Subject:
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Re: The LEGO Company and the North American AFOL
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Thu, 6 Dec 2012 13:48:01 GMT
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Viewed:
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18466 times
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I'd like to add a couple thoughts that occurred to me which make me somewhat
unsure where I fall on the spectrum of thought here, though I think I hie closer
to where David is.
Firstly, as an AFOL who has never lived anywhere near a convention, it's hard to
get too disappointed that my inability to attend has been made *slightly* less
tragic. Living in Alberta the closest con was/is BrickCon, but while my younger
brothers have made the two-days-each-way drive to attend, that was never an
option for me in university, and now that I live in Greater Boston,
Massachusetts, I find myself hardly any closer; though I suppose I could get to
Brickfête in a day--a looooong day.
I still {i}want{/i} to attend a convention; as a long-term AFOL nonattendee, the
desire does not stem from the deals and discounts TLC offers. In fact, the
third-party vendors and people selling long-out-of-stores sets are far more
exciting, but those are secondary as well. The point of a con (says this
con-virgin) is not acquisition.
However, the other point...
I'm wondering in all of this whether TLC will still have a booth at San Diego
ComicCon. I assume so--it's not a LEGO convention and there can be no denying
that they've benefited tremendously from the publicity given by their exclusive
giveaways.
Here's the thing though... those exclusive giveaways kind of stick in my craw as
a LEGO fan. I understand how it helps keep the company profitable (and I want
that, seeing how I want to keep buying their products), but these giveaways are
desirable to both LEGO fans and Comic Book (or LotR, or Star Wars... etc.) fans
and as a general rule the LEGO side of that equation is disadvantaged by
limiting these giveaways to SDCC.
Again, I understand why they do it and in and of itself I don't really fault
them for it, BUT I did think it addressed the imbalance to do something special
for the fans at the LEGO-specific conventions. Yes, a company needs to get
publicity (good publicity, for that matter) in the wider world to draw in a new
or fickle clientele, but they should not neglect their existing, loyal fanbase.
Even if I (or many AFOLs) could never attend a LEGO con, I appreciated LEGO
giving the fan community some attention. It was good intra-community publicity,
and while I don't think it needed to be done to the same extravagant level of
SDCC, I do think it was worth doing.
So, I guess I have two points of indecision: one, I would feel better if LEGO
had announced some sort of alternate way of interacting with the AFOL community.
A less extensive--or expensive--way is fine, but so far... nothing; two, I would
like to know if there has been any scaling back of extra-community convention
going. In the meantime, I'm a bit indecisive...
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The LEGO Company and the North American AFOL
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| In lugnet.general, Michael A. Joosten wrote: <snip> (...) That's a good point--if TLC's outreach to the general populace hasn't changed (and at this point I'm not sure of the status of this point), such as ComiCon or whathaveyou, then this really is (...) (12 years ago, 6-Dec-12, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | The LEGO Company and the North American AFOL
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| So yeah, I'm posting in l.general... Anyway, using my amazing powers of prognostication (1), I believe that we NA fans o' LEGO are in for a few nasty surprises in the future with regards to our relationship, as LUGs and organizations, with TLC. I've (...) (12 years ago, 9-Nov-12, to lugnet.general) !
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