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Subject: 
Re: Zwolle
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.loc.pt, lugnet.loc.nl
Date: 
Thu, 1 Nov 2001 00:52:10 GMT
Viewed: 
1073 times
  
In lugnet.loc.it, Manfred Moolhuysen writes:
It took some time before I could relax and sit down to answer your
questions, but here they are:

In lugnet.loc.it, Pedro Silva writes:

#1 - How many builders, creations and visitors attended the event? Gimme
some numbers, please. (Important: what percentage of non-LEGO fans?)

Visitors:
All days where sold out.

There was an entrance fee? Wow! We'd never manage to do that here!

I're read a newpaper article claiming that over the
four days the event lasted we've recieved 40000 visitors. I'm not sure but I
personaly believe it was a figure between 30000 and 35000. Only a very small
percentage of these where AFOL, most where children and parents, showing
that LEGO is still very popular in The Netherlands.

Oh, yeah! VERY!
But then again, you have had a club for a long time... so there is some
organization among the fans.

Builders and collectors:
We had about 25 people showing their creations, the 11 foreigh guest included.
On top of that we had a few people selling parts, minifigs and discontinued
sets. We also had a collector showing highlights from LEGO's history
including old sets from the fiftees and the wooden toys from the very early
days of the company.

I was very impressed with the photos. Were all builders present of the same
(high) degree in "Lego-building", or were there "non-experts"?

Some of the attractions:
A modern fair (including those mobile homes with "telescopic" rooms),
several large cranes, a monorail driven atraction park ride with a Harry
Potter theme(wich was a great crowd pleaser, it depicted many scenes from
the book), trucks and other vehincles, buildings (both minifig scale and
much larger),
Roborace, RCX automated train wagon parking building, workshops about
Ldraw/MLcad and smart Lego building techniques, and a train layout (always a
secure hit)

Variety, a real good display of the Lego possibilities. Nice.

#2 - What kind of support did you have from LEGO/Netherlands and/or TLC? Is
it expectable to have that kind of support abroad?

We've organised the event in cooperation with LEGO Instore and Events, the
IJsselhallen (providing the location and admission logistics) and FOX Kids
(a commercial TV station, providing network publicity and preformances by
artists that are popular amongst kids)

Ok, imagine for a moment that we (PLUG) would try to organize some similar
event (to a smaller scale). Should we try the following:
- Museum of Transport?
- Museum of Tramway?
- Youth Institute?
- Lego Portugal/Spain?
- Lego (Headquarters)?
- Foreign clubs (the closest are in Italy and The Netherlands?
- Local Media (there aren't specialized TV's for kids, only one for teens)?
- Toy Museum (Lisbon)?
- Other?
Which one(s) of these should we try first? And what should we ask for?

There where three halls, the first and largest one mostly filled by LEGO
with their displays, the Lego truck and playing material. Under our
supervision the record attempt mozaic, the historical collection and the
building contest where also to be found here. Finaly this hall contained
several food and drink stalls.
The second hall was the preformance area of Fox Kids (to our relief most
people used this space to eat, drink and drop their garbage of the catering)
The third hall was occupied excusively by members of our Dutch LEGO users
group "De Bouwsteen" (The building brick) under our own supervision.

So there were parallel activities in the show, not only the displays
themselves. What sort of parallel events should we try to stick to (note
that we are few, and unable to be the center of the exhibit)? What would be
apropriate?

"De Bouwsteen" has been taken seriously by LEGO Instore and Events, because
we've been organising regular independed club meetings (wich are open to the
public) for several years in a row. Once we've showed them a video recording
of one of those club meetings.

How did you start? How long did you take to grow from day one to the first
*true* meeting? What was the member enthousiasm level? How did you manage to
motivate folks to show up in the first meetings? How did you advertise early on?

#3 - How is the planning of one event this big? How much time and people to
organize it?

We started 6 months ago and formed an organisation committee of 6 people,
We assigned certain tasks, missions and resposibilities to the individual
members of this committee. We've held 3 general meetings during the
preparation period and did a lot of dedicated e-mail communication using a
specific layout for the subject line and the header of the message body,
such as starting with a fixed name and a following number for gouping the
messages and a fixed line for telling what subjects the message is about.

We've appointed a central individual/post address/e-mail box/phone number
that collected all application forms and incomming messages. This person
entered all information in a central database, from wich the other members
of our committee could extract the information they needed. Particulary in
the beginning we strongly recommended to set up such a central entry point
and database, otherwise you will end up with incomplete data,
inconsistencies, different levels of knowlege and other communication
mishaps. Once you've established the different activity groups, you can
delegate specialised communications about those subjects to the resposable
commitee members.

The process is very rational, and seems to work efficiently (Hey, the show
was a success!). Congratulations!  :-)

#4 - How does one participate in the event?

We've invited members of "De Bouwsteen" by means of a large article in our
club magazine. We not only called for exibition participants but also for
voluntiers to help run things smoothly.

The volunteers, who were they? Not names, I mean, were they fans that did
not participate with MOCs? Or just friends or so?

Also whe've made a general but vague annoucement in Lugnet/Local/European
Union at the time we started preparation. Later we've made a follow up
anouncement/invitation to participate in the same newsgroup, and in the
local newsgoups of the countries surrounding us as well as the contries that
responded after the first announcement.

I saw that. I felt really sad I could not attend this time...:-( Anyway,
there's always the next!  :-)

Everyone participating recieved a four day pass for free admission to the event.

Hmmm... This gives me ideas for the future... IF I ever go to The
Netherlands during a LegoShow...  ;-)

#5 - When is the next one?

Yet unkown, but higly possible.

with friendly greetings, M. Moolhuysen.

Thank you very much for your kind reply, Manfred!


Pedro (starting to dream of PT-LegoFest... :-D)



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Zwolle
 
(...) I would say it was quite mixed. Ofcourse the prictures highlight those exibits that attracted the most attention, but there where less ambitious projects to be seen also. For instance, I consider myself not being a great desingner, so for a (...) (23 years ago, 7-Nov-01, to lugnet.loc.pt, lugnet.loc.nl)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Zwolle
 
It took some time before I could relax and sit down to answer your questions, but here they are: (...) Visitors: All days where sold out. I're read a newpaper article claiming that over the four days the event lasted we've recieved 40000 visitors. (...) (23 years ago, 31-Oct-01, to lugnet.loc.it, lugnet.loc.pt, lugnet.loc.nl)

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