Subject:
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Frank's big BricksWest adventure
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.events.brickswest
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Date:
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Sat, 23 Feb 2002 21:14:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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909 times
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Well, now that I have some time to settle down and think a while, I
thought I'd make my report on BricksWest.
TRAVEL
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Overall, I had a good travel experience but some things could have been
better. I got decent tickets (about $200 round trip from Raleigh NC to
San Diego). I'm not sure I'll fly South West again, but they do run a
good show. I packed a good sized box and a duffel with wheels, plus a
smaller duffel. I brought along a luggage cart for manhandling the box.
I had no real problems moving my stuff about though I would have
preferred to use a rolling suitcase instead of the duffel (I do have a
big one, but it wouldn't quite fit two of those approximately
12"x12"x10" Priority Mail boxes where the duffel would). On unpacking my
LEGO, I did realize that I erred in packing heavy stuff with lighter
stuff and suffered breakage of one 12v train wheel set and some
re-assembly. There was no real problem with packing all the 12v track
and transformers.
I really would have liked to have a ride board on the con web site. I
might not have been able to combine rides, but I ended up spending $70
on transportation between the airport and the hotel. A rental car would
have been more with $30 parking and certainly more than $40 rental for
the 5 days. Coming out to the hotel, I suffered a 2+ hour drive as a
full shuttle went all over creation dropping folks off. Going home, I
lucked out and was the only ride on the shuttle (plus, the hotel had a
contract so the cost was $25+tip instead of $33+tip). The pricing worked
out a bit awkward so I ended up tipping generously (but that only meant
a few extra bucks).
SouthWest is generous on checking bags, allowing 3 checked bags. Coming
out, I checked the box, the rolling duffel, and the cart, carrying on
the smaller duffel. Going back, I checked all three bags and carried on
the cart and a bookbag.
HOTEL
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We need a cheaper hotel. $150 rooms are just too much. I did share the
room with two others, and had arranged with a fourth unfortunately the
forth got stuck in London and didn't make it back to the US in time to
attend BricksWest. Other than the expense, the room arrangements were
fine. I landed a room with a fridge which I made some use of and the
staff was nice and didn't raise alarms with the three folks in the room
(I thought they had an occupancy of two with a $20 extra person charge,
so I only asked for two keys and asked Tim to put away his sleeping bag
during the day, but we all three made use of the concierge for booking
rides to the airport).
There were small problems with the hotel for the con itself. They were
real sticklers about the supplying your own food for an event. They did
allow us to do most of the furniture setup ourselves so they did have
some flexibility. I do understand where the hotel is coming from on this
angle, so I was less upset than others. One issue which can force a
hotel's hand is union contracts. Hotels do make the bulk of their money
from special events and arrange their pricing structures accordingly.
GENERAL CON
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It would be nice to have some Friday night activities. A bunch of folks
were in town by late afternoon. We did get to do some setup Friday
night, but more activity would have been nice. Of course the function
space does cost money. I was also glad for a full day Monday which
meshes well for folks traveling back to the East coast (unless you take
a red-eye, you will likely travel the day after the last event since you
need to leave for the airport in the morning to make a coast to coast
flight which will get back the same day).
Two rooms is not quite enough space. A dedicated play room would have
been real nice. I do appreciate what some mentioned about AFOLs kids
being more involved and the small space did keep us more together, but
gosh, it was hard doing a panel with people raking through the K-8 or
having loud conversations just behind you.
LEGOLAND
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One serious problem I had was the separation of the con. I didn't get
over to the pavilion until Sunday when we had our half day at Legoland.
I did go through there on Saturday on the way to the Model Shop tour,
but we were pretty brief. I would not have had time to set anything up
over there. Also, several of the SCLTC folks mentioned they just didn't
get any time for the rest of the con since they were over there all day,
and were burned out by the evening.
I spent my half day mostly shopping with some time in the pavilion. I
had already been to Legoland so I didn't feel too much need to gawk at
the displays or do rides. I did welcome the opportunity to shop at the
club house since the bulk had stuff not available anywhere else (I
bought more than two pounds of orange 1x4 bricks, probably more than
half a pound of yellow 2x2 inverse corner slopes, some grey divers
sloping panels with windows [from the Adventurers blimp], some tan 1x4x3
thin walls, and a few other bits). I got some on sale stuff from the
gift shop (two DUPLO eggs, a few small sets, and a few of those minifig
hero sets).
I am of the opinion that public display should be separate from AFOL
activities. Public display requires very strict hands off sharing of
creations, and requires attention to be given to the public. Splitting
the con also took a bunch of folks out of the picture.
GAMING
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I think the Pirate Game went well, though it did disappoint Steve
Jackson to some extent. We theoretically had two four hour sessions,
however, both started late and required some delay for setup. The first
night, we had 8 players, each playing a cutter and divided into two
teams. A couple players were frustrated by some of the structure (or
lack thereof) and some of the rules issues (for example, one poor fellow
was given a wrong impression of how much movement he could do and got
stuck with a very short move). We did try and use range sticks made of
LEGO, but didn't start building those early enough. Probably the range
sticks should be built at home.
I think we were all impressed by one of the kids who played who seemed
to quickly grasp the rules. The second day, that kid wanted to play a
bigger ship, and we ended up with him running a class three ship, while
a younger kid, another player from the day before, and Steve each ran a
cutter. This scenario needs some balancing since the large ship always
had to move first and so it was put under many "crossing the T"
situations. Somewhat better strategizing would have made for a closer
game, and I would recommend in the future that this scenario only be
played with a very experienced player running the big ship. Without
that, the big ship probably should be given an expert captain so it has
the same initiative as the cutters.
The short sessions didn't really allow for any of the role playing
potential of the game to come out but the games were still fun to help
run.
SESSIONS
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I attended several sessions. The train building techniques session was
great though it might have been nicer had it concentrated more and had
some real good slides to show how things were done. The microscale
session was a definite blast, with many models passed around and a short
building activity. The session on planning a train show was very good
and many good ideas were shared. I also attended the large sculpture
session which was a good opportunity to find out more about the three
modelers who formed the panel. The Master Builder session was nice,
though for the most part, I had got the information from the Model Shop
tour (which was conducted by the same person).
CONCLUSIONS
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Well, looking at the time, I think I need to run now, so some closing
comments...
I look forward to BricksWest 2003. I know it will be better, and if it
really does mostly happen inside Legoland should improve some of the
issues I had. I will be curious to see how it works out. So far, it also
looks like it will be easier to attend since I am now expecting to be in
Portland Oregon.
Looking at how things went, I think there will be room soon for a third
AFOL con. There are enough folks willing to travel (and with planning,
the cost is pretty low) that it would be nice to see more and more folks
have the opportunity to attend an annual AFOL con. My guess is the
Pacific Northwest is the next venue, though the Midwest is another
strong possibility.
Frank
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Frank's big BricksWest adventure
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| (...) My son is the kid mentioned above above (Daniel is 11). We wanted to thank Frank and Steve and all the others who played the pirates game. I wanted to ALSO THANK YOU FOR THE NICE COMMENTS. Daniel had a great time and it was something that he (...) (23 years ago, 25-Feb-02, to lugnet.events.brickswest)
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