June is known for being an iconic month to hold weddings. It was believed that couples who married in June would be blessed with prosperity and happiness (and for that reason, many are eager to be called a “June Bride”). Just as getting married in June remains a long-standing tradition, so does attending Brickworld Chicago in June for many of us. (Yes, it was last month, but writing takes time!)

“Something old” is the first line of a traditional rhyme that details what a bride should wear at her wedding to be blessed with good luck: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. We thought we would use these prompts to talk about the memories and blessings that we will carry with us after another June Brickworld has now come and gone:

Something Old: A Brickworld tradition the attendee has, an old build, an old friend, etc.
Something New: A new activity that they tried, a new build, a new person they met and talked with, etc.
Something Borrowed: People usually help others out during set up, borrowing parts to finish their builds, volunteering their time, giving/receiving tokens, etc.
Something Blue: Something you missed out on, something else you miss once you get back home, or something literally blue.

So let’s see what memories the team from BrickNerd made at Brickworld Chicago 2025!

Something Old

Ben Hauger (Zcerberus) recieving the brickworld master award

Isaiah: One definite highlight from this Brickworld was getting to see Ben Hauger (Zcerberus) again! Ben was one of my earliest inspirations when I first got into the LEGO community in Guilds of Historica (GoH), has always been super welcoming and awesome, and ever since my first Brickworld in 2018, hanging out is one of those things I really look forward to at the Chicago convention every year. With a ton of epic builds (castle Castle CASTLE!!!) and after his third time getting nominated, the Brickworld Master award finally went to this incredibly deserving legend. Congrats Ben! You’re doing your GoH kids proud!

Ted: The “something old” I am always bringing with me to Brickworld are old LEGO-themed T-shirts to wear during the week. This year it was my FBTB (From Bricks to Bothans) t-shirt that I won in their Alphabet Starfighter contest in 2011, and my Ma.Ktoberfest t-shirt from 2013… Hey, I think these can count for my “Something Blue” as well! Bonus!

Marco: I’m quite, might even say too much, invested in the LEGO RPG Guilds of Historica. That means that a lot of my inspiration comes from that. It also means that since 2013, I have brought a Guilds of Historica MOC every time I have attended Brickworld. I think it was even one of the reasons I started attending Brickworld in the first place because the people involved in the project were praising the event so much. People like Ben, Philip and Kevin. And I still hang out with those guys when attending Brickworld!

Guilds of historica moc at Brickworld 2025

Caleb: 2025 continued the evolution of an old MOC that I first brought to Brickworld six years ago! I first built Cats in Hats for Brickworld Chicago 2019, and while it got a great reaction, I thought it looked a little outdated when I looked back at it in 2024. I’d grown a lot as a builder in those five years, so I decided to make a revised version of the model, which then appeared at Brickworld Chicago 2024.

But that wasn’t the end of the model—I sent the model to the prolific Nannan Zhang, who took the model to the next level by motorizing it so that the cats spin back and forth! I love how it stays true to my original vision while incorporating Nannan’s own distinctive flair, and getting to see it in action at Brickworld this year was a real treat! I certainly never would have imagined that this build would go so far back in 2019!

Video courtesy of Nannan Zhang

Simon: We’ll probably dive into this deeper in a future Frogtastic article, but this was a bit of a homecoming and capstone for me, it’s been over ten Brickworlds since I introduced the FrogPod, the first Guigck build at Brickworld Chicago. With some help from BrickNerd, I did the unthinkable—I created the UCS FrogPod which is a super-sized version of my original Guigick which made the return to Chicago.

Dave: The old thing that stood out to me the most was being presented with three winning Nerdvember contest builds from the past, all built by Scott Wilhelm. He’s certainly done right by Nerdly, with the Video Games, Survival and Animation variants representing (he made a blue shell before they were cool). Rest assured they are now displayed in the Great Gallery of Nerdly with pride!

Something New

Marco: I’m a fan of beer. But what does that have to do with LEGO? Well at Brickworld, there is a beer draft. Bring six beers, cold ones! And preferably from the region or country where you live. I considered joining this fun event in the past, but a six-pack is also a weight issue when flying over. But this year I managed to bring a six-pack of Hertog Jan Grand Pilsener. It was a lot of fun, and I managed to score six delicious beers. Next time if I have weight issues, I’ll just bring less LEGO!

Caleb: Something new I did this year was make a Brickfilm and enter the Brickworld Film Festival! I’m studying film production in college, and, being both a film guy and a LEGO guy, combining these two passions has been on my bucket list for a long time now. There are definitely some areas I can improve on in my next go-around, but it was a phenomenal experience overall, both enjoying all of the other films and getting to see my own up on the big screen. I was even nominated for Best Production Design!

photo extracted from a video courtesy of Simon Liu because I forgot to take any photos of my own

Ted: “Scott!!!” Scott Wilhelm has been a builder that I have been trying to talk into coming to Brickworld for ages, and he was finally able to attend this year as a new Brickworld attendee! It was his first LEGO convention and first time meeting any fellow LEGO builders in person. He also ended up winning the awards for best spaceship and best land vehicle. I was excited to see him get an interview with Beyond the Brick to highlight some of the cool builds he brought this year (hopefully they will be posting it soon… and that it didn’t get lost in their unfortunate “missing video” mishap).

Geneva: We’re always looking for ways to keep our family displays unique, which with five or six of us participating is a bit of a balancing act: we want our collaborations to look different from anything else on the floor, but we want all our contributions to look stylistically similar to each other. This year we were excited to try what was, for us at least, a totally new style of figure, about a foot tall with Chibi proportions.

Simon: While not exactly new, the Brickworld Film Festival has been going on for over a decade, but they keep pushing every year, introducing new and more impressive offerings. This year, they upgraded to what the movie-going public truly wanted: popcorn.

There was also the red carpet event, with professional photographer and a literal red carpet!

What makes the Film Festival special isn’t these fun onsite aspects, but the fact that, like Brickworld, everyone is welcome, and that includes filmmakers who aren’t even attending in person! It’s the only convention centric film festival that I’m aware of that not just allows, but welcomes entries from around the world, making this a truly unique black tie event (dress codes may vary, Chicago is hot in summer, shorts and T-shirts… or plaid according to the photo below… are also acceptable—check your local weather forecasts).

Part of the Bricknerd crew representing on the red carpet - in proper attire

Dave: Brickworld 2025 had a completely new experience for me… organizing a collab! More than a year ago, I came across a good number of “Rolli” mice which represent our close friend, BrickNerd contributor, and designer extraordinaire, Markus Rollbühler. I couldn’t let that opportunity go to waste, so I distributed the mice to as many builders as I could who have all been impacted for the better because of knowing Markus. What resulted was the “Rollie Pollie” collab with a swarm of adorable and moving mouse builds, each with a secret nod to a builder we all respect so much.

The only photo I took of our Rolli Pollie collab after the mice started multiplying…

Something Borrowed

Marco: I have to fly to get to Chicago, which means limited space and weight. So I never bring extra batteries with me—instead I buy these at the Woodfield Mall near the Brickworld venue. This year, somehow, my batteries died sooner than I anticipated. But no worries, Ben Hauger to the rescue with a solid supply of batteries. I even remember that happening to me in the previous edition, and also Ben helped me out then too. So huge thank you to Ben again. Which also shows how much he deserved that Brickworld Master title!

Chris Roberts: This year an online LUG I’m a part of, RebelLUG, brought our National Parks collab to Brickworld. As is usual, we all procrastinated and were building right up until the deadline. That included one of our members who wasn’t able to attend, paulvillemocs. His build was entirely digital and to get it to the convention, he shipped a Bricks and Pieces order directly to the convention center hotel. The rest of us pitched in the additional missing parts and we assembled his MOC on site using the instructions he created for us. We got it done and ready for the show just in time! It was amazing to see the team’s willingness to chip in parts and time to complete the build. It would not have been possible without the group brainstorming solutions and jumping in the help as soon as there was a need!

Ted: Not a Brickworld goes by without receiving a last-minute part request from a friend in need just before the show. This year I needed a shell part to add a fountain basin in front of the reflecting pool wall of my tea-house layout, which Meredith (aka _pinkwheels_) provided me. I, in turn, provided some parts to make some Japanese lanterns in her layout. I also provided six wedge plates to Dan Church in reddish brown… and every year, Dan seems to bring a big bin of parts from home that he lets fellow displayers borrow from if the need arises.

Geneva: IowaLUG and I somehow came up with, totally independently, the same concept: Space Champions. So technically neither of us was borrowing here, but we both stumbled across the same premise, taking a Speed Champions set and turning it into a spaceship. It was fun to see the differences and similarities between our takes. I work mostly within the parts available from the original set, but the IowaLUG builders went bigger, often adding large wings to their spaceships.

As if that weren’t coincidental enough, someone else had a third take on Speed Champions: Space Champion-like vehicles in classic space colors!

Simon: Frogs have sort of been synonymous with me for quite a while now, including writing a whole article about it. This year for the yarly “BrickNerd games” hosted at Brickworld, the frog motif was “borrowed” by none other than our Nerd-in-Chief and we had a fwogtastic themed activities in a game titled “In Frog We Trust” complete with FrogBucks, gambling, and an auction!

Games are always fun, but they’re so much more fun when they’re Frog-themed, with some of your closest LEGO friends!

The Bionicle guys made out like bandits, sorry Micah

Dave: Have you ever had the experience when an obscure LEGO piece that you have inexplicably collected for years in your basement has saved the day? It feels great playing the hero! When Alysa Kirkpatrick said they needed as many colorful Dots bracelets as possible, I replied that I had just a few… It was delightful seeing all the ways they were used in her life-size painters studio, made 100% out of LEGO!

But perhaps my favorite instance was when a brick-built Rolli mouse (built by Jonas Kramm) “borrowed” a UCS FrogPod from the Frog Nation collab next door for a joy ride…

“Off we go into the wild blue yonder… wait, did I disengage the emergency brake?”

Something Blue

Marco: The boat race! Every time I attend Brickworld, I want to join, or at least watch the boat race. But there is so much to see, so much to do, so many people to speak to that I did not manage to do that. I heard this year wasn’t much of a success, unfortunately, but it was publicly addressed. So next year might be bigger than ever. And perhaps I’ll even bring a boat, or at least I have to come to watch!

Dave: While “blue” could mean something sad, the only thing that came to my mind was blue CHEESE! Yes, I spotted two friendly Chees[e]y’s in the same place at the same time. On the last day of Brickworld, Caleb Schilling aka Cheesey Studios brushed elbows with “Cheesy” Evan Johnson aka Iterative Bricks in real life. I had to get a quick picture, and of course I asked them to “say cheese!”

Caleb: There’s really not much to be blue about when it comes to Brickworld—if anything, my only real regret every year is that there are some people I didn’t get to spend as much time with as I would have liked! With so many amazing people and fun activities to do, you just can’t fit it all in. But hey, there’s always next year!

Isaiah: My family and I routinely do creative writing contests for fun, and over the years, we’ve bounced back and forth between different formats, quite frequently inspired by LEGO contests (Writing Week, Writing Tourney/Tournament, etc.). What I did not expect was to come out of the convention hall one afternoon to find the exact model of Land Rover—and in the exact color—that had featured as my main character’s ride in literally the last trilogy story I wrote (for the finale of the Tourney contest) parked directly across from us! So if you saw me circling your car and taking all kinds of pictures, now you know why!

Simon: Brickworld has always been somewhat of my home convention, despite being over nine hours away by car. But every year I’m back, and it's my favourite week of the year—seeing the builds, reuniting with old friends, and making NEW ones. The fun, the adventure—it’s just so special to me. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and this short, magical week ended. My blue is the blue sadness that is the conclusion of Brickworld and having to wait 51 weeks for the next one.... See you there!

What memories do you have of Brickworld Chicago 2025? Let us know in the comments below!

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