Brickworld 2018 Recap

Isaac’s Recap –

Brickworld was easily the funnest LEGO event I have ever had the pleasure of attending. We met so many amazing builders in person for the first time, and were able to spend significant amounts of time with quite a few of them.
Just to give you an idea of how many builders we were able to interact with: Chris Maddison, Sean Mayo, Tyler Clites, Nannan Z, Gabe Umland, Kristel, Tim Lydy, Mark Larson, Jonas Wide, ZCerberus, Rogue Angel, MKJoshA, KevinyWu, BricksmithPhilip, Phred, Mark of Falworth, Brother Steven, Andrew JN, David FNJ, Paul Vermeesch, Ian Spacek, Lee Muzzy, Matthew Oh, Noel Peterson, Paul Wolfe, Cody Purviance, Michael the Juggler, Garmadon, Kai NRG, Nick Jensen, BrickinNick, Graeme Diamond, Dan Church, Rocco, Markus Rollbuhler, Micah Beiderman, Grant Davis, Barbara Hoel, Simon Liu, Ty S, Kingdomviewbricks, -carrier lost, thropots, Detroitika, Ben Ellermann, Guy Himber; and I’m sure I’m forgetting some!

So if you haven’t been to a Brickworld before, you should definitely make the effort to go. You won’t be disappointed!

We stayed at an amazing house with a bunch of InnovaLUG members which made for tons of fun times building together, playing nerf, or just enjoying some of Isaiah and Geneva’s excellent cooking.

Friday afternoon we were somehow able to convince a large group of people to join us outside in the blistering heat for some soccer and ultimate Frisbee. Super fun times! Though also an eye opener as we all realized how out of shape we were, and that we should have brought more water…

Chris, Sean, Tyler, and Nannan:
Thanks so much for treating us to a delicious breakfast and hanging out over the course of the convention. I’ve admired all of your builds for years, and it was fabulous to get to know you better and see some of your work in person.

Kristel, Tim, Mark, Jonas, Kevin, Josh, Philip, Ben, and the rest of the Eurobricks team:
It was an honor to be allowed to contribute to the EB collaborative display and we’re very thankful for your warm welcome into the group!

Mark, Steven, Andrew, David, Jason, Ian, Paul V., Lee, Noel, Paul W., Cody, Michael, Mr. Gomez, Isaiah, Geneva:
Doing so much together in person made me realize just how blessed I am to be part of such an incredible group of people and builders! It was fantastic getting to meet quite a few of you for the first time, and continuing to strengthen relationships with those of you who we had met personally before. And thanks to those of you who brought Nerf guns – would have been a pity not to be able to take advantage of the house’s brilliant setup for such exploits.

BrickinNick and Graeme:
It was great watching Battle of the Bricks live, and the Duplo carnival was a genius idea. Glad we were able to lend a hand assembling the wall.

KevinyWu, Micah Beiderman, Kingdomviewbricks, Ty S, Markus Rollbuhler, Nick Jensen, Barbara Hoel, Carrier Lost, Thropots, Detroitika:
Seeing some of your masterful creations first hand was a true pleasure and I hope to meet you again in the future.

Simon:
The Simon Games were a tremendous success in my opinion. Plenty of fun entertainment, but also a great way to encourage builders from various groups to interact. Plus the #notMyCastle bricks were greatly appreciated by all the Castle MOCers at BW. Thanks for all you do, and I’m sure we’ll cross paths again.

John’s Recap –

After two years of planning and preparation, we were finally able to make it to Brickworld! And boy was it worth it!
Isaac and I got to meet loads of people we had only known online before, and reconnect with others we had only met a few times.

Chris Maddison, Random Vector, Tyler Clites, Nannan Z, Gabe Umland, Kristel, Tim Lydy, Mark Larson, Jonas Wide, ZCerberus, Rogue Angel, MKJoshA, KevinyWu, BricksmithPhilip, Phred, Mark of Falworth, Brother Steven, Andrew JN, David FNJ, Paul Vermeesch, Ian Spacek, Lee Muzzy, Matthew Oh, Noel Peterson, Paul Wolfe, Cody Purviance, Michael the Juggler, Garmadon, Kai NRG, Nick Jensen, BrickinNick, Graeme Diamond, Dan Church, Rocco, Markus Rollbuhler, Micah Beiderman, Grant Davis, Barbara Hoel, Simon Liu, Ty S, Kingdomviewbricks, -carrier lost,  thropots, Detroitika, Ben Ellermann, Guy Himber; and inevitably we will have missed some people we got to hang out with.

KevinyWu, Micah Beiderman, Kingdomviewbricks, Ty S, Markus Rollbuhler, Nick Jensen, Barbara Hoel, Carrier Lost, Thropots, Detroitika:
It was great getting to see some of yours builds in person, and being able to talk with all of you.

Kristel, Tim, Mark, Jonas, Kevin, Josh, Philip, Ben, and the rest of the Eurobricks team:
Thank you so much for letting us contribute to the Eurobricks display this year, and for putting up with our inexperience when it comes to attaching the underside to a floating build! It was an enormous amount of fun hanging out with all of you, and admiring your outstanding builds. I look forward to getting to know all of you better in the future.

Simon:
The Simon Games were definitely one of the highlights of the convention for me, not only did they provide a great challenge for the LUGs competing, it also was a fabulous way to get to know and talk with lots of other builders. So I just want to say thank you for all you do for the LEGO community, and hopefully we’ll see you again in 2020!

BrickinNick and Graeme:
You guys are just nuts. Really. Building an entire broadcasting studio on site (not to mention the little playhouse!), and then using it for 3 whole BotB episodes?! I’m very glad you did though, it was so much fun watching the builders live, and you did a fantastic job, as always, being host. The carnival game was a blast as well, I can’t wait to see what you come up with next!

Chris, Sean, Tyler, and Nannan:
First off, I just want to say thank you again for taking us all out to breakfast, it was delicious! Besides the food though, it was wonderful getting to talk and hangout with some of the best builders out there (cough, and beat some of them in a building competition, cough). Whether it was playing soccer and Frisbee in the scorching sun, competing in the Simon Games, or just hanging out, I had a blast. I look forward to BW 2020 so we can do it all over again! (okay, we don’t have to do it all over again. I could do without the 90 degree weather…)

Mark, Steven, Andrew, David, Jason, Ian, Paul V., Lee, Noel, Paul W., Cody, Michael, Mr. Gomez, Isaiah, Geneva:
I’m so glad we had the opportunity to interact with all of you as much as we did. Whether it was being double crossed in a Nerf fight, driving to the convention hall, enjoying the delicious cooking, shopping at Walmart at midnight, or just chilling out and talking, it was so incredible getting to build relationships with each of you. I sincerely hope we are able to have just as much fun in 2020.

Kevin, Ben, Philip, Geneva, Isaiah, Jonas:
Great to be able to meet quite a few fellow Guild members in person, and we’re looking forward to Book III! And also to seeing some Castle builds from Ben again 😀

Below you will find some pictures from our trip, starting off with our loot.

We arrived in Chicago on Tuesday, the day before Brickworld started, so we could get settled in at the house with the rest of InnovaLUG.

Turned out to be quite the place!



2 sets of stairs and a balcony overlooking the living room made for some great Nerf battles!



Mini theater in the basement…

More of the basement.

It even had a pool table and Foosball table.

Wednesday we started setting up the InnovaLUG display:

Plenty more pictures of which will be revealed later.

We also contributed to the Eurobricks Tree of Worlds:
See more images and info on that here.

And a small Guilds of Historica display. The large build shown here was built by Philip.

Josh contributed this section:

And Kevin brought this large island:

In short, Brickworld was incredible and we’re looking forward to returning in 2020! And now that we’re back home, expect to soon see plenty of new creations that we took to BW.