The Bristol Brick Show 2022 at the Bristol Pavilion
It's been 3 long years since we last held a Bristol Brick Show event (the biggest show in our annual calendar) and blimey was it good to be back! With a brand new venue, many new GertLUG members since the last one, numerous amazing new builds and a bustling and enthralled crowd this felt like a triumphant and much needed return to big shows for us all.
Before we get into the show review let's quickly run over the figures as for us at GertLUG every show is not just an opportunity to show-off builds or spread LEGO joy but importantly they are to raise as much money for charity causes as possible. For this show our charities of choice were Children's Hospice South West (one of Gloucestershire cricket's charity partners) and Fairy Bricks (a charity who use LEGO to brighten the lives of sick children). After a jam packed weekend with thousands coming through the doors on both days we are thrilled to say that our total charity donation from this show, to be split between our two charities, is the amazing sum of:
£17,327.10
Fairy Bricks will be given £7,813.55 plus they have an additional £1,700 they raised over the weekend themselves!
Children's Hospice South West will be given £6,813.55 plus £1000 worth of LEGO sets to distribute to the children they support!
Our members love to build, and they love to display their creations and share their LEGO passion with others but it has to be said that raising money like this through LEGO alone for very worthy children's causes is the absolute icing on the LEGO cake and for that we thank everyone who came along and contributed in any way to that total.
And with that said let's get on with the blog....
Spread across three floors and with over 70 displayers in attendance there was a lot to see with builds ranging from Pirates to Star Wars via Castles and Cities, LEGO fans of all ages were guaranteed to find something that took their fancy!
We also had a range of traders in the venue to satisfy those who wanted to take even more LEGO home with them, ever popular minifigures, rare sets and unusual LEGO gifts ready for Christmas were all proving popular. The Pavilion providing much needed refreshments from their cafe along with plenty of toilet facilities meant this show could easily keep a family happy for hours, and we've had some great feedback from a lot of people who said just that.
Starting on the top floor, as many of our visitors chose to, we had some fantastic and detailed medieval builds, a vast winter village to get you in the Christmas mood, the ever-popular fairground with it's whizzing rides and classic music, a beautiful natural history museum (complete with dino skeletons and stuffed animals) and a D-Day scene with landing craft. The huge train layout filled out the space before visitors moved into the individual rooms with hugely popular play bricks, an amazing remote-control off-road course and finally the technic room with battle-bots arena (complete with a trapdoor) and the somewhat hypnotic brick sorting machine! Plenty to see on that floor and even more to do!
Moving down to the middle floor there was simply too much to mention it all but the football stadium was popular (with more minifigures in it than most LEGO collections!), the oldschool yellow castle alongside the huge medieval grey castle, the shiny and detailed spaceships glistening in the window, our very own Treasurer's castlevania style floating castle, the Marvel collection (with life size Captain America shield AND Thor's hammer!) and then at the end our giant pirate layout with more imagination, palm trees and sharks than you could possibly take in with just one viewing.
Also thrilling the crowds on the middle floor were Tom Poulsom's stunning collection of realistic animals (and footwear!), the intimidating Star Wars clone army, a lifesize Lilo and Stitch, multiple detailed city layouts (you see new details with each glance at these), a beautiful micro-scale Haileybury college and a fantasy forest with the most colourful trees any LEGO show has ever seen!
Wiggling past through the hordes of LEGO mad families to the bottom floor there were yet more gems including the epic Star Wars Endor layout right by the door. This build by James and Mark Cole was voted by the public as the Best Display and it was hard to argue otherwise due to the sheer size and detail and even moving parts incorporated within it!
There was so much more to see still here with the clash of two worlds Minecraft Deathstar, the stunningly lit zoo towerblock, Above and Below showing the horror of the Vietnam war, an amazing classic space layout which no doubt gave nostalgia to many of the older generation of visitors and the Great Ball Contraption with its endless complexity of moving, rolling and clinking parts being followed from start to finish by every child who visited.
There were of course many MOCs not mentioned above, all brilliant and beautiful in their own individual ways and the show simply wouldn't have been successful or complete without each and every one of the displayers, traders and volunteers who worked so tirelessly across the entire weekend.
A huge thanks also to our hosts the Bristol Pavilion who not only provided a bright, modern, clean and stunning venue (the view across the cricket pitch makes a fantastic backdrop) but also provided support with everything from car-parking to security and catering. I hear that they have rooms you can for hire for your own event, meeting or even wedding! *nudge nudge, wink wink*.
Finally, a great big warm thank you to everyone who visited and supported us over the weekend. You never know in advance how a show will be received or how popular it'll be but LEGO fans from across the area swarmed in, took photos, chatted with our members, bought from our vendors, played our games table, battled in robot wars, used your imagination in the play bricks and generally helped us all to have a great time and raise some money for some brilliant causes.
We have plenty of shows coming up in 2023, just keep an eye on our Facebook page for details, and we hope that will include a Bristol Brick Show too! We look forward to seeing you all there!
For anyone who didn't manage to make it down, or those who wish to revisit some of the amazing displays, we've found these three lovely Youtube video reviews that we're sure they won't mind us sharing:
The Brick Bods - Bristol Brick Show 2022 - A Review - YouTube
High Tea Toys - (2) LEGO VIP Weekend - Bristol Brick Show and IKEA trip - AFOL Adventure Vlog + a little reveal! - YouTube
9B4M Bricks - The Bristol Brick Show 2022
