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NCLTC just completed (it came down today) a six week run - our layout has
been on display at a mall here in the Raleigh area since Thanksgiving. This
was an interesting experience for us and it actually worked out much better
than I expected. While we didn't make the news, we did get a nice two page
write up in the paper and did a building event to support the Foodbank of
North Carolina.
A bit of history - there is a traditional model railroad store here in the
Raleigh area by the name of Tom's Train Station. Tom (of Tom's Train
Station) sells all of the traditional model railroad stuff - LGB, Lionel,
Rail King, Merklin, etc. and all of the accessories to go along with them.
We had met Tom at a past GATS show as he liked our layout so much he bought
several of his own LEGO trains (he has even tried to get LEGO to let him
carry the train line but that is a different story).
Back in October Tom offered me a small spot in his window for the holiday
season and I set up a small (5'x5') loop and put a train on a timer so it
would run during the day and turn off at night without having to "man" it.
Here are some pictures of this small layout:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=27115
The mall management saw our layout in Tom's window and he told them we had a
much larger layout that we set up at train shows. They expressed interest
in having it as part of their Christmas theme. Tom put them in touch with
me which resulted in Cary Clark and I having a meeting with the mall
management.
The mall wanted our layout in the open area of the mall near where Santa
would be. Obviously we had security concerns - there was no way we could
man the layout for the month of December. The mall purchased plexiglass for
us (which we got to keep) and erected a nice fence barrier around the entire
layout. With our concerns addressed (as well as they could be), we
committed to doing the mall layout.
We committed to having the layout on display from 12/1 - 12/28 but ended up
getting some of it set up early and extended the display by a week (through
today) so it was up for about six weeks. We had three train loops, all
running on timers. The local DMV is right next to Tom's Train Station so
there were people in the mall at 8:00 AM through 9:30 PM pretty much every
day. I set the trains to run from 8:00 AM until 10:00 PM stopping
periodically (about every two hours or so) to ensure we didn't have any
problems. The timers actually worked out well. About the only problem we
had with these was when the power went out due to the ice storm. When it
came back on they were out of phase by about nine hours so the trains were
idle during the day and running at night for a day and a half.
On December 7th we held a building event where we invited people to come
build with us and more importantly, dontate two cans of food to the Food
Bank of North Carolina. Everyone who made a donation was entered in a
drawing to win one of three LEGO train sets. This event was a lot of fun.
We suffered a bit on advertising and attendance due to the ice storm but
will still collected several hundred cans of food and about $100 in cash. A
young boy won the Super Chief and he was still there when we drew names (the
other two winners were not) - he was so excited - here he is:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=282498. The look on his
face when we called his name was priceless. His family was still without
electricity that day so he and his dad had stayed and played for almost two
hours.
About a week after the building event I got an e-mail from a reporter from
one of the local papers (Cary News) asking if someone was available to
answer some questions. A few days later Cary and I met with Lisa Colston
from the Cary News and spoke her for almost an hour. We met right at the
layout - she had seen pictures of it but hadn't actually seen it herself.
During the interview numerous people stopped by to admire the layout she was
listening to their reactions. On December 24th the paper came out and much
to my surprise - we got a major feature. I was expecting a brief write up
with a picture. We ended up with two color pictures on the front of the
"Life" section, the majority of the front page of the Life section and
another 2/3 of a page on page 4! I have scanned the articles and the scans
are huge - if you want to see them you can find them on BrickShelf here:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=30198
Once the paper came out traffic picked up significantly and we were asked to
leave the layout up for another week.
So after almost six weeks our LEGO is back home. To the best of my
knowledge we didn't lose anything (my biggest fear) and it was pretty
reliable. The mall isn't too far from where I live so I tried to stop and
check on it a couple times a week. We also had two boxes of the Train
Catalogs which were available for people to take from racks hanging on the
fence. We gave away a lot of catalogs! I'd guess 1500 at least. If I
stocked the bins every day we would have probably given away a lot more.
So all in all, it was a success and I'd do it again - I think the other club
members would too. It was nice to see the layout up for a long period of
time as opposed to a 48 hour hectic weekend like most train shows are. The
holiday theme also allowed us to build a huge Christmas parade down main
street. This was neat and was very well received by people.
I took pictures on several occasions, here is the top level folder for the
event.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=28752
All for now - I have created enough 1's and 0's for the evening.
Mike
--
Mike Walsh - mike_walsh at mindspring.com
http://www.ncltc.cc - North Carolina LEGO Train Club
http://www.carolinatrainbuilders.com - Carolina Train Builders
http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=mpw - CTB/Brick Depot
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