The much-anticipated return of the live, in-person, world-famous Brickworld fan exhibition in Chicago, Illinois is almost upon us! After three years, the largest gathering of LEGO builders in the United States returns this weekend at the Renaissance Hotel & Convention Center on June 18th and 19th for the public—and tickets are still available. (There are no less than 20 BrickNerd contributors, patrons and alumni that are going to be there, so if you see us, say hi!)

You may recall in 2020 that the last time we spoke with the new Brick-xecutive, Mark Larson, the post was on the main page of BrickNerd for about seven months until the site was granted new life. Hooray for second chances! So since Amy Corbett had a prior engagement on TV or something, we sat down for a short Zoom call with Mark again to catch up.

Being the gumshoe BrickNerd journalist that I am, I was able to dig all sorts of exclusive, never-before-heard information out of Mark about the upcoming convention. (Conveniently it was all in a file titled “Press Release.”)

El Barto!: Hey Mark, great to see you! I almost didn’t recognize you with the new logo! It looks sharp! Tell me, how does it feel getting the band back together?

Mark: It’s great! That’s an excellent way to put it, Bart—that’s exactly what it’s like. Yeah, we’ve got a new logo and plenty of swag, from T-shirts to those nifty draw-string backpacks. There’s lots of energy and anticipation working with the team to get this event off the ground. It’s long overdue!

El Barto!: Plenty of enthusiasm there, Mark! But how are things going with people signing up to display, purchasing tickets and all that? And how much hand sanitizer to you plan to make available?

Mark: We’ve got over 1,100 registrants (as of June 3rd) including 492 first-timers. Ticket sales are looking good so far, too. We increased our advertising budget quite a bit to get the word out: radio, TV, and social media. We’re streaming ads on YouTube, National Geographic, ESPN, and HULU. And we’ll have more than six gallons of hand sanitizer. Safety first!

El Barto!: I remember during Brickworld Virtual you had some LEGO Masters people participating. What's going on in that department this time around?

Mark: I’m glad you asked. There are going to be a bunch of contestants from the show. They’ll be running build challenges just like the ones you see on TV, various panel discussions, and good-old meet-and-greets with the public. (Included in that group are BrickNerd alumni, Maria and Philip Straatsma.)

And this is something new: we’re going to have YouTubers live-streaming from their own display tables. That means real-time, worldwide exposure from the convention floor. I’m excited to see what happens with that.

100,000 square foot hall at the Renaissance Convention Center ready for LEGO creations!

El Barto!: From what I’ve heard, there are going to be more LEGO displays than ever.

Mark: Oh yeah! Speaking of tables, we’re also going to have three different display table heights and give that a try. It should give people more surface area to layer their builds while making things easier for people to see. We are trying lots of new options this year.

El Barto!: Wow! That’s really smart! Anyway, with all that’s going on, have you had any time to build? What are you displaying?

Mark: I’m actually in two different Eurobricks collaborations. I can’t say much about the details here, but one of them is a minifig-scale animation and the other is a gingerbread village. I’m also bringing my venerated Fabuland Airship.

El Barto!: Well, Mark, it looks like my free 30-minute Zoom call is about over. So thanks for taking the time to give up all that juicy, exclusive, behind-the-scenes info for our readers when I’m sure it is go-time for getting trucks loaded with stuff. We’ve got a bunch of contributors headed there this year, as well, and we’re all pretty stoked!

Mark: Thanks, a lot, Bart, it was my pleasure, and I hope that—

I guess time’s up on the call, so there you have it, gang! The kind of content you’ve grown to expect from us here at BrickNerd. The human perspective with exclusive, in-depth, and community-oriented stories. We’ll be busy this week at Brickworld and we’ll have a bunch more to share all about it soon. See you in Chicago!

Are you planning to go to Brickworld, to display, or just check out all the awesome builds like the ones you can see in the slideshows above? Let us know in the comments below!

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