When I joined BrickNerd, it was mainly to cover the big international events in Europe. We were already in a pandemic, but we decided to be optimistic about it, and finally it’s paid off! Last week I participated in the 2021 Skærbæk Fan Weekend, my first international event (in person) after… well, after the 2019 Skærbæk Fan Weekend.

You’ve already read about what the event is and what it can mean for many of us in Are’s excellent article that was published just before the event. I first attended the event in 2013, one year after Are, and I loved each and every one of them, more and more.

Thursday

Strictly speaking, the event takes place only during the weekend. But in reality, for AFOLs, it starts on Thursday with the AFOL Day at LEGO House. And it doesn’t end until Monday with the employee shop visit and/or the backstage tour in LEGOLAND, at least for the lucky people who get a slot for these last two activities, which are both limited.

The AFOL Day has been going on since LEGO House opened in 2017… or, actually, since before it opened, since the first one was a special pre-opening for AFOLs, one week before the official one. By now it’s a consolidated tradition that works extremely well.

You know that you’re in for a treat when the first thing you see, while queuing outside LEGO House, is this thing of beauty. [Custom car by AFOL Corvin Aschmis]

In Are’s interview with Jesper Vilstrup, last August, it was mentioned that about 300 AFOLs had signed up for this year’s AFOL Day, but I think a few more registered after that, because I feel we were more than 300, even though definitely fewer than the previous years. The day kicked off at 9:30 when they let us get inside. There was no big welcome speech this year (probably because of COVID), so we got a leaflet with a written speech, instead.

At 10:00, the Experience Zone (the part you pay for, even though for AFOL Day there’s a special ticket and you get a voucher of the same value to be used for food) opened, and I rushed to my second favorite place in the world, the History Collection in the basement. I was the only person there for a good 15 minutes, and that was really a good start of the day for me. I’d missed that place so much during the pandemic! When I finally got back upstairs, all the AFOLs had spread into the various zones, and it started to look like a regular day. A highlight of the visit was the Masterpiece Gallery, where, after two years, they’d finally changed the MOCs. Since it would still have been difficult for AFOLs to bring their creations, this year they asked LEGO employees for MOCs… not just designers, all kinds of employees. And the results turned out to be really great. I’ll just mention a a few of my favorites: Florian Müller, Lee Chi Wing, Lee Magpili and Markus Rollbühler.

In the morning there was an activity that was announced only a few days before and that was extremely cool if you, like me, are into LEGO History and can read at least a little bit of Danish. There’s a new book coming out, Et liv med LEGO. It’s actually already out in Denmark (hence the Danish) and it should be out in English in the first half of 2022. It’s a biography of the Kristiansen family, written by author Jens Andersen in collaboration with Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen himself. Basically, it’s a book about LEGO history, a holy grail for many of us. The book was for sale at the event (at a very good discounted price) and you could have it signed by both the writer and Kjeld, if you had previously gotten a slot online. No selfies were allowed, but Kjeld gave everyone in line one of his business card minifigure.

I had lunch at the Mini Chef restaurant, where a slightly different polybag is included in the kids’ meal (that I always forget to get… well, half forget, half feel embarrassed for getting a kid’s meal.) I need to point out that they removed the best dish they had, the “Powerful Meatballs”! Those were so good, we were all very disappointed that they’re gone. COVID rules forced people to book in advance, but that turned out to be even better than usual, no queues to get in.

In the afternoon there were a few sessions in the LEGO Forum that were also streamed live on Zoom for everyone to see. The first was with VP of design Matthew Ashton (who later stayed in the LEGO Square to sign the Everyone is Awesome set and even providing three additional signed tiles to apply to the built model), the second was with Michael Svand Knapp, our own Markus Rollbühler, and Niek Duco van Slagmaat about Ninjago’s 10th anniversary, and the third and last one was an update on sustainability with Nelleke van der Puil, VP of Materials and Tim Brooks, VP of Corporate Responsability. I could only sneak in on this last one, and as usual it was really interesting, they gave us an update on the status of paper bags and, most importantly, we could see in person the new prototypes for the recycled PET bricks. Unfortunately they didn’t let us touch them, maybe they were afraid we’d just grab them and run! :D These prototype bricks look great, though… I just can’t tell you how they “feel”!

Everyone is awesome, signed by Matthew Ashton.

Meanwhile, the LEGO Store had opened, and AFOLs were buying like crazy, especially the LEGO House exclusive sets that we weren’t able to buy before: The Duck (designers Stuart Harris and Jme Wheeler were outside, happy to sign the box for us) and the Molding Machine. Some sets were also specially discounted for the day, and there were three special AFOL Day minifigures, pre-printed with the Minifigure Factory thing (that unfortunately was closed for the day, just like the Pick-A-Brick wall. But that would probably have been too crazy in a day like this.)

This year there were no tours of the LEGO Kornmarken factory due to COVID restrictions. Let’s hope it’ll be back next year, it’s an amazing experience.

On Thursday night we moved to Skærbæk. The event takes place at Skærbækcentret, which includes a holiday village with 101 cozy cabins that can accommodate six people each. Lately, as Are mentioned in his article, it’s become problematic to get a cabin, there aren’t enough for everyone (registered AFOLs tend to be more than 1000, in a normal year), but this year it was no problem at all. I know some people like to get bigger places or cooler places (I hear there are some really good ones on the nearby island of Rømø), but personally I prefer having the possibility to go back and forth from the event all day whenever I want. And it’s great being there at night too, to be able to go visit other friends in other cabins. It’s a huge part of the experience!

Friday

Friday is setup day. The center has two very big halls, and when you get there on Friday morning you check in a map of the place where your MOC is and set everything up. One important thing that many people don’t seem to know is that you don’t have to bring a MOC to register (there wouldn’t even be room enough!), but if you do have a nice MOC to show, this is the place to do it. I tend to have my MOCs debut here, at the Portuguese Fan Weekend, or at my own LUG’s main event in Lecco. It depends on when they’re ready and how big they are.

On Friday vendors start to set up, too, and they start selling! I think there were fewer of them compared to regular years, but my favorite, Marcel, the one who sells old items, some of which with very good prices, was there so I really can’t complain!

Friday is also the day when you see a lot of friends that you haven’t seen in a while (not everyone can be in Billund on Thursday.) And this year it had been a particularly long while, for obvious reasons. It was so good to see people from all over the world, although this time mostly Europe, but we did get a few people from America, one person from Israel, and even one from Australia!

Having said this, one thing that consistently happens to me every single year is that I’m not able to meet or even see all the people I would like to. For example, I know there were a few more BrickNerds at the event, (Marco, Andreas, obviously Markus) but I didn’t even see them. I only saw Are (how can you not see Are?) and Noah, because he approached me while I was wandering around Billund on Wednesday night on my own like a crazy person. Otherwise I would have missed him, too. Sorry everyone, but the event should probably last a month to be able to meet and chat with everyone you want to.

One nice thing that happened on Friday afternoon was that TLG’s CEO Niels B. Christiansen (no relation) showed up to see the exhibition. It’s not the first time he’s done this, but in the past, visits from the CEO (or from Kjeld) only happened on Saturday when the event was open to the public. This year, the AFOL Engagement Team thought it’d be a good idea to ask him to come on Friday so that he could concentrate on meeting AFOLs. I believe it was a very good idea, and I even got to talk to him for a few minutes. I’m told that on Sunday morning Jørgen Vig Knudstorp was around too, but I didn’t see him.

Niels B. Christiansen listening to Are reciting poetry… or something like that.

Saturday

Saturday is the first real day of the event. For me it kicked off with the Ambassador meeting at 9 am, and since I stayed chatting with the AE Team and other ambassadors a little bit too long, I missed the opening speech at 10:30. Oops! Time does fily. At 11 the event opened to the public and the attendance was, in my opinion, crazy. Skærbæk is not an event that gathers tens of thousands of people from the public, that’s not the goal of this AFOL-centered event. It takes place in the middle of nowhere, after all. But a few thousand people always come, and since the opening hours aren’t that long, the place was definitely crowded. That’s something very weird to see in 2021! Eventually about 2000 people visited during the weekend. Registered AFOLs numbered 666 (!).

As usual, there were a few activities for the AFOLs (also free to watch on Zoom for everyone and they will be online again for 24 hours this Saturday, if you’re interested.) Are was having a MOC tour, (part 1, in one hall, part 2, in the other hall, would be on Sunday) and in the cinema we had a Q&A with J&J (Jordan Paxton, from the AFOL Engagement Team, and Jamie Berard). This was followed by a session with a few LEGO Masters, hosted by former Community Manager, Kim Thomsen.

At 5 pm the event closed to the public, and we had 30 minutes of “dark hour” (so… “dark half-hour”, I guess); the lights went off, and all the MOCs that included lighting could be seen in all their beauty. A couple of highlights that turned out very well in the dark: the city layout by the French LUG "Les Briques en Folie" and Jonathan Gale’s Cyberpunk Train Station (yes, the round-y thing.)

Generally, at this point, we used to have the AFOL dinner, but this year there was no official AFOL dinner, even though there was a special dinner for those interested. Personally, I always choose to eat in my cabin with food we bring from home. To save money of course, and, not to be over-patriotic, but Italian food: need I say more? So I skipped the dinner, and went back later for the auction. In the last few years the auction was held in a tent outside after the dinner that also was there (there are generally too many people to fit inside the center).

This year there was no tent, though, so for the auction we were back in the center. I believe that works so much better for the auction; the lighting was great, there was room enough for everyone, and everything went very well. The auctioneer was, as usual, Danish LCP and event co-organizer Caspar Bennedsen, with a little help from his wife, Tilde, Are (this Are guy is everywhere!) and Michael LeCount from the UK. The auction was hilarious as usual, and some very interesting items were auctioned, some for charity, and some to help with the event’s expenses.

Sunday

Sunday was pretty much like Saturday. In the morning there was an informal meeting for the GayFOLs group (that I couldn’t attend) and the afternoon sessions included another MOC Tour by Are, a talk (followed by a Q&A) with Esmee Kuenen and Marcos Bessa about set and element design, and the now classic talk show På Kloss Hold where Are talked with AFOLs Jonas Wide from Sweden, Jessica Farrell from Ireland and Michael LeCount from the UK.

I also had time to finally see all the MOCs, and I was very glad to see a lot of new and very cool stuff this year. That happens every time, but it seemed even more in this case. I’ll just include a few highlights, but you definitely need to be there to enjoy it!

The Captain's Daughters Inn, by Daniel Vermeir
BMW HQ - Munich, by Marc Philippi (the details on this are crazy!)
Star Wars - K Project, by Mirko Soppelsa
Star Wars - Lucrehulk-class Battleship, by Jesper Lindberg
The Hills, by Anders Horvath
Odense Train Station, by Dennis Thomsen (Moduverse Danmark group)
Expo 2010 Pavilion, by Helgi Toftegaard
Ghostbusters HQ, by Manfred Feichti (something you don't see everyday, the GB HQ from the Paul Feig movie!)
Indian Summer mosaic (see this BrickNerd article)
Saibankan, by Marco den Besten
Vintage display, by Marcel Dinslage
Businesscard Collection, by Jesper Andersen

My absolute favorite was, unexpectedly, Fabuland related. I was walking by one of the aisles, and I noticed a Fabuland layout. I thought “Cool!” and kept walking. Then I noticed, right next to it, a neo-Fabuland layout. I thought “Cool!!” and kept walking. Then I stopped, realized what I had just seen, and I turned back. It was the same layout, in both styles, with all the Fabuland parts recreated with modern parts and and a “more adult” color palette. This would definitely win my prize, if I had a prize to give.
This wonderful MOC was built by Lasse Vestergård and Anne Mette Vestergård.

Monday

On Monday, the lucky ones who could book a slot visited the new employee shop in the LEGO Campus (that’s almost finished now!). Some people were a bit upset they couldn’t get a slot, and I can understand that. But at the same time, the employee shop is only a nice bonus, not the main reason to go to the event. Of course it’s easy for me to say because I did get in. Sooner or later, though, I won’t, and my point of view won’t change. Of course, it’d be nice if they could add other slots (maybe on other days, like Thursday or Friday), but I’m pretty sure that if it were possible, they would already be doing it. Let’s hope things can change, though, so that everybody can be fully happy.

The LEGOLAND Backstage Tours are also a great experience and are also limited. I’ve never participated in this particular tour, but I participated in another one a few years ago, and I think it’s probably pretty much the same. Highly recommended.

One final note. I come from a country where we all still wear masks indoors, and seeing all these people not doing it was really, really, really very weird. All restrictions in Denmark were lifted on September 10th, and it appears people were quite quick to go back to the old ways. It was literally as if nothing had happened. The only people with a mask on were Italians, with the odd Irish or Belgian exception here and there. Restrictions were lifted in Denmark because their vaccination level is extremely high. It does seem to be working very well since I haven’t heard of anyone getting sick at the event. Fingers crossed, but the new normal starts to look more and more like the old normal.

I have to say it was amazing to be back, and I can’t wait for the next one. Thanks to Stephan, Caspar, Thomas, and all the rest of their team for believing in it, and actually being able to go through with it!

Have you been to any events since the world has started to open up again? Would you also skip the Danish dinner to eat homemade Italian food? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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