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Subject: 
quick write-up of our Roadshow weekend
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.trains
Date: 
Tue, 2 Sep 2003 13:56:35 GMT
Viewed: 
3022 times
  
We survived, we had a blast.  And I didn't even take any pictures...  (But
John-3 took a couple, we'll get 'em posted somewhere!)

The Roadshow event was set up in two different areas of the Mall of America.
Three of the four stations were at the west entrance to Camp Snoopy, we were set
up with the (former! *gasp*) Master Builder Kurt near Nordstroms (about 100
yards away, if you've never been to THE mall.)  We were pretty much left to our
own devices.  The Lego tour people were all at the other area, so we had no
'adult supervision', and could play fast and loose with the rules.  Perfect for
our club, since we claim to "not follow directions well".

We had a pretty tight space, not nearly enough room to set up our entire layout.
So, for one weekend, we pretended to be plywooders.  I pulled a bunch of
buildings from our trailer, and we set 'em up on tables with track running
around them.  We had two loops of track, one was usually running a passenger
train, the other a freight train.  We had a couple of crashes, Dan Siskind's
caboose hit the floor three times - after one of the wrecks I found a piece of
it about thirty feet away.  Concrete floor + gravity + Lego trains + kid's
fingers getting too close = Big Crash!

Kevin Johnson brought his incredible globe model (96 studs in diameter, 80
bricks tall), and everyone who saw it was just amazed.  Kevin Clague brought
some of his pneumatic and Technic masterpieces on Monday, and talked about them
until his voice was gone.  Thanks, guys!

The best part of the weekend was seeing some of the creations that kids would
make out of the play area bricks.  There were some really clever small models,
the kind with maybe 20 pieces.  I was telling people that 'building big is
pretty cool, but building something really small that looks good is even
tougher.'  No 8-wide vs. 6-wide comments, please!!

The most unexpected thing about the weekend was having kids ask us for
autographs!  That is a really weird feeling, to have a kid want your autograph
because they love the stuff you've built

Most of the guests were really fun to talk to.  We had to explain over and over
that we weren't Lego employees, we were just there as "fans", and we weren't
getting paid to build or display our stuff.  I think we could have recruited
about 100 new GMLTC members if we would have allowed kids under 16 years old.
*grin*  We had a couple of people complain about Dan's tank models being
displayed, we just rolled with it - and laughed about it after they left.


On another front, Pick-a-Brick has shown up at the Imagination Center at the
Mall of America.  I think everyone in our club bought at least some bricks.  And
yea, we'll be buying more.  This surprises you why??  ;-)

JohnG, GMLTC



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: quick write-up of our Roadshow weekend
 
(...) What where they complaining about? Just the fact that they were tanks? (...) So is the PaB at the MoA LIC like the one in Orlando where you fill the cups or did they actually sell it by weight? jt (21 years ago, 2-Sep-03, to lugnet.trains)
  Re: quick write-up of our Roadshow weekend
 
(...) WHAT?!!!! I was just there two weeks ago and there was no Pick-a-Brick at all! I don't live anywhere near that mall, so going to the LEGO store at all is a huge big deal. I am now very unhappy. Thanks for ruining my day! >-@ (21 years ago, 2-Sep-03, to lugnet.trains, FTX)

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