In yesterday’s article, I explained how the event we believe is the world’s northernmost major LEGO convention came to be. Read on to find out how it evolved into what it is today—and why you really should visit!

You’re probably wondering what this team of skilled surgeons are doing on the header image for the article. Read on…

Disclaimer! If you know of any LEGO conventions - of a certain size, of course - that are located further north than Trondheim, please reach out! Maybe there’s something going on in Reykjavik, Oulu or Fairbanks that we don’t know of…

(Correction, dated January, 2023: There are apparently, or have been, events in both Norway, Sweden and Finland that are based farther north, so I’ve amended the article’s title to “major” LEGO convention, as in a) annual, b) international, and c) drawing 100+ exhibitors on a regular basis.)

As I mentioned in the previous article, we had agreed to take on the challenge of hosting the 2017 edition of our “På Kloss Hold” (PKH) event in Trondheim, because something had come up that made it impossible to keep the original location. We went to work on making some rather drastic changes, in order to make the event even better for the attendees.

Implementing Changes

Up until that point, the general layout of the weekend was very relaxed. People would arrive at some point during Friday and there wouldn’t really be any kind of program, then we would spend pretty much all day Saturday setting new unofficial world records for slow setup, before eventually getting around to the actual AGM (annual general meeting) at some point in the afternoon, followed by some pizza in the evening. On Sunday, finishing touches were applied to the exhibition (yes, some people actually had to do that on Sunday even after having had the better part of fifteen hours to do so over the course of the two previous days) and then we opened the doors for the public for a few hours before packing everything up:

Thankfully, not everybody packed their stuff in quite such a dramatic fashion, but the format of PKH would have to change, first and foremost because the public part of the event had clearly grown so much that it was getting out of hand. To deal with that, we moved the AGM to a different time of the year, because then we wouldn’t need to make room for that in what was essentially a too busy schedule—plus, that wasn’t particularly interesting for any attendees traveling from abroad. We also had to do something to fix the crowd situation and realised we had three options:

We could make the tickets for the events more expensive. The entrance fee was only 50 kroner, the equivalent of about six US dollars, and everybody received a collectible minifigure at the door. But we didn’t really want to do that, because as an event that is organised by an non-profit organisation, PKH isn’t supposed to make money, it’s just supposed to break even. And it’s nice that anyone can afford to go.
We could try to find a bigger venue. But that would likely be more expensive for us—and a bigger venue would also mean we’d have to get more content. There’s no point in having a lot of space for visitors if there’s nothing for them to look at!
Or we could expand to two public days. Getting rid of the AGM meant the coast was clear for us to go for that solution, so we did. The only bad thing about it was that people would have to be able to finish setting up on Friday, and some attendees were traveling quite far…

A New Beginning

So 2017 was the first time we tried this format. Yes, Friday was a bit hectic because the venue was a school, meaning there were actual classes going on in the building until around 3 PM, and we couldn’t start setting up until after that. Then, because the venue was so new and everything was in pristine condition, we had to roll out some huge rubber mats on the floor of the gymnastics hall to protect the floor from being walked on by people with filthy shoes, before we could place a single table.

But apart from that, everything went really smooth. Just over 5,000 people visited the exhibition, which was a bit more than the year before, but because it was spread out over two days, there weren’t really any issues—plus, unlike last time, we were prepared for a crowd of that size. Since that, we’ve also moved to a different venue nearby, and even though that’s a much older pair of sports halls, it suits us much better as we simply don’t have to be so extremely careful with everything.

From the 2019 event in the current venue, a bit more spacious and not quite as pristine. That’s a good thing.

Additionally, we made the conscious decision to turn PKH into much more of an international event, for two main reasons: One, even though we have world-class Norwegian builders at the event it’s always nice to be inspired by other world-class builders; and two, when I had been to international conventions, so many people talked about wanting to come to Norway to see our spectacular scenery. Why not invite them to the world’s northernmost LEGO event?

Me, awestruck at Tomáš Kašpařík’s giant ferris wheel, which visited PKH in 2018

Applying Some Seasoning

So we added some extra touches to the PKH experience. We started making all announcements to registered attendees, on social media, in emails and at the event itself, in English. There will always be some locals who don’t particularly like that, but most Norwegians are fluent in English, so it’s no big deal to them if it’s not in Norwegian, but it obviously makes a huge difference to international guests.

Then we invited Fairy Bricks to come over to raise some money for their good cause at the event, and Kevin Gascoigne, the Chief Fairy himself, brought some donation boxes which we gave to the pre-school unit at St. Olav’s Hospital in Trondheim (and one of those boxes contained a set that ended up being given to the son of a very good friend of mine, which I only found out a lot later—read more about that in this article). We’re repeating this donation again this year. It brings another dimension to the event, and it’ll be a joy to go back with more boxes.

Kevin, myself and a couple of happy nurses with the sets that eventually ended up brightening the days of sick children.

We also tried out a brand new concept: A talk show. This will be the subject of a later BrickNerd article, as it has taken on a life of its own and spread to several other events, but our idea was that I, being a professional journalist, would lead a sit-down session with a couple of guests, and chat with them about their LEGO story. The goal was to avoid the dryness that can sometimes spoil a presentation by a single person, and instead try to make it feel like the viewer was simply listening in to a conversation between two LEGO fans. We hadn’t seen this done in this way at any other events, and the response was overwhelming, so we’ve kept this for later editions.

AFOL Evenings to Remember

Finally, we added a proper AFOL evening with a nice dinner and a quiz or something similar. We’ve had some pretty epic venues for this dinner, notably Munkholmen, a little island located in the fjord just outside the city centre, and the Kristiansten Fortress, overlooking the medieval Nidaros Cathedral and the rest of central Trondheim. We’ve also had event kits that depict these locations, designed by our resident Lego Certified Professional, Matija Pužar, and the venues have always been kept secret from the attendees until they get there.

Every AFOL evening is finished off with an auction (which could also be classified as entertainment) where we’ve been lucky to have some really nice things up for grabs. We don’t want to make the event a marketplace, so we’re a bit restrictive when it comes to people setting up shop in the halls, but whoever gets a spot has to give something back to the event, either by offering an attendee discount, or by donating something to the auction, which has provided some good auction items.

All in all, these changes have enabled us to establish an international event that people seem to enjoy a lot, and I can say that because we have a lot of repeat attendees—even from abroad. Sometimes they spend some extra days before or after the event to explore a bit more of Norway, but even if they don’t, the city of Trondheim is a lovely place to do some sightseeing. One year we even got a South African visitor who had never been to a proper LEGO event before—when your very first event is almost 11,000 kilometres (more than 6,700 miles) from home, you’re dedicated. (He brought his wife, who got so inspired that she started building stuff herself when they got back home. Also, the name of their home town was Bellville…)

A bunch of mainly international AFOLs seemingly enjoying some Norwegian scenery

This said, it’s really important to mention that even though we love to have international visitors, the bulk of the exhibition will always be provided by Norwegian AFOLs. It’s just too expensive to ship a whole lot of LEGO across the borders, especially big models, and there are customs questions to be taken into consideration as well. So making sure the local and national attendees are aware that we appreciate their contributions and quite simply couldn’t make the event happen without them, is essential. The gallery below contains only Norwegian contributions to the 2018 event (photos by Barry Bosman):

Big Party Coming Up

This year, we were supposed to have our big tenth anniversary. But obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to last year’s event, which was scheduled for April 2020. We announced that we’d be back in April 2021, but that didn’t happen either. Since we just couldn’t bear the thought of going three whole years without a PKH—and this is still the only annual AFOL event in Norway—we crossed our fingers and said that we’d aim to host PKH 9 this October, and then have the big tenth anniversary event next year, back on the April schedule. Which is good, because all the global warming in the world is probably not going to make October in Trondheim as nice as April is.

Heading to Trondheim in October (this is the main road leading there from Oslo). Photo by Christian Faarlund

As I’m writing this, some people have already turned up, including three international attendees. Tomorrow we’ll be setting up in the halls, and even though we only found out less than a month ago that our event would be able to go ahead without any pandemic-related restrictions, we have a decent program: Presentations by brilliant builders, a panel with contestants from LEGO Masters Norway, an unofficial Norwegian speed building championship, a dinner in a nice location, a goodie bag with some pretty epic parts in it, and a lovely event kit (even if it’s getting harder to find iconic venues to depict).

The På Kloss Hold brick badge collection, from 2014 to the most recent event in 2019. Photo by Andrew Bricks

Am I tempting you? This isn’t supposed to be an advertisement, but obviously, if you’ve always wanted to visit Norway and would consider coming, the big anniversary event is scheduled for April 21st-24th, 2022. It’d be lovely to see you there, and if you’d like to see a bit of this year’s exhibition, there’ll be a live “up close” stream on Sunday (3 PM CEST, 9 AM New York, 6 AM San Francisco and Midnight (Monday morning) in Sydney) which will also be available to watch after the stream is done.

Remember: Your brick badge collection simply won’t be complete until you’ve visited the world’s northernmost LEGO convention…

Oh! The picture. Those of you who have bumped into me at conventions may be aware that I sometimes hand out Norwegian chocolate (it might be a thank you, it might be a bribe). Well, there just happens to be a chocolate factory in Trondheim, very close to the event hall! So in 2019 we managed to organise a factory tour for some of the eventees the day after the event. Needless to say, hair is a big no-no in a chocolate factory, which meant we had to wear hair nets… and some of us even beard nets! And a certain Hairy Fairy in a beard net is to this day one of the scariest sights I’ve seen and something that still haunts my dreams.

The chocolate was delicious though, so it was all worth it!

What kind of changes have you made to your event to improve it? Did you travel more than 11,000 kilometres for your first convention? Do you collect event bricks? Or do you just love Norwegian chocolate? Let us know in the comments!

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