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slackers.
I’m packing the car now.
Yep, that’s us. Slackers to the end. 😀
Got most of the Admin Building done now. Just some tile work and a few pieces of furniture left. Then onto the smoke stacks.
I’m building tonight also. I’ve doing lots of building the past several weeks and yet, amazingly, I’m still not done. So I could be up for awhile also.
I’ve lost sacrificed many hours of sleep and exercise for many weeks, but not tonight. My car is packed. I only have to finish filling the shelves of the North Pole warehouse.
After waiting around for about 3 hours for the origanizers to figure out our space, we finally got the necessary space worked out. Preliminary setup last evening went well. Tables and tableclothes were set up quickly. Most of the buildings were placed and much track was laid down. The Space table looked awesome (Evan, your SHIP is huge and the lights and spinning engines will be a big hit with the public. There was still a fair amount to do (including getting power run to our display) but I am confident that this morning’s crew will have everything in order. I am eagerly looking forward to seeing the finished product this afternoon. Good luck morning crew!
The one downside of the display space is that the inside area is super small. 3-4 people max will be able to be in there at one time. The rest will need to be on the outside of the display (probably at the corners) which will be fine because the walkways are not very wide (8-10 feet max) and there will be a lot of people there. We may want to discuss building/buying stanctions for future shows. We may also need to be more exacting in our space requirements (including walking/viewing areas) as there was a lot of confusion on the organizers part as to how big our display actually was.
Overall, I am anticipating a great show with a huge public turnout.
Thanks for that recap and thanks for working with them. It was a little frustrating to see them unorganized, but I can understand a little since Evan and I had only emailed frank with our table layout and them frank called off sick yesterday. When I got there, they were thinking we weren’t setting up until tomorrow!!! They did seem to have it together on where our tables went once I left, but from the pics Evan sent me, looks like that changed again.
This is our first Greenberg display, so it’s a learning experience. I know Evan had a few exchanges from the start because they weren’t sure they had the space for us at all. Lesson learned will be to submit earlier than 3 months-aesthetics request.
Hopefully we do see some financial benefit for the lug too. If we can get the kinks of logistics worked out with them, could be a nice consistent revenue for us-if there’s interest.
I’m stoked.
Yeah I was glad Tim was there to get it sorted all out, at one point I really thought we were gonna end up all leaving without setting up anything. So I was not impressed with the level of organization there. I don’t know how much Greenberg is paying us to display but I did notice they’re returning to Monroeville in January, I don’t know if we’re signed up for that one too or if we were waiting to see how this one goes first.
So we did get set up in the end and it did look good when I left. But all that discussion of where to put the tables seriously cut into our setup time, I wasn’t able to get as many guys on as I’d planned, and I didn’t have time to fix everything that broke in transit.
I think the LUG having our own stanchions is a good idea, but I’m not sure it would’ve helped us in this case. Space was seriously tight there and one of the main concerns was proper aisle width for fire safety, which is something you don’t mess with. I don’t think there was room for stanchions in certain directions off the display, possibly not in any, depending on how the other groups got put back. So I think if we want them for future events, we need to let the event coordinators know as part of the table layout so they can plan for that.
There was still a lot of setup to do this morning and I’m anxious to see the whole thing set up. I don’t know if anybody is checking the board but if you read my post and wanna post a pic or two here, I’d like to see it, I won’t be able to make it back over there til tomorrow afternoon. Also still waiting for any baby news, last I heard they’re on high alert over there, but no baby yet.
Thank you all for your patience and work on this display. Definitely mismanaged on the organizer’s part. Greenberg says on their site “your group gets $100 for a >100 sq ft display”. We’re hoping that means we can get away with $200 tomorrow – standing firm on the separate theme layout. So, we’ll see if they own up to that or try to give us $100 for “one” display.
Like I said, this could be a really easy event for us, if we 1) submitted our application early enough – and I’ll own that mistake. That delay left us with a downsized area (we tried to make it bigger for stanchions and space in the middle) as well as the late set up time. If we submit early, we should be at a much better spot to enjoy and make the display filled with cars, people, trees, and other details that need to be manually set up each time. That said, I did not put us in for january to give us a break and see how this event went. We’ll talk more about this at the next meeting.
no baby yet. I’ll keep you posted. forum pun intended.
The public seemed to really enjoy our display. I heard many people exclaim, “Oh! It’s LEGO!”
I didn’t get many pictures at all, but here are a few to give a general sense of what our tables looked like.
on our way in, we overheard a kid say to his dad, “all I want is a simple, awesome lego town layout.”
Hopefully we do see some financial benefit for the lug too. If we can get the kinks of logistics worked out with them, could be a nice consistent revenue for us-if there’s interest.
I don’t know how much Greenberg is paying us to display but I did notice they’re returning to Monroeville in January, I don’t know if we’re signed up for that one too or if we were waiting to see how this one goes first.
I agree, and Tim and I were discussing yesterday, that this could be a nice way to bring in a bit of cash. We’d need to refine our standards, expand our inventory of ready-made plates w/ track (MILS or just the way we did them for this event), and probably keep working on the “trees / landscaping / minifigs” so that we can set up like a well-oiled machine. We want it to be fun, not stressful, so having the majority of a layout ready to bust out at any time would be great. Tim’s key point was starting small and focusing on details – we can gradually expand with more plates and more interesting features. But in my mind, as long as we have people willing to staff the event (and as long as we can register early and have the majority of the display ready so setup is easier), why not do this event a couple times a year and earn some $ for the LUG?
Greenberg says on their site “your group gets $100 for a >100 sq ft display”. We’re hoping that means we can get away with $200 tomorrow – standing firm on the separate theme layout. So, we’ll see if they own up to that or try to give us $100 for “one” display.
Whose job is it to haggle over the money? Who from the show gives us the money? Did anyone ever even get our exhibitor badges yesterday? I didn’t see any, and we didn’t seem to have issues sneaking in/out the back door…
It would be rather easy to dispel any perceptions that preparations for this event were either easy or will result in a net profit for LUG members. I think the effort was nothing short of heroic and involved lots of people investing lots of time and money.
I didn’t say anything about “net profit”, Greg. Just that getting paid some dollars for an event is better than getting paid zero dollars. And I figured it’d go into the LUG kitty, anyway. My point was, if we wanted to continue doing train layouts, it would behoove us to (a) focus our efforts on standardization and repeatability (i.e. – keeping stuff built so we can reuse next time), and (b) keep doing events that pay out, like Greenberg, so we’re recouping at least some of our investment. If we do more Greenberg events (or similar), we just need better / earlier planning, and to build on what we’ve done for this one, rather than starting from scratch like we have for every collaborative project we’ve done thus far.
You’re absolutely right that everyone worked really hard on this, and I think we can be fairly proud of the results. As Josh reminded me the other day, though (while I was struggling with the mountain), this is supposed to be fun. If we’re too stressed out over pulling together big displays, or having too many weekends taken up by them, or if we’re getting grouchy and yelling at each other, or it becomes un-fun in any way, we need to reevaluate. Well worth further discussion at Q4, says I.
Whoop! I’ve been back into Legos for more than 10 years and going to Brickfair since 2010, and yet this weekend was my first ever public Lego display. So it was definitely fun and exciting and I’m glad I got to be a part of it. I took a crapton of pics of our display so at some point I’ll get them up where people can see them.
re: Matt’s comments about “grouchy and yelling at each other” – I didn’t witness any of that, he might be talking hypothetically – but I do know I (and others) had some significant irritation this weekend but it wasn’t directed at other LUG members, it was entirely with how the convention center people ran things. I’m sure we’ll talk about it at Q4 but my initial reaction is for somebody to say to them (and by somebody I mean Josh) we’d like to come back, but if we do, certain things definitely need to be different.
I took a crapton of pics of our display so at some point I’ll get them up where people can see them.
Yea, I got a bunch, too. Will have them on Flickr soon…
Matt’s comments about “grouchy and yelling at each other” – I didn’t witness any of that, he might be talking hypothetically – but I do know I (and others) had some significant irritation this weekend but it wasn’t directed at other LUG members, it was entirely with how the convention center people ran things.
Hypothetical, there. And yeah, Tim picked a fight with the gatekeeper this afternoon, but other than that, things went pretty smoothly on the way out. Josh got the dollaz from the lady, and we were out the door by 4:30.
Hypothetical, there. And yeah, Tim picked a fight with the gatekeeper this afternoon, but other than that, things went pretty smoothly on the way out.
Just for the record, I don’t think Tim picked a fight with that guy; the Greenberg guy was being pretty confrontational, and I think the Greengerg guy recognized that he was in the wrong, not Tim, because he later saw fit to apologize and they both shook hands. It was a minor thing, really. I think this display went well overall. My view at this point is that we need to keep working at our planning and organization. But, everyone in the LUG feels that way. Moreover, I like you guys and have been having enough fun that I am willing to keep working at it until our LUG is running like a well-oiled machine. This event was a great warm-up for the Trolley display. I’m looking forward to refining what we have and moving forward. Also, SO MANY NEW PEOPLE CAME INTO THE FOLD. These are banner days for SCLUG!
Just for the record, I don’t think Tim picked a fight with that guy; the Greenberg guy was being pretty confrontational, and I think the Greengerg guy recognized that he was in the wrong, not Tim, because he later saw fit to apologize and they both shook hands. It was a minor thing, really.
Yeah, sorry. Was joking there in blaming Tim, but sometimes it gets lost in text form. I, too, saw the guy apologizing; and I also took a moment between the incident and the apology to just say, “hey, sorry; we saw one guy (Evan) pull into the doorway and thought it was ok, but we don’t need to do it,” and he kind of calmed down after that. We just wanted to be as efficient as possible; weren’t trying to step on his toes, and besides – he’s the guy who wasn’t near the door when the other guys told Evan he could pull up. Not our fault the Gatekeeper left his post. Same other guys told me I could do the same, but to wait until Evan moved out… but I’m glad I parked outside and came in to ask b/c the Gatekeeper prob would have chewed me out too if I had just pulled right in.
Anyway, aside from the confusion Friday regarding our location which hindered our setup (which could be somewhat alleviated, as Josh said, by registering earlier) and the minor misunderstandings at the loading door today, it wasn’t too bad. I would still consider doing another Greenberg show, although January is pretty soon. However, looks like they’re already booked for July @ Monroeville, as well: http://www.greenbergshows.com/schedule.html
And yeah, Tim picked a fight with the gatekeeper this afternoon, but other than that, things went pretty smoothly on the way out.
Yeah, and that was wrong of me to lose my temper. Sorry about that; it does not happen often. Ralph caught me off guard with stopping me from pulling in the van to do pickup (especially when they had stressed to us to “get out quickly” but then was preventing us from doing what we needed to do to fulfill it) but we made up a few minutes later. Ralph was in a tough position in that the organizers left him to deal with all the crap and I think he finally was fed up with everything. No hard feelings on my part. I would be happy to return there with, as Ben mentions, a little more clarification on (1) the available space and (2) parameters of set up and tear down. Even with that, tear down went smooth and fast, which is always nice.
A few other thoughts on what was learned and what we can do to improve:
– We need to discuss getting stanctions of some kind. With how many times little kids reached out to the USG Titan, I’m surprised Evan did not go into cardiac arrest. 🙂 I did not notice any real problems on the train table, even though much of it was right at the edge. I did notice that when Matt had his bricks out on Saturday afternoon working on the mountain, some of the public thought it was a hands-on uild and actually were carefully putting a few piece onto the mountain.
– I would like to see the overall display be more seamless. It takes lots of extra planning (and brick) to do this but in the end, it will be worth it. Perhaps having a stock of “pre-MILS’d” baseplates would help. Something to continue to discuss on an ongoing basis.
– Time management for display preparation. Going into this, I thought we were all ahead of the curve. We started talking about this display back in July. However, time quickly caught up to us. I was unprepared for the amount of planning. So for future displays, the longer the lead time, the better.Overall, it was a lot of fun. And we got to put a little coin in the LUG account. Onward to the Trolly Museum.
Yeah, and that was wrong of me to lose my temper. Sorry about that; it does not happen often. Ralph caught me off guard with stopping me from pulling in the van to do pickup (especially when they had stressed to us to “get out quickly” but then was preventing us from doing what we needed to do to fulfill it) but we made up a few minutes later. Ralph was in a tough position in that the organizers left him to deal with all the crap and I think he finally was fed up with everything. No hard feelings on my part.
Exactly; Tim, I watched the incident unfold and (despite my attempt at humorously pointing fingers at you here on the forum), I agree that Ralph was the instigator. You reacted pretty well, considering he lashed out at you, and considering we were just trying to do what they asked and clear out of the aisle as quickly as possible, and considering that he left his post right at the crucial time of the day, and considering that because he wasn’t there, the other guys told Evan he could pull in, and considering that you and I, being reasonably intelligent people, assumed that we could likewise pull in for 2 minutes of efficient loading, then be out of their way for the rest of the con displayers and sellers to move their stuff out. I’m glad you guys reconciled, though – I think he did snap under the pressure, but figured out that we were just trying to be efficient, and as soon as the rules were explained to us, we acquiesced (BAM, been a while since I used that vocab word!) and did what he said.
“Princeton could use a guy like Joe.”
The LUG definitely needs the child-like creativity of someone like the Freshly Prince of Cranberry to add minifigs that create interesting scenes like the one above.
Also, it might be useful to generate a list of what types of things people find interesting on a LEGO display and consider those features in any long range goals. I’ll be the first to admit that my snow covered village filled the table space but was rather boring with its isolated buildings and no connectivity. One red building with a few moving soccer balls stole the attention of a dozen other uniquely crafted buildings.
The LUG definitely needs the child-like creativity of someone like the Freshly Prince of Cranberry to add minifigs that create interesting scenes like the one above.
Joe was all smiles when I showed him that picture yesterday. He has been attending Lego shows with me for six or seven years now and really enjoys being allowed to place minifigs.
Also, it might be useful to generate a list of what types of things people find interesting on a LEGO display and consider those features in any long range goals. I’ll be the first to admit that my snow covered village filled the table space but was rather boring with its isolated buildings and no connectivity. One red building with a few moving soccer balls stole the attention of a dozen other uniquely crafted buildings.
Movement/motion is almost always the greatest attention draw. Anything and everything that can be done to add motion to a display will almost without fail attract the most attention. Both the GBC building and the present warehouse were huge hits with the public.
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