The best part of a LEGO exhibition is the public. The sharing of heart-warming stories and reminiscing about the funny moments, are the highlights of the post event discussions.

How many kids asked to touch the LEGO?

What were people drawn to in your display?

Did anybody cry when they saw your LEGO? (this has happened before).

And of course the questions people are bound to ask “Can I buy the LEGO?”, “Did you build this all yourself? How long did it take?” and “You are an adult club? That builds LEGO? For fun?…Where can I sign up?”

We enjoy the time interacting with the fans, as much as we do interacting with each other. It is the reason why we go through months of building, far travelling (with very delicate driving so as not to destroy our LEGO on the backseat) and hours of standing and chatting to those who want to know more about our hobby.

The Clearwater Mall exhibition that took place on 26 and 27 August 2017 was no different. It was the culmination of months of planning both by organisers getting all the logistics sorted and AFOLS getting all their displays built.

This was the first zaLUG exhibition to take place in the West of Johannesburg. The shopping mall offered a great exhibition space, right in the middle of the food court. The streams of people did not stop the whole weekend. Excited children and their equally excited parents expressed their fascination and enthusiasm with seeing our displays. The wonderful thing about an exhibit is that different people are attracted to different displays and because our members have such varying LEGO interests, there was a great variety. We had a good combination of MOCS and sets. Some of the these included (and elicited the following reactions from fans): Star Wars! Batman! Avengers! Ferris wheel! Rocket! Farm! Dinosaurs! Castles! Spirograph! Cars! Atlantis! Dragon! Spider pig!

All the pieces came together to produce a great weekend. We held a competition for the public to enter, and we saw a huge increase on our Facebook page in the days following the event. There was a great interest in our club and people felt inspired to get out their old LEGO and build. This is a super outcome- the zaLUG brand and the LEGO brand were promoted in the most positive way.

‘til the next event! Keep on building (and sorting, because that is also an unavoidable part of this hobby).

by Linda Lier, zaLUG Entertainment and Engagement Expert and all round funny lady

Photography by Eaglesky Productions

A huge thank you to Desmond de Vries of Eaglesky Productions for the amazing photos. Contact Desmond on 084 609 9584 or desmond@eagleskyproductions.co.za.

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