weekend! : )
Setup up time was around 10 hours, plus a few trips to Chris Leach's house
to get the proper items. it is amazing what you can forget, such as green
road plates! ; ) We had a preliminery meeting last weekend on Sunday, and
Chris used Track Designer to get it together. We met everyone at Chris's
parents house, and went tot eh Novi Expo Center after that. We spent 6 hours
on Friday night setting the majority of it up, we had sections for each
persons cars, minifigs, and plants, trees and so on. On Friday night, Chris
Leach and his wife, my wife Lynn, my roommate Tony Hedglen, Peter Guenther
(SP?), Lester (I forgot his last name again), Kai B., Steve Bliss and his
wife and children (Thanks Jamie for helping a lot!) , and they helped set up
the majority of the display. I had to take the Suburban to Chris's house
twice to get all his stuff in!
We arrived there Saturday morning around 7:00AM, Chris, Tony, and I were the
first, Lester and Peter came later. We put the finishing touches on the
display, mostly minifigs, vehicles, and trains. We had a fun time trying to
run that much track on the different regulators. Chris started building his
Northwest Terminal as well, it was a work in progress, as we moved the
construction crews around as it was being completed. When the show opened at
11:00AM, we were near the entrance, so we had a lot of people come and look.
There were a lot of questions, like I didn't know LEGO made trains, how much
is this worth, what gauge, that kind of thing. One of the neat features is
that we had a 4561 Railway Express set up on a table in front with a big
LEGO sign Chris had, and our brochere that told a little bit about the
trains. We did this so people saw the difference, and what they could buy
right now, and showed them the S@H Catalog with the train items in it. Larry
did a bang up job on the flier, in terms of getting that perfected, and only
6 revisions! (Pretty good for the engineering field, Larry!) The children
really enjoyed it, and we had the airport monorail put in later in the day
Saturday, and a lot of people liked that, especially going through the
terminal and the like.We had some of the veteran train show goers tell us
about other groups and their train displays, such as DCLUG, etc, which tells
us that we are making a little impact on that community, which is just too
cool! : ) We had a constant two trains going at once, a passenger train and
the cargo trains, which we switched every now and then. We had Larry's
Milton Train Works trains, the Doodlebug, and the Bullet train in at various
times, along with his excellent hopper cars and some of his other rolling
stock items. We had a few derailments, power problems, and the like, but all
in all it went rather smoothly. We even had some people offer LEGO for our
club, and some other LEGO items, which was great.
Sunday was even busier than saturday, I think, we gave out virtually all of
our 600 fliers, a lot of LEGO catalogs, and a lot of information, and it was
just a blast. We shut down at 5:00PM, and got everything out the door by
9:00PM, so it was a pretty good job getting everything sorted. If anyone is
missing anything, either Chris L. or I have it, so feel free to e-mail us. I
think we got most of it right.
In closing, we had a few things we want to change, namely having a rope or
something around the display so people can't touch it so easily, some more
formal arangement so if people ar eintereste in the club, they can join,
etc. and better inventory of everyone's stuff!
> We went through most of 600 handouts, each of which had www.lugnet.com and
> the S@H number on them as well as a bunch of other stuff including the • PNLTC
> train parts diagram... (full sheet doublesided, thanks to several folks • for
> sharing, Scott S and I put together a "best of the best" available on
request).
Indeed, thanks to everyone who submitted things for this, we might want
ssomeone to have a resource website for future shows, etc.
> We got second place in the popularity contest, which coupled with the
> appearance money should have covered all the expenses Chris (and a few
> others) incurred. We were on the 6 and 11 o'clock news on one of the local
> Detroit stations.
Indeed, I think it was pretty good for our first showing. We will get that
Miami Valley next time! >:(
> Our 10 gate "new Metro Terminal" was completed AT THE SHOW by Chris in a
> demonstration of his building expertise. It's massive, and it drew a LOT • of
> favorable comment. It got done a lot faster than the real terminal at DTW
> will! AND, we had an Airport Shuttle that was actually being used as an
> Airport Shuttle, it went THROUGH the terminal building on its route.
That was simply stunning, excellent job, Chris! : )
> This area featured the ONLY non LEGO of the whole show, Chris built an Air • Force
> 1, complete with stretch limo, security team, and other aircraft waiting • to
> take off (but no Monica) which used Best-Lock stickers for the • presidential
> seal and "President of the United States" lettering along the fuselage.
Yes, and a lot of people liked that one, even if it was BEST-Lock stickers!
> We learned a few lessons, but encountered no major disasters. (I don't • count
> cars of my = bullet train hitting the floor, breaking into constituent • parts
> and being reassembled as "major" disasters... that happened twice. Note to
> future shows, don't have track quite so close to the edge of the table!)
That is for sure!
> Thanks to all who helped work. I'll have some show pictures up on • Brickshelf
> hopefully tomorrow from a faster connection than this NYC hotel dialup...
Me too, I will try to do it at work tomorrow morning.
> Another plus mark in the "Lego Train clubs put on reliably crowd pleasing
> shows" ledger with GATS, which helps make it easier for the next club and
> the next show.
>
> John Neal, pay attention, another 8 wider came out of the closet and • showed
> his stuff off on the layout... :-) Beautiful Big Boy and GP30 models! We • had
> to move a few things (like an entire monorail pier) to get clearance but • it
> was a neat sight. (yes I got pics of it and the GP30)
Yes, I don't know who that was, I was working the info booth up front, but
there were some excellent models, a lot of people were impressed!
> Kudos to Kai, Peter, Scott, Lester, Sandy, and especially Chris Leach who
> was the driving force in pulling it all together. Thanks also to Steve • Bliss
> and the others who loaned a few items, and a big thanks to Brad J and LD • for
> support.
Indeed, thanks to you as well, Larry. It was a blast. Anyway, I amrather
exhausted now, so I will try to go to sleep. We will get those pictures up
ASAP. It was an absolute blast, and I enjoyed it throughly.
Scott S
--
Want LEGO Elements at Great Prices?
Visit The Sanburn Systems Company
www.sanburnsystems.com
Scott E. Sanburn, Owner
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| Just a short note to let everyone know that our first show was a success. A few minor glitches but overall everything went pretty well, or at least it was going well when I had to leave for the airport. We went through most of 600 handouts, each of (...) (23 years ago, 15-Jan-01, to lugnet.org.us.michlug, lugnet.trains.org, lugnet.trains) !
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