Author: Allen "Tormentalous" Tran (Page 8 of 33)

For those who are near the Northpoint Mall LEGO Brand Store, there’s an opportunity for you to meet the winners of season 2 of LEGO Masters later this month. LEGO Masters Mark and Steven will be on hand on February 26 from 1pm-5pm at the Northpoint Mall at 1000 North Point Circle, Alpharetta, GA 30022. Their 24 hour collaborative build, Warden of the Woods, in the season finale gave them the title of LEGO Masters.

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

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LEGO has been known in helping local communities and recently, LEGO has been sending out MRI scanners sets to hospitals to help prepare children with their treatments. The sets would aid in reducing anxiety and make their experience more playful and less scary.

The LEGO Foundation is in the process to improving the availability of the LEGO MRI Scanner set and will be sharing information for hospitals to request them along with educational materials. For those who work in the medical field and want to request the set, I would suggest following The LEGO Foundation Twitter page and their Linkedin for updates.

LEGO employee Erik Ullerlund Staehr had a great idea – to build a LEGO model of an MRI scanner that could help medical staff prepare children for treatment. This would reduce their anxiety and make their experience more playful and less scary. The MRI model is now being built by employees across the world to distribute to their local hospitals.

I have a small weekend project – LEGO is donating model MRI Scanners to hospital Radiology departments to help children who may be nervous understand the process. I get to build one! pic.twitter.com/9C5MzulNtK

— Fraser Lovatt (@fraserlovatt) January 22, 2022

pic.twitter.com/xLsmI4DZYq

— Fraser Lovatt (@fraserlovatt) January 22, 2022

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.

The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program,

LEGO today celebrates their 64th LEGO Brick Patent Day which is the day that the LEGO brick was patented in Denmark. It is one of biggest events in LEGO history because without it, we wouldn’t be building anything. Soon after the Danish patent was filed, applications in other countries followed. In addition to this day, LEGO will also be celebrating their 90th birthday in August and they will for sure be doing something for that as well.

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.

The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/

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I didn’t think that I would get to this point but The Brick Fan celebrates ten years of being on the Internet. A decade ago, the domain was registered and I still remember where I was when I registered it. Longtime readers may remember that the site went by another name but due to a trademark violation of the original site name, I had to change it and I think it stuck pretty well, don’t you think?

The Brick Fan was born a few months after my return from the “Dark Ages” and I wanted to document LEGO sets that I bought back then. My first set that I got was the LEGO Star Wars Millennium Falcon (7965) which I still have built to this day. It went from me just taking pictures of various sets as a general hobby to going full time on it and reporting on LEGO news is what catapulted to what it is today.

Of course, it wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t for the readers who continue to support the site. I remember trying to get my name out there and to get 50 pageviews a day was an accomplishment to me. Then came 100 pageviews a day, then 1,000. After a year and a half, we finally got to 10,000 a day. Early last year, we managed to hit 100 million total views which is still a staggering number that I never thought it could reach.

I’m also surprised that I kept on grinding for this long. To think … Continue

A few days ago, the Toy Association announced that the 2022 New York Toy Fair was officially cancelled and it looks like the Germans are following suit as the 2022 Nuremberg Toy Fair has also been cancelled. The event was set to take place next month but due to the ongoing COVID pandemic and exhibitors withdrawing, the organizers has decided to move the event to an online platform. At this point, I won’t be surprised if the London Toy Fair was cancelled too but they stated last week that the event will go on as intended. It doesn’t really matter since London is a closed event and photography and sharing details is prohibited.

Cancellation of the physical Spielwarenmesse 2022

The toy industry has been looking forward to the world’s leading event for the sector at the beginning of February. The rapid growth of the Omicron variant in recent days, however, and the resultant increasing number of cancellations to stands, has left the organiser, Spielwarenmesse eG, with no alternative – with a heavy heart it has to cancel Spielwarenmesse 2022 in Nuremberg. As an alternative, exhibitors, specialist retailers and media representatives can meet up on the Spielwarenmesse Digital platform.

“We have fought hard to be able to hold the live event and we received strong support initially from toy markets worldwide,” says Christian Ulrich, Spokesperson of the Executive Board at Spielwarenmesse eG. A large number of suppliers without international distribution networks appealed to the organisers even in December to continue with the fair, which is so important

LEGO has announced that LEGO Digital Designer will be shut down on January 31 and LEGO BrickLink Studio will become the official 3D building app. LDD was released way back in 2004 and it was the main app used for digitial building and rendering. You can still download LDD until the end of the month but it won’t be updated or supported. After that, you can no longer download it.

In 2014, BrickLink created the BrickLink Studio and the program supported a number of other programs such as LDD and LDraw but it has since became one of the main focal points for BrickLink in the digital rendering space.

LEGO® BrickLink Studio to replace LEGO Digital Designer as the LEGO Group’s official 3D building app

The LEGO Digital Designer website will shut down at the end of January. BrickLink Studio welcomes LEGO Digital Designer users.

Billund, Denmark – January 12th, 2022: Today, the LEGO Group announces that BrickLink Studio will replace LEGO Digital Designer as the official virtual LEGO building software going forward. The LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) website will close on January 31st, after which time LDD will no longer be available for download. While downloaded versions of the LDD application will continue to work, people are encouraged to download BrickLink Studio, import their LDD files, and use Studio for 3D LEGO building files, and use Studio for 3D LEGO building.

LEGO Digital Designer was released in 2004 as the LEGO Group’s 3D building tool. LDD pioneered real-time rendering of LEGO bricks, virtual brick connectivity,

In the wee hours this morning, LEGO announced some big changes coming to the LEGO Pick a Brick program as well as Brick & Pieces. Both programs will now be merged to a single platform so consumers can browse single elements in a centralized hub. Furthermore, shipping times in the US and Canada will now be faster as there will be a new fulfillment are in the US warehouse which will drop shipping times from 13-18 business days down to 5. Lastly, there will be a new thing called Build a mini which allows you to create your own minifigures. Unfortunately, it is stated that the trial will only be in Europe and Asia.

Background

Our current Pick a Brick and Bricks & Pieces setup means that consumers aren’t aware of the two different experiences. During 2021 we’ve been running tests and meeting with different consumer groups to better understand the current consumer experience.

Based on these learnings our next step will be to create a new merged experience on LEGO.com. We’ll merge Bricks and Pieces and Pick a Brick into one front-end experience where consumers can browse our portfolio of elements in one place more easily.

Additionally, we’ll improve the shipping time in the US and Canada by implementing a new fulfilment area in our US warehouse. This will reduce shipping time for our top 1,600 elements from 13-18 working days to up to 5 working days. There will likely be some shipping delays for a short time after we launch this experience.

What’s

In a statement that released today, the Toy Association has announced that the 2022 New York Toy Fair has been officially cancelled. The event was originally set to take place in February 19-22 but due to uncertain times during the pandemic, the best choice was to cancel the event. As we know, the NYTF has been one of the main events that LEGO usually uses to reveal summer sets but it looks like they’ll have to find another way to show them off.

New York, NY | January 11, 2022 – The Toy Association, producer of Toy Fair New York, the largest toy, play, and youth entertainment marketplace in the Western Hemisphere, has announced the cancellation of Toy Fair New York, originally set to take place, February 19 to 22, 2022 at the Javits Center in New York City.

“Key to our efforts these past two weeks has been the balance of some 700 remaining committed toy manufacturers saying they need and want Toy Fair 2022 to build their businesses, weighing that against those departing and seriously on the fence, and needing to provide a sufficient quantity and quality across the retail buying community necessary to deliver a positive experience,” said Steve Pasierb, President & CEO of The Toy Association. “As that balance has shifted, we are obligated to make the best decision in everyone’s interest no matter how heartbreaking for so many and potentially damaging some business’ future prospects. The wide range of other events that occur across New York City during Toy Fair week

The LEGO VIP Collectible Coins are now available in the LEGO Rewards Center for those who didn’t get them last year. They cost 1,150 points each and the coin holder costs 700 points so if you’re brand new to the coins, everything would cost you 6,450 VIP points. If the coins aren’t your thing, 6,500 points would give you a $50 discount. LEGO stated that if the demand is low, it’s possible for those who already got one before to get a second one in the future.

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.

The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/

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LEGO has announced that they will be bringing back the LEGO VIP Collectible Coins for those who missed it the first time around. For a limited time, while supplies last, you can get the coins in the LEGO Rewards Center starting on January 11. The times that they will be available are as listed below:

• In Australian and New Zealand: midnight Sydney time
• In Japan: midnight local time
• In Korea: midnight local time
• Europe: 11am CET/10am GMT
• United States and Canada: 9am EST

This second opportunity will only be available to VIP members who didn’t get any of the particular coins or coin holder which allow more people to get them. LEGO did state that if demand is low, they may open it up for VIPs to get a second coin. The coins originally cost 1,150 VIP points while the coin holder cost 700. I’m assuming they will be the same price as I see no reason why LEGO would change it.

LEGO® VIP collectible coins are back!

We’re making our LEGO® VIP collectible coins and coin holder available again on January 11, 2022 in our VIP Rewards Centre. Each coin (as well as the coin holder) is only available to VIP members who didn’t get any coins or weren’t able to complete their set last year. We expect supplies to run out quickly. If demand is lower than we expect, we may open the promotion up so VIP members can get a second coin. Keep an eye on the VIP

LEGO has revealed a new collaboration between the company and Pottery Barn Kids for a decorative collection for around the house. It includes a number of items with LEGO designs such as a sheet set, quilt and shams, pajama sets, playmats, and beach towels.

The foundation to our brands coming together is our shared belief that only the best is good enough. We loved seeing the LEGO design principles of playful and iterative storytelling woven into the beautifully crafted Pottery Barn Kids pieces. We look forward to this collection unleashing creativity and fun in children’s rooms, as it did within our teams when they came together to work on it. – Satwik Saraswati, Design Director, LEGO Licensing & Extended Line

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.

The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/

www.thebrickfan.com/

The LEGO Group has announced that they will be expanding the manufacturing capacity at the Jiaxing, China factory to support long-term growth in the region. The expansion will include a new automated high bay warehouse which allows more potential production capacity.

LEGO Group expands manufacturing capacity at its factory in Jiaxing, China to support long-term growth

Shanghai, January 4th, 2022: The LEGO Group today announced it will expand its factory located in Jiaxing, China creating additional capacity to meet long-term growth in China and Asia.

Carsten Rasmussen, Chief Operations Officer in the LEGO Group said: “In recent years we have seen strong demand for the fun, creative, high quality and safe LEGO play experiences across Asia and especially in China. To ensure we can delight many more children and fans, we are investing in expanding production capacity and new equipment in our Jiaxing factory.”

The Jiaxing factory currently employs 1,200 people. The expansion will include a new automated high bay warehouse, moulding facility and building for processing LEGO elements, which will add 42,000 square meters of built-up area to the current site and will significantly increase the potential production capacity.

Work on the expansion has commenced and is expected to be completed during 2024.

In recent years, the LEGO Group has invested in building its business in China to bring the benefits of LEGO play to more children. Last month it celebrated the opening of its 300th LEGO store in Haining near Jiaxing city.

Richard Wong, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Asia Manufacturing, said: “We

It’s been a few days since the new year has rolled over and I’ve finally had time to do a recap on what happened last year on The Brick Fan. As usual, we take a looks at some of the stats and how they compare to previous years.

We’ve continued to grind it out last year and as a result, we ended the year with 31,523,189 page views which is a 22.2% increase from 2020. The unique visits went up 37.9% while first-time visitors increased by 33%. One little highlight is that we’ve crossed the 100 million page view mark early last year which is kind of mind blowing to me.

There was a total of 1,095 posts for 2021 which was the most that we’ve done in a single year. The highest traffic day was July 6 with 178,139 views which was a day after the LEGO Ideas Seinfeld (21328) was revealed. Apparently, the post got viral on the Google Chrome Suggestions so that helped a bunch with the views.

Our social media accounts have steadily increased but we do need some work on Instagram as it barely gained any followers. The numbers below are what we ended the year with.

Facebook: 20,106 likes/23,250 followers (7.68% increase)
Twitter: 11,962 followers (10.5% increase)
Instagram: 16634 followers (1.3% increase)
Reddit: 1572 readers (192.2% increase)

2021 was actually a busy and fairly stressful year for me on the site and personally and I’m surprised that it gained as much traction as it did. All the work was 99% … Continue

Today is LEGO Build Day which is essentially a day where you can build anything you want. Whether it is a brand new set that you got from Christmas or something original from a pile of random bricks, today is just a day to have fun with LEGO. Use the hashtag #LEGOBuildDay on either Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to show off what you created.

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.

The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/

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I just want to take some time and say Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates and hopefully you got all the LEGO that you wanted. The year is slowly coming to a close and it still hasn’t gotten back to normal yet but I want to thank everyone who takes time out of your busy day to come to this site. Feel free to post pictures below of what you got for Christmas, I look forward to seeing them. Stay safe and happy building!

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.

The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/

www.thebrickfan.com/

LEGO has kicked off a new survey in the Rewards Center to measure the interest of some new LEGO subscription programs. Under the “Get More Points” tab, the survey gives you 150 VIP points for completing and it asks you about two different subscription plans. Both plans will cost $4.99 per month and they will both include the following:

• Free delivery on your LEGO purchases
• Early access to products, experiences and content (video, audio, building instructions & games)
• Access to limited edition products
• Purchase from back catalogue (get sets from previous years, etc.)
• Return used bricks and receive discounts/points to use elsewhere with TLG
• Free gifts with every purchase

Other than that, both plans have slightly different features. The first plan allows you to track your collection digitially using a LEGO wallet while also having your other LEGO experiences in one place. The second plan focuses more on the learning aspect of LEGO where you have workshops and courses from LEGO experts.

Obviously, this is still in the early stages and does not mean that LEGO will actually be doing a subscription service. Personally, I chose the first plan as those features are geared towards me more. If you have younger kids, maybe the other plan with the learning features are more suited for you. Again, you can get 150 VIP points for completing the survey but you have until January 7 to do so.

Allen "Tormentalous" Tran

When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action