See what I did there? No?!… For the majority of our readers who are scratching their heads as to why I'm cackling in a self congratulatory way, the theme of BrickC on this year was TBD. In practice this meant that every event or talk or game had some reference to TBD as an acronym for whatever silly three words they could get to match up. As an example: in round one of the master builder game, the theme of the build was something like: "There Be Dinosaurs." Get it? Good.

In all seriousness "Three Beautiful Days" is a pretty darn good summary of my experience of the event. Why is that? Certainly not the weather - this is fall in Seattle WA after all. Though Saturday was a lovely sunny day. There are actually many reasons, and here's a few: This was for many of us the first con we attended since March 2020! Also, for many of us, it marked a reunion with great friends who we haven't seen in that same length of time. And in words that will shock no one: AFOL conventions are just plain awesome!

BrickCon 2021 vs Older BrickCons

So what was BrickCon like this year versus a typical year? Let's break it down:

Length: The con was three days (Friday through Sunday) as opposed to the usual four (Thursday to Sunday). This definitely made for a hectic Friday as most gaming and all the setup, plus all the glorious reunions, had to squeeze into that first day.

KRAWWWWW! This eagle knows what’s up, watching over the convention

Size: This was definitely a departure from the norm as there were only 317 builders (101 of which were virtual) which is about 200 shy of the typical count. Funny enough though, with the size of the space, it wasn't hugely noticeable. People brought lots of MOCs, and filled in a bit of leftover space with builds from the last couple of years. In contrast, it was the public crowds which were noticeably absent this year.

While this made for a much more relaxed atmosphere, it was sad that so many fewer eyes could behold the ABS wonders. Plus, I'm sure BrickCon could have used the revenue after last year's online-only event. I believe there were between three and four thousand public attendees versus the typical well-over-12k. Another note on size was that the vendor booths thinned out a bit this year, but we still had a pretty varied selection of sets (old and new), parts baggies, bulk, zillions of figs, jewelry, artwork and more!

The adoring masses… um well crowd… errr steady yet thinnish stream

Safety: This is a new dimension due to the pandemic - the organizers required builders to be vaccinated and masked so we all felt pretty comfortable participating in typical convention activities.

Proof-of-Vaccine Wristbands handed out by some awesome people!

Events and games: This felt pretty normal as most of our favorite games such as blind build and master builder were back. In addition to the games there were numerous talks, drafts, parts trading, and all the wonderful con activities!

Online content: This is another twist on the typical BrickCon as the organizers decided to maintain some of the same online aspects as last year’s full virtual con to enable those who couldn't travel to still be a part of the event. There were participants from many locations in the USA and all over the world including our own BrickNerd contributor Francesco Spreafico!

The map that you totally can’t read had dots all over the world! I swear it!!

Goodie Bags, Prizes, Awards: This all felt refreshingly normal, the goodie bags had a neat selection of uncommon parts, the door prizes were solid, and there were a good number of prizes to randomly hand out to the happy crowd. And the award trophies were a stellar selection of MOCs themselves as usual!

That folks is a table full of amazing trophies! Winners get to run up and enjoy the spotlight

Main events: This too was a wonderful example of the typical BrickCon main gatherings of builders. The slightly smaller crowd fit well with some reasonable spacing in the auditorium, and the crowd was as lively and excited as always. The BrickCon staff put on a good show with an excellent keynote address by a hilarious speaker Hillel Cooperman. He had a nice entertaining spiel that kept the audience laughing and eyes glued to the stage.

The staff also drew some laughs with antics such as bestowing some of the coordinator roles on new recipients in creative (sometimes tutu heavy) jokes. And our Nerd in Chief himself had some real fun blending knock-off LEGO products right on stage.

Totally nerding it up! (no real LEGO was harmed in the making of this GIF)

So those are the main comparisons. All in all it really was not too different than a typical year, and that’s great! It was just what the doctor ordered. Finally we were back in action after all this time!

Other Highlights:

There was a lot to love about 2021 BrickCon, so here’s a number of highlights that I wanted to share with our readers:

The Best of Show award (as voted by the AFOLs in attendance) went to my pal Brandon Jones for his impeccable Monster’s Inc. door warehouse. This beast had all sorts of brilliant motion and excellent design and detailing throughout. Bravo sir!!

The Peoples’ Choice award (as voted by the public) went to an ingenious build of a pristine magical castle riding on the back of a mighty sea turtle by Fraser Ratzlaff. The sea turtle spins, and its flippers sway back and forth a little as well. Quite the engineering feat to go along with the beautiful design!

The coveted Master Builder award went to our very own Mr. Dave Schefcik who, as you can see, was all over this convention. He brought his A-game and eye for color, and managed to take the crown! See his city build below. The theme of the finals (it’s a two round game) was “Tomorrow Brings Destiny” a much more positive message than the original idea of “Tomorrow Brings Destruction”. Ha!

Another award winning MOC that caught my eye with some sweet motion was David Hensley’s Telebelt build.

And for additional highlights, I thought I’d share a gallery of some of my other favorite builds from the show. Enjoy the amazingness!!

To end the tale, I’ll share a couple pictures that showcase why we love these events so much: The people! And frankly, I wish I had taken a lot more pictures than this. I finally got to spend time with so many amazing friends!

Have you attended an in-person con since the start of the pandemic? Which one, and did it live up to the old days? Have you ever put LEGO in a blender? Let us know in the comments!

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