Dear reader, please keep in mind that the LEGO® Inside Tour (LIT) contains a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). The topics I'm going to talk about and the sentences in this blogpost have been chosen carefully and all confidential information are not included. Any questions (in the comment section) related to the confidential information will be ignored.
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| Hotel LEGOLAND, being the main headquarters for the LEGO® Inside Tour of 2015. |
Keep in mind that the following information about the LIT will contain quite some subjective opinions. However, I'll give honest non-biased opinions about the tour itself because I feel the need to - even though I've poured my heart and soul into the brand. There won't be many pictures in this blogpost as well, because:
After all, this is a blogpost about my experience, and not really a precise review... there's quite some good reviews out there on the internet already, including this year's tour.
Before registration, what triggered me to register for the 2015 Tour?
Feel free to skip this if you're not interested about (endless) rambling about my personal life. |
| My room, earlier this year. This picture covers barely half of its entire size. It also covers just near to 25% of my entire LEGO® collection. |
Being a young adult now, I've became more obsessed with the brand than I was my childhood, still going strong for reaching that goal, as if my life depends on it. I'm pretty aware of the odds (including the competition) and I can't deny that sometimes I tend to be worried about if I could reach my life goal(s).
I'm a person that's not struck by nostalgia - I try to look things from different perspectives and I'm willing to drop biased opinions or give things a try. This sometimes makes me a different kind of LEGO® fan: I actually like the Galidor line, I don't like the classic themes (those before the eighties), I don't like the infamous UCS Millennium Falcon and the area where LEGO® has almost gone bankrupt gives in my opinion one of the most underrated/underlooked and interesting sets/elements that the company has produced so far. Even reflecting back on my childhood favorite sets, I can honestly tell that some sets I did like are not as impressive after all compared to what they currently offer on the market as we speak.
Derailing aside, one of the first triggers for me to register for the 2015 LIT (specifically) had to do with LEGO® World back in 2013. I've been attending this large event in Utrecht for several years and in 2012 I felt like a moron not knowing a group of LEGO® Product Designers was attending those every year as well. So I actually took the opportunity in 2013 to meet some Product Designers - which I eventually did. I met a handful of designers, where I had been super nervous (ask Lux about it consider he came with me to the event, haha) to finally talk to them in person. We've talked for more than 30 minutes about quite a lot; evaluating the sets of yesterday and those of tomorrow, new parts and the MOCs (My Own Creation) that the designers took with them to the event. Halfway the conversation I honestly told them that I would love to work for The LEGO® Company as a designer - and during the closing of our conversation they said "Hey, hopefully we'll see you next year or at LEGO® itself!" - which really had quite some impact. When I arrived home from the event, I realized that just saying that I wanted to become a designer was something that most people say about their dream job...
Going back to LEGO® World in 2014, I actually wanted to see those designers again. If I say yes to something that's about seeing those people again, I want to keep my word. Having that "I could be just an average person that said he wanted to become a LEGO® Product Designer" in mind, I took my MK. 2 and MK. 3 (for more information, read this blogpost) with me to LEGO® World to prove that I'm actually taking this dream seriously. Lux and Team Xnator (Kevin & Charlene, the awesome duo appeared on our channel before) had the intentions to join that year as well, because they wanted to see the responds of the designers on my projects. Unfortunately, all three couldn't join eventually and at first sight I felt quite disappointed about that... Upon arriving at 2014's event, I came to the conclusion that something happened: the designers weren't invited anymore... I was disappointed for sure, but I knew that there was a good reason for them to not show up, consider that quite some activities that were frequent in every LEGO® World before (including the desirable aftermarket stands) were cut from the program. In the end, I felt happy that Lux, Kevin and Charlene didn't join after all.
Still haven't kept my "promise", I was realistic about the fact that I might not see those designers soon again, unless I would succeed in applying for the job. However, my parents encouraged me to go to the LEGO® Inside Tour of 2015. They told that perhaps that would be a proper way to actually give a good first impression to the company itself. If not, it would've been a proper investment for my future after all. Keep in mind that my parents were also quite interested in the opinions from the company - they have been supporting my goal for all those years, after all.
Going back to LEGO® World in 2014, I actually wanted to see those designers again. If I say yes to something that's about seeing those people again, I want to keep my word. Having that "I could be just an average person that said he wanted to become a LEGO® Product Designer" in mind, I took my MK. 2 and MK. 3 (for more information, read this blogpost) with me to LEGO® World to prove that I'm actually taking this dream seriously. Lux and Team Xnator (Kevin & Charlene, the awesome duo appeared on our channel before) had the intentions to join that year as well, because they wanted to see the responds of the designers on my projects. Unfortunately, all three couldn't join eventually and at first sight I felt quite disappointed about that... Upon arriving at 2014's event, I came to the conclusion that something happened: the designers weren't invited anymore... I was disappointed for sure, but I knew that there was a good reason for them to not show up, consider that quite some activities that were frequent in every LEGO® World before (including the desirable aftermarket stands) were cut from the program. In the end, I felt happy that Lux, Kevin and Charlene didn't join after all.
Still haven't kept my "promise", I was realistic about the fact that I might not see those designers soon again, unless I would succeed in applying for the job. However, my parents encouraged me to go to the LEGO® Inside Tour of 2015. They told that perhaps that would be a proper way to actually give a good first impression to the company itself. If not, it would've been a proper investment for my future after all. Keep in mind that my parents were also quite interested in the opinions from the company - they have been supporting my goal for all those years, after all.
The second trigger, next to giving a good first impression, is also to get a good first impression from the company itself. Even after watching all those documentaries, websites and pictures for over 10 years by now, there's always certain things that such things can't show or tell - you're not the one walking in those rooms, you're not the one who's there and you're not the one talking to the people that appear on camera. There have always been some unanswered questions I had for years.
Last, but not least. The third trigger would be having a good impression about Billund and its surrounding area. Keep in mind that if I would want to work for The LEGO® Company, I will eventually live in Denmark. Moving from The Netherlands to Denmark used to be something that bugged me, but that was something I began to accept many years ago. After all, the size of Billund with its population is very similar to where I live - I live in the more deserted and low populated zones of my country.
What I was at least looking forward to the most during the 2015 Tour
Feel free to skip this if you're not interested about (endless) rambling about my personal expectations.
Going into the LEGO® Idea House, checking the infamous Vault. Being able to know more about the never-released Galidor, #8322 Mokarr/Makarr. Knowing more about LEGO®'s history, I was sure that there would be plenty of information we wouldn't be able to find online.
Meeting more people from The LEGO® Company. Not just only Product Designers. The entire company makes it as we know it today. All four-thousand. I also want to meet the designers we barely hear about: there are more than 220 LEGO® Product Designers in Billund and most (adult) fans can't name more than 10 who only appear on Youtube. There's more behind the company than just the ones who appear online - every person who got the job is on that same minimum skill level that's required to get it - if you're just only "great" or "remarkable", forget it. In fact, building skills is far from what you need to get the job as well... you should read the application forms on their website if you'd be interested in what I mean.
Being able to walk in LEGOLAND again. The last time when I visited Billund and LEGOLAND, was 10 years ago. I was curious on what was changed. A lot can happen, even in just one week.
Keeping my "promise". Taking the MK. 2 and MK. 3 projects with me and showing them to the LEGO® staff. Giving a good first impression to the people who might end up becoming my colleague's.
Registration day - 3rd of November, 2014
Feel free to skip this if you're not interested about (endless) rambling about registration for the LIT.The 3rd of November, 2014. Registration for the Tour would be available at 1 PM (GMT).
I actually was on internship during that day, but I have managed to have a few minutes off for registration without any hassle. Starting close to 1 PM, I was pressing the refresh button every minute. I got nervous, but why wouldn't I - I know that things like this will be sold out in a matter of seconds. The amount of people that could attend the tour this year was limited to nearly 145 people.
When it was 1 'o clock in Denmark (which is on the same timezone as The Netherlands), I began to refresh every few seconds. Refresh, check the entire page for changes, repeat. Near to 1:06 PM, the registration form was opened. I carefully read everything that was mentioned, double checked what I had fill in on the form and sent my request. I was registered within 30 seconds of the form being open.
Several minutes later, the website showed that the application form had to be closed because there seemed to be a tremendous amount of registrations in a short amount of time. I became slightly anxious that I might not be able to attend the tour after all, even if I expected something similar to this to happen.
Of course, as you might expect from this post - several days later I was accepted for the LEGO® Inside Tour of 2015.
On my way to Billund - 4 days before the Tour
Feel free to skip this if you're not interested about (endless) rambling about traveling.Several months before traveling, I actually decided with my parents to go by car from The Netherlands to Denmark. Even if a plane just takes one and a half hour, the main reason why we went by car is because of the amount of luggage we could carry compared to a plane. If we would go by plane, there would be no way that my MK. 2 and MK. 3 projects could be taken with us - the cargo bay of a plane can also be very damp and luggage will move around. Even if my projects are quite sturdy, against such environments, it would minimally damage the delicate electronics or pneumatic parts consider those need to be carefully taken care of while transporting.
Keep in mind that the "suitcases" where I store my projects are also quite large. They are larger than my projects, consider both of them are in Work In Progress phase, so the final dimensions are not available yet. It also enables me to use more blankets to reduce the environmental impact from traveling.
It was a long 11 hour trip, actually having no traffic jams in The Netherlands or Belgium - halfway through Germany we had some 2 hour traffic jam near Hamburg. Reaching the borders of Denmark later, the environment became very familiar...
The days before the Tour - Sightseeing in Billund
Feel free to skip this if you're not interested about (endless) rambling about Billund.
Why was the environment so familiar? It seemed that Billund was quite similar to where I live in The Netherlands. It's peaceful, quiet, spacial and cozy all together. Similar to here at home, we have several kilometers of horizon, a lot of nature and quite some farmlands outside the center of town. Yes, in case you wonder - I'm used to metropolises as well - I've used to live in Tokyo for three years. Pretty funny that Tokyo by itself has more citizens than my entire home country has...
You can easily tell that the town is what I call "Legocentric", a lot of smaller companies like restaurants, hotels and shops live from the multicultural company. There's quite some variety in stocks from various supermarkets and menu cards to provide comfortable living in "the middle of nowhere". Every issue can result into a solution.
Billund itself has one main street, it's more or less the center of town. It has a handful of shops, quite some restaurants and a few supermarkets. It's also the location where the LEGO® House is being built and is scheduled to be opened in 2017. Around the main street to the outskirts of Billund, there's a large amount of residential area's. The houses themselves are varied in a similar fashion to the supermarket shelves.
In the outskirts there's also some various facilities, one large part of Billund is occupied by many buildings from LEGO® - there's more than one department y'know? It's interesting to see that the main street is on walking distance from LEGOLAND, that's also from walking distance to the LEGO® Headquarters, and that one is from walking distance to the residential area, those to the Billund Airport... and so on. When going through such route, you can see that there's some clever thoughts about placing everything in this (small) town.
Tour Day #1 - Making yourself comfortable
Feel free to skip this if you're not interested about (endless) rambling about preparing myself for the upcoming days within the LEGO® Inside Tour. |
| My view in the LEGOLAND park from my LEGOLAND Hotel room. |
There were quite some goodies prepared when I arrived in my room. I won't spoil what you would get for the future attendees, but I have to note that you probably want to spend the first afternoon going through the paperwork that you receive when you check in. There's quite some useful and crucial information in order to successfully be prepared for the upcoming days (NDA, Tour schedule, etc). Some of them even have to be signed by yourself and turned in the next day. You can spend the rest of the day as you would like to; every attendee receives a Season Pass for LEGOLAND 2015! Feel free to relax in your room, but you can also enter LEGOLAND while having your Season Pass with you. I'll get back on that in a second.
Between all the paperwork, there was actually some homework! There was a small zip bag with some parts in it. When opening the bag, you would find a small leaflet.
After going through all the paperwork on my own tempo, I scheduled working on the Miniland figure next. It took me longer than I expected: the type of parts in the bag were slightly limited! Though slightly annoyed by the lack of SNOT (Studs Not On Top) enablers for the arms, I shortly realized that Miniland models in LEGOLAND often uses basic bricks...
The next thing I did near the end of the afternoon was going to LEGOLAND. Which is basically taking the stairs (or elevator) and you'll be already at the Hotel-To-The-Park gate. A swift scan of my Season Pass and I was good to go. I've been going around the park to look at the new attractions that have been released in the past 10 years. It felt delightful seeing all those older and new attractions together - most people don't know that LEGOLAND is one huge reference to all kinds of things that LEGO® has released in the past. Older sets like the Fabuland line, early-2000 sets (including Technic, Racers and even Jackstone!) and newer ones like Monster Fighters or the CITY Arctic.
Because the LEGOLAND Hotel Restaurant is only open in the morning for breakfast, I had to take dinner at the park itself. Eventually when I was done checking all the attractions, it was still quite early (6 'o clock, while the park closes at 8) - however, quite some restaurants in the park were closed. There were still a few open, so I went to the most close one just to be sure, getting a delicious (quality) bowl of fries. Gotta love when fries really taste like potato's, instead of just frying oil.
After dinner, I got back to my hotel room. Since I took my laptop with me, I spend the rest of the evening getting up to date with my news feeds and did my daily routine around MapleStory Europe (EMS).
IMPRESSIONS OF THE LEGOLAND HOTEL
My first impression of the LEGOLAND Hotel was surely positive. For a hotel, it's not really being top notch, but that's not what is really needed for a building like this. It's LEGO® themed hotel for sure, but not to the point of being childish - I appreciated that certain details in the hotel were subtle (such as a carpet floor with LEGO® studs on it, or having a large LEGO® brick printed on the wall), consider that the hotel also functions as a guest room for business partners from The LEGO® Company to spend the night.
The hotel staff were always positive and cheerful. I was delighted to see that and I appreciate the effort that would've went behind recruiting these people. They were ready to help 24/7 (I can confirm that, just go on to read Day 2...) and if there was any issue they could help quite swiftly.
My hotel room was quite spacial! Even when I booked for a single person, I actually had a room for two. It had a proper desk to work on, a TV, a waste bin, a large corner couch, a proper wardrobe that could fit clothing for more than two people, a kitchen sink with some kitchen utensils (like a water boiler) and a large bathroom. The bathroom included a toilet, a spacial shower and two sinks; all included enough bath towels and (spare) toilet paper for at least a week. It was surely a practical room to be in, and I love to have that. The WIFI connection in the Hotel was proper, it was not entirely great but that's because it was occupied by many people - despite that, it was enough for me to play EMS! Positive things aside, the hotel was not flawless however...
The room had no conditioning. You can open the windows to get some fresh air, but keep in mind that you're next to the LEGOLAND Park and Billund Airport (hence it could be slightly noisy when you open it). I had some issues with my room's lightning or toilet, however those were swiftly fixed by the Hotel Staff when I went to the reception - I know those (two) things can happen at anytime everywhere, but I just wanted to point it out. Keep in mind that you shouldn't place your Hotel Key Card in your purse, consider that the magnetic fields of the key card and your bank cards will collide and shut down the Hotel Key Card. You'll need to get back to the hotel reception in order to get that fixed. However, out of all the things, I think that this would be my largest complaint in my Hotel Room:
It's hard to resist these kind of plastic containers in a room... I thought I would end up sleeping on time for getting up fresh in the next morning, but I was wrong about that.
Tour Day #2 - Probably the best of the four
Feel free to skip this if you're not interested about (endless) rambling about the possible best day of the tour.
Day 2 is basically the actual first day of the LEGO® Inside Tour. Starting near lunchtime, we had to take breakfast by our own in the morning. This would apply for every morning in the tour. The LEGOLAND Restaurant was open between 6 AM until 10 AM, so for people who like to sleep late should be warned to wake up early every morning...
The breakfast is your average hotel breakfast. All sorts of bread, eggs, a variation of sandwich filling, yogurt and fruit drinks are available. Because there's some variation in the sandwich filling, yogurt and fruit drinks, you shouldn't worry about allergies. Nothing spectacular about the variation itself, but nevertheless a proper breakfast can change your day.
Taking a small rest after breakfast in the morning before the official opening, I was looking at an empty LEGOLAND. The closer we got to 10 'o clock, the more lively the park became - although the "life" came from the LEGOLAND Staff itself. It was interesting to being able to see the daily routine the staff takes every day. The attractions themselves had a few test runs before the park opened. They even had automatic lawn mowers, how cool is that?
Waiting eagerly for the official opening of the tour, I never like to come late and I always make sure to be on time. I decided to wait at the meeting point for about 30 minutes because I was so nervous for meeting the LEGO® Staff that were related to the Inside Tour and meeting other LEGO® fans from around the world. So if I would have to sit through 30 minutes, by the time the tour would start, I would've been relaxed by then. Most people from MapleStory Europe who met me in real life don't know that I'm always very nervous for meeting them for the first time, even if they can't see it haha. Oh the glory of pressure when you push on that doorbell button or arrive at the meeting point...
Slowly the meeting point got filled by other attendees - meeting them was a pleasure for sure! Many obvious-but-still-always-interesting-to-know-questions were given, such as "what is your favorite theme/set?", "what's your age?", "where did you came from?" and "what is your reason to attend this year's tour?". I was delighted to see that everyone was enthusiastic about the brand and that we all could get along quite well from the start. There were all kinds of LEGO® fans as you would expect; die hard (adult) fans, parents with children, collectors, builders - people who prefer the IP themes (such as Star Wars, Super Heroes) or non-IP themes (such as Bionicle, Ninjago, Space, Friends, City) - from all over the world. Perhaps we got lucky with who joined this group? Who knows...
Shortly after, the LEGO® Staff arrived and gave us a heart-warming introduction. They already started straight off the bat with a tray of all different kind of minifigure parts - we had to build ourselves as a minifig. Next to that, we all got a badge that we could wear during the tour (optionally). Before leaving the meeting room to move to the conference room, we had to turn in our paperwork we received at Day 1 (such as the NDA). So please keep that in mind.
Starting in the conference room, which is one of the main locations reserved for the tour, we started with a more formal introduction to the tour. The LIT Tour Staff gave a brief introduction about themselves and answered a few practical questions already about the Tour that were already present. Shortly after, we moved on to the LEGO® Idea House...
We arrived at the LEGO® Idea House (LIH), which is a restricted area only for LEGO® Staff and VIP. To explain the "VIP" part, not only LIT attendees can join, but also people who attend workshops or are business partners with the company. The Idea House is a shortened and to-the-point memory lane of the company's history. It also serves as a conference hall; there are quite a few rooms for business meetings around it. The LIH tour starts at the main house where Ole Kirk Kristiansen, founder of the company, have lived with his family. Presumably in order to preserve the house, the LIH was built around it - but I don't know for sure, it's just a wild guess. The house itself doesn't have any of the original furniture inside - it has a lot of glass displays instead which shows a lot of the original tools in the first room, that where used to make the wooden toys.
The second room had a lot of the original wooden LEGO® toys - although some people would be bored from that, I was very impressed with the displayed collection because a lot of them where in incredible condition for its age! Getting to see these wooden toys with barely any damage to it, including a crisp amount of painting left (with minor edges missing), is not something you are likely to see that often... And of course, in case you wonder: there was one glass display, proudly showing one of LEGO®'s mascots, the good ol' wooden duck, in nearly mint condition...
Moving from the original house to the modern part of the LIH, it is a spacial room with lots of information on lightened up walls, going from the start from LEGO® in the early thirties to several years ago. Having a handful of displays around it, with a lot of mint (and some in sealed boxes) sets dating from the late fifties to even 2014. Having a few "hidden" doors that were opened, there was one room showing a lot of Star Wars sets, including a handful of UCS (with of course, the Millennium Falcon in display). Another room would lead to The Vault, but before we talk about that, there was another interesting activity that was prepared for the Tour.
Counterfeits are a common topic in the current day LEGO® community. We're not talking about (legal) competitive brands we see on the market (that's a different subject than counterfeits), but reverse engineered copies of (older) sets that uses misleading but similar box arts with illegal use of IP material. They look very similar to the original products, including the box arts. Deceptive but sneaky changes have been made to the box, using logo's which are similar to the LEGO® logo and the ones from Bionicle, Ninjago, etc. Some really go far by using IP materials like Star Wars or Super Heroes. Most people don't realize that are hundreds of different companies that do this. During this activity, LEGO®'s department which researches and examines these counterfeits has provided a few examples. You would be free to examine the differences with the original - where some attendees struggled to see the difference (that just shows how well the counterfeits try to copy) - while I tried some myself as well.
One example I would like to talk about is #8904 Avak, one of the Bionicle Piraka. I can honestly tell that I only own Thok and Reidak, but all Piraka are similar in build. All Piraka use a cowl for its head, that goes all the way down to the spine and arms (in example, Avak's cowl). When looking at the original and the counterfeit Avak, the cowl on the counterfeit is the first thing to notice. Even if the colour and texture of the cowl is identical (perfectly mimicked Reddish Brown), there's one finishing that's glaring and visible from about two meters distance. There's a rough edge on the chin of the cowl, which is a "bleed out" of having the mould insufficiently closed by lack of pressure (bleed outs are those thick lines you can see on "cheaper" plastic parts, in example drinking bottles have them, the thick line is where the two mould halves would close), which the original doesn't have. Some pieces in that set (and most newer Bionicle sets) are using the "Pearl" colour palette, which gives a more metallic look to several ABS LEGO® parts. The counterfeit has a different sheen to it, and some angles are kind of translucent. So these kind of things can easily be hard for most die hard fans to spot, so to be always sure to look for Part IDs and LEGO® logo's somewhere on (or inside) the part. That aside - it was surely interesting to give it a moment of thought.
The last main part of the LEGO® Idea House is The Vault. Usually this department is one of the "hidden" doors that's locked away without supervision. The Vault is a location where a large part of the LEGO® sets that have been released are stored (often in multiple copies). Most of the more NDA-sensitive sets (promotionals, prototypes, etc) are stored elsewhere.
Having seen these on pictures and video footage, the room itself is actually a lot smaller than I'd expected it to be! The room consists of many large metal structures which acts as shelves. These structures can be moved from left to right, in order to save a lot of space by stacking them in a row. Getting access to one of the shelves requires the structures to be moved apart in order to make a path. Every structure consists of a few years, depending on how many sets where kept per structure. While many of the adults went to their childhoods (ranging between the sixties and eighties mostly), the children went to their respective childhoods - time was very limited in The Vault (please keep this in mind if you are going to attend the tour) so I had only interest in one year: 2002. Please keep in mind that the years after 2014 were blocked for peeking, which included plans for even after 2015... (of course, why'd you think they would show them?)
As I mentioned before, I was still on "the hunt" for more information about #8322 Mokarr/Makarr. Knowing realistically that there's no way to get my hands on it ever, because never-released is never-released and prototypes are unavailable to fans like me. What can be available, is pure intel. Because I know for a fact that Mokarr/Makarr was finished and has been used in promotional materials, such as catalogs - I was not sure if it was manufactured or not, even if it was never released in stores so far as I've read. Opening the structure for 2002, I was looking carefully through the Galidor sets, which where all mint in sealed box (MISB); I was surprised seeing Aquart and Tager boxed consider these are so rare and expensive (I have both but I haven't seen them boxed before) - but no Mokarr/Makarr was to be found. Of course I was disappointed not having found it, I wasn't surprised by that fact as well, but on the other side I felt some inner peace with myself knowing that it wasn't manufactured after all.
After leaving The Vault and getting back to the present LIH, we (the attendees and Tour Staff) had some more (valuable) time to talk and share our passion of the brand. The next stop would be back to the conference room; "Meeting the Designers"!
About twelve Designers were at the conference room, all ranging from different themes from this year such as Technic, Mindstorms, Friends, Elves, Bionicle, Star Wars and Jurassic World. It was great to see that the designers that were available during the tour weren't only those designers that every AFOL would know - some of them that appeared were ones that are hardly mentioned on the internet and they deserve as much credit as the more known designers. I was delighted to see all kind of different generations of designers; ranging from people who have worked for over 40 years in the company to people from my age. When I walked in the room, there was one person of the entire line up that specifically caught my attention for something related to the past: it was one of the designers I met during LEGO® World in 2013 who I made that "promise" with.
Before starting the presentations, I took the chance to talk with the designer for a few seconds. "It has been a while since our last meeting!", I said to him. It took him a second and he smiled, recognizing me from nearly three years ago. We decided to talk about what happened with LEGO® World and such during the dinner - consider the presentations would start in a few seconds.
The start of the "Meet the Designers" presentations at the conference room didn't start I expected it to be. I was actually quite surprised! All of the designers introduced themselves briefly. Instead of going detailed about them yet, they started with "Enough about us, we would love to hear about you." - they had a bag with all names of the tour members. Randomly picking out names from the bag, I began to become so nervous, I had no clue about what to say. Shortly after, they picked up my name - I began to walk to the front, shaking nervously.
I took a breath and thought to take a leap of faith. If it was the right moment to tell about it during the tour, it would've been now. I introduced myself.
"Hi, my name is (...), but if you find that too hard to pronounce, feel free to call me Ray. As you might see, I'm quite nervous. I've been wanting to work for The LEGO® Company for nearly 17 years to become a Product Designer. I joined the LIT to get a good impression of the company before I apply in a few years..."
After everyone presented themselves, it was time to move on with the detailed presentations.
Each designer had their own presentation - explaining the steps they take from a sketch concept to the ones you end up seeing in the store shelves. Every theme had their own story in their design process; it was great to have a look at all those differences between - which included several back stories of the designers as well.
In total there was quite a large amount of presentations. Despite several subjects from these presentations are most likely to be known by many AFOLs, there were a few things that you might have not known - most of these information are part of the NDA. Next to all the interesting information we have heard and seen during these presentations, it was heart-warming to see that not all of the staff had a "Legocentric" background - some of the staff never have touched LEGO® pieces until they got their job! So for the ones who would love to work for The LEGO® Company but never felt on that specific minimum level of being "Legocentric", perhaps you should just give it a try to see how things work out. Who knows...
Between the presentations and dinner, there was a slight surprise. Every attendees obtained a coloured DUPLO Brick, which was related to group assignment. I won't spoil the surprise, but if you watched the "recent" Ant-Man trailer from Marvel, it's closely related to Thomas the train (and nothing with Marvel, FYI). But with some more weight. A lot more than you'd expect (URL contains spoilers).
After that assignment, it was time for dinner! For the people who love buffet (I'm also looking at you, Lux) and that are going to attend the Tour (unfortunately, Lux won't go at all) there will be buffet (with cake). There was quite an assortment, varying from all kinds of meals - it was easy to see that the Tour Staff did keep the multicultural differences into consideration (including people who are vegetarian and people who prefer sweet food). During the dinner I had all kinds of talk with the other attendees, designers and Tour Staff. It was interesting to see that some of the designers were interested to hear about my story for becoming a designer! I also had the chance to tell that I have taken projects with me, but that would be later for the tour.
I would like to advise to take a proper dinner, because the next (and last) thing that is scheduled for Day 1 won't be a light workout.
It was about mid-evening. The next thing that was scheduled is probably the most enjoyable part for most (future) attendees during the entire LIT. Having an entire room reserved with a few LEGO® HQ Cabinets (the ones they use at the Designer Department - the ones that store parts that the designers use), a lot of tables (with chairs!) and a handful of fizzy drinks - we got welcomed by the designers once more. Build something out of these available LEGO® parts that could possibly be sold as a LEGO® Toy - we got a leaflet which had a few point of interests where a LEGO® Set has to follow. Build something that you would love to build and would've enjoyed a lot as a child, it's the perfect moment.
"You have all night until 8:30 in the morning." - The results of the building competition will be revealed on the next day.
Looking around before we started, I went through the drawers and I could easily anticipate what pieces would be taken the most and would be build by the others. Even if I felt to build a proper spaceship that is rich of play features, but I wanted to challenge myself with something more difficult. If there would be a proper moment to give a good first impression to twelve designers, it would be the right time.
Having spend the entire night in the building room, it took me until 4:30 in the morning before I finished my model. See the picture above, presenting my model "Ripper" (blame 4:30 AM for name creativity). At least, "Ripper" was just a proof of concept - and I wasn't afraid to mention that on my description that would be presented with it. I began to become so tired near that time that I couldn't finish it entirely (including a proper name) - so it lacked some design, consistency in its play features and a slight bit of safety (some gears were exposed).
The model can be described as a punching robot. Even if that may sound very generic, consider that LEGO® has also released a bunch of them in the past; I wanted it to be a level higher and something refreshing in that spirit. Often, punching robots from LEGO® are fixed in one specific direction (horizontally or vertically) and made out of Technic pins - because I always seem to overuse towball joints in my models (for play features and to create odd angles in shapes), I made an asymmetrical punching robot. One that makes a side punch with its right arm and makes an uppercut with its left. Because of using towballs, it gives the robot a more realistic movement, because the arms move freely in all kind of directions.
Instead of having levers on the back for (either of) both arms, the punches would be activated by rotating the waist of the robot. By pushing a large "canister" on the back of the robot (the large corner piece that you can see on the picture), the upper body would rotate through its waist, retracting one of the two arms while extending the other. During the uppercut, the body of the robot faces forward - while during the side punch, it turns around its waist a lot, as most "larger figures" (read: humans) tend to do. In case it might still be complex to understand, or if you skipped this wall of text without even reading the self-awareness of this blogpost, or in case you'd be craving for some footage, here you go:
Despite it still being a proof of concept, I did take sturdiness into consideration. The model itself can handle some hefty playing, although the legs should've been fixated instead of CCBS parts... The parts inventory has been chosen carefully, I tried to repeat a lot of the same parts "to keep the price down" and cheaper variants of common parts (red axles are cheaper than black ones). By looking at the amount of (different) parts in total, the set itself would've been probably near the same price point as the more larger (and expensive) Bionicle models from the past.
Being tired as (...), it was almost 5 'o clock when I went to bed. I needed to get up at 7:30 for breakfast... The next day had some activities on schedule which I was looking forward to badly.
Because the dinner was short and we all were occupied for the night, I promised the designers to show my projects after the Building Challenge Award Show instead - they seemed to be looking forward and interested to it.
Day 2 is basically the actual first day of the LEGO® Inside Tour. Starting near lunchtime, we had to take breakfast by our own in the morning. This would apply for every morning in the tour. The LEGOLAND Restaurant was open between 6 AM until 10 AM, so for people who like to sleep late should be warned to wake up early every morning...
The breakfast is your average hotel breakfast. All sorts of bread, eggs, a variation of sandwich filling, yogurt and fruit drinks are available. Because there's some variation in the sandwich filling, yogurt and fruit drinks, you shouldn't worry about allergies. Nothing spectacular about the variation itself, but nevertheless a proper breakfast can change your day.
Taking a small rest after breakfast in the morning before the official opening, I was looking at an empty LEGOLAND. The closer we got to 10 'o clock, the more lively the park became - although the "life" came from the LEGOLAND Staff itself. It was interesting to being able to see the daily routine the staff takes every day. The attractions themselves had a few test runs before the park opened. They even had automatic lawn mowers, how cool is that?
Waiting eagerly for the official opening of the tour, I never like to come late and I always make sure to be on time. I decided to wait at the meeting point for about 30 minutes because I was so nervous for meeting the LEGO® Staff that were related to the Inside Tour and meeting other LEGO® fans from around the world. So if I would have to sit through 30 minutes, by the time the tour would start, I would've been relaxed by then. Most people from MapleStory Europe who met me in real life don't know that I'm always very nervous for meeting them for the first time, even if they can't see it haha. Oh the glory of pressure when you push on that doorbell button or arrive at the meeting point...
Slowly the meeting point got filled by other attendees - meeting them was a pleasure for sure! Many obvious-but-still-always-interesting-to-know-questions were given, such as "what is your favorite theme/set?", "what's your age?", "where did you came from?" and "what is your reason to attend this year's tour?". I was delighted to see that everyone was enthusiastic about the brand and that we all could get along quite well from the start. There were all kinds of LEGO® fans as you would expect; die hard (adult) fans, parents with children, collectors, builders - people who prefer the IP themes (such as Star Wars, Super Heroes) or non-IP themes (such as Bionicle, Ninjago, Space, Friends, City) - from all over the world. Perhaps we got lucky with who joined this group? Who knows...
Shortly after, the LEGO® Staff arrived and gave us a heart-warming introduction. They already started straight off the bat with a tray of all different kind of minifigure parts - we had to build ourselves as a minifig. Next to that, we all got a badge that we could wear during the tour (optionally). Before leaving the meeting room to move to the conference room, we had to turn in our paperwork we received at Day 1 (such as the NDA). So please keep that in mind.
Starting in the conference room, which is one of the main locations reserved for the tour, we started with a more formal introduction to the tour. The LIT Tour Staff gave a brief introduction about themselves and answered a few practical questions already about the Tour that were already present. Shortly after, we moved on to the LEGO® Idea House...
We arrived at the LEGO® Idea House (LIH), which is a restricted area only for LEGO® Staff and VIP. To explain the "VIP" part, not only LIT attendees can join, but also people who attend workshops or are business partners with the company. The Idea House is a shortened and to-the-point memory lane of the company's history. It also serves as a conference hall; there are quite a few rooms for business meetings around it. The LIH tour starts at the main house where Ole Kirk Kristiansen, founder of the company, have lived with his family. Presumably in order to preserve the house, the LIH was built around it - but I don't know for sure, it's just a wild guess. The house itself doesn't have any of the original furniture inside - it has a lot of glass displays instead which shows a lot of the original tools in the first room, that where used to make the wooden toys.
The second room had a lot of the original wooden LEGO® toys - although some people would be bored from that, I was very impressed with the displayed collection because a lot of them where in incredible condition for its age! Getting to see these wooden toys with barely any damage to it, including a crisp amount of painting left (with minor edges missing), is not something you are likely to see that often... And of course, in case you wonder: there was one glass display, proudly showing one of LEGO®'s mascots, the good ol' wooden duck, in nearly mint condition...
Moving from the original house to the modern part of the LIH, it is a spacial room with lots of information on lightened up walls, going from the start from LEGO® in the early thirties to several years ago. Having a handful of displays around it, with a lot of mint (and some in sealed boxes) sets dating from the late fifties to even 2014. Having a few "hidden" doors that were opened, there was one room showing a lot of Star Wars sets, including a handful of UCS (with of course, the Millennium Falcon in display). Another room would lead to The Vault, but before we talk about that, there was another interesting activity that was prepared for the Tour.
Counterfeits are a common topic in the current day LEGO® community. We're not talking about (legal) competitive brands we see on the market (that's a different subject than counterfeits), but reverse engineered copies of (older) sets that uses misleading but similar box arts with illegal use of IP material. They look very similar to the original products, including the box arts. Deceptive but sneaky changes have been made to the box, using logo's which are similar to the LEGO® logo and the ones from Bionicle, Ninjago, etc. Some really go far by using IP materials like Star Wars or Super Heroes. Most people don't realize that are hundreds of different companies that do this. During this activity, LEGO®'s department which researches and examines these counterfeits has provided a few examples. You would be free to examine the differences with the original - where some attendees struggled to see the difference (that just shows how well the counterfeits try to copy) - while I tried some myself as well.
One example I would like to talk about is #8904 Avak, one of the Bionicle Piraka. I can honestly tell that I only own Thok and Reidak, but all Piraka are similar in build. All Piraka use a cowl for its head, that goes all the way down to the spine and arms (in example, Avak's cowl). When looking at the original and the counterfeit Avak, the cowl on the counterfeit is the first thing to notice. Even if the colour and texture of the cowl is identical (perfectly mimicked Reddish Brown), there's one finishing that's glaring and visible from about two meters distance. There's a rough edge on the chin of the cowl, which is a "bleed out" of having the mould insufficiently closed by lack of pressure (bleed outs are those thick lines you can see on "cheaper" plastic parts, in example drinking bottles have them, the thick line is where the two mould halves would close), which the original doesn't have. Some pieces in that set (and most newer Bionicle sets) are using the "Pearl" colour palette, which gives a more metallic look to several ABS LEGO® parts. The counterfeit has a different sheen to it, and some angles are kind of translucent. So these kind of things can easily be hard for most die hard fans to spot, so to be always sure to look for Part IDs and LEGO® logo's somewhere on (or inside) the part. That aside - it was surely interesting to give it a moment of thought.
The last main part of the LEGO® Idea House is The Vault. Usually this department is one of the "hidden" doors that's locked away without supervision. The Vault is a location where a large part of the LEGO® sets that have been released are stored (often in multiple copies). Most of the more NDA-sensitive sets (promotionals, prototypes, etc) are stored elsewhere.
Having seen these on pictures and video footage, the room itself is actually a lot smaller than I'd expected it to be! The room consists of many large metal structures which acts as shelves. These structures can be moved from left to right, in order to save a lot of space by stacking them in a row. Getting access to one of the shelves requires the structures to be moved apart in order to make a path. Every structure consists of a few years, depending on how many sets where kept per structure. While many of the adults went to their childhoods (ranging between the sixties and eighties mostly), the children went to their respective childhoods - time was very limited in The Vault (please keep this in mind if you are going to attend the tour) so I had only interest in one year: 2002. Please keep in mind that the years after 2014 were blocked for peeking, which included plans for even after 2015... (of course, why'd you think they would show them?)
As I mentioned before, I was still on "the hunt" for more information about #8322 Mokarr/Makarr. Knowing realistically that there's no way to get my hands on it ever, because never-released is never-released and prototypes are unavailable to fans like me. What can be available, is pure intel. Because I know for a fact that Mokarr/Makarr was finished and has been used in promotional materials, such as catalogs - I was not sure if it was manufactured or not, even if it was never released in stores so far as I've read. Opening the structure for 2002, I was looking carefully through the Galidor sets, which where all mint in sealed box (MISB); I was surprised seeing Aquart and Tager boxed consider these are so rare and expensive (I have both but I haven't seen them boxed before) - but no Mokarr/Makarr was to be found. Of course I was disappointed not having found it, I wasn't surprised by that fact as well, but on the other side I felt some inner peace with myself knowing that it wasn't manufactured after all.
After leaving The Vault and getting back to the present LIH, we (the attendees and Tour Staff) had some more (valuable) time to talk and share our passion of the brand. The next stop would be back to the conference room; "Meeting the Designers"!
About twelve Designers were at the conference room, all ranging from different themes from this year such as Technic, Mindstorms, Friends, Elves, Bionicle, Star Wars and Jurassic World. It was great to see that the designers that were available during the tour weren't only those designers that every AFOL would know - some of them that appeared were ones that are hardly mentioned on the internet and they deserve as much credit as the more known designers. I was delighted to see all kind of different generations of designers; ranging from people who have worked for over 40 years in the company to people from my age. When I walked in the room, there was one person of the entire line up that specifically caught my attention for something related to the past: it was one of the designers I met during LEGO® World in 2013 who I made that "promise" with.
Before starting the presentations, I took the chance to talk with the designer for a few seconds. "It has been a while since our last meeting!", I said to him. It took him a second and he smiled, recognizing me from nearly three years ago. We decided to talk about what happened with LEGO® World and such during the dinner - consider the presentations would start in a few seconds.
The start of the "Meet the Designers" presentations at the conference room didn't start I expected it to be. I was actually quite surprised! All of the designers introduced themselves briefly. Instead of going detailed about them yet, they started with "Enough about us, we would love to hear about you." - they had a bag with all names of the tour members. Randomly picking out names from the bag, I began to become so nervous, I had no clue about what to say. Shortly after, they picked up my name - I began to walk to the front, shaking nervously.
I took a breath and thought to take a leap of faith. If it was the right moment to tell about it during the tour, it would've been now. I introduced myself.
"Hi, my name is (...), but if you find that too hard to pronounce, feel free to call me Ray. As you might see, I'm quite nervous. I've been wanting to work for The LEGO® Company for nearly 17 years to become a Product Designer. I joined the LIT to get a good impression of the company before I apply in a few years..."
After everyone presented themselves, it was time to move on with the detailed presentations.
Each designer had their own presentation - explaining the steps they take from a sketch concept to the ones you end up seeing in the store shelves. Every theme had their own story in their design process; it was great to have a look at all those differences between - which included several back stories of the designers as well.
In total there was quite a large amount of presentations. Despite several subjects from these presentations are most likely to be known by many AFOLs, there were a few things that you might have not known - most of these information are part of the NDA. Next to all the interesting information we have heard and seen during these presentations, it was heart-warming to see that not all of the staff had a "Legocentric" background - some of the staff never have touched LEGO® pieces until they got their job! So for the ones who would love to work for The LEGO® Company but never felt on that specific minimum level of being "Legocentric", perhaps you should just give it a try to see how things work out. Who knows...
Between the presentations and dinner, there was a slight surprise. Every attendees obtained a coloured DUPLO Brick, which was related to group assignment. I won't spoil the surprise, but if you watched the "recent" Ant-Man trailer from Marvel, it's closely related to Thomas the train (and nothing with Marvel, FYI). But with some more weight. A lot more than you'd expect (URL contains spoilers).
After that assignment, it was time for dinner! For the people who love buffet (I'm also looking at you, Lux) and that are going to attend the Tour (unfortunately, Lux won't go at all) there will be buffet (with cake). There was quite an assortment, varying from all kinds of meals - it was easy to see that the Tour Staff did keep the multicultural differences into consideration (including people who are vegetarian and people who prefer sweet food). During the dinner I had all kinds of talk with the other attendees, designers and Tour Staff. It was interesting to see that some of the designers were interested to hear about my story for becoming a designer! I also had the chance to tell that I have taken projects with me, but that would be later for the tour.
I would like to advise to take a proper dinner, because the next (and last) thing that is scheduled for Day 1 won't be a light workout.
It was about mid-evening. The next thing that was scheduled is probably the most enjoyable part for most (future) attendees during the entire LIT. Having an entire room reserved with a few LEGO® HQ Cabinets (the ones they use at the Designer Department - the ones that store parts that the designers use), a lot of tables (with chairs!) and a handful of fizzy drinks - we got welcomed by the designers once more. Build something out of these available LEGO® parts that could possibly be sold as a LEGO® Toy - we got a leaflet which had a few point of interests where a LEGO® Set has to follow. Build something that you would love to build and would've enjoyed a lot as a child, it's the perfect moment.
"You have all night until 8:30 in the morning." - The results of the building competition will be revealed on the next day.
Looking around before we started, I went through the drawers and I could easily anticipate what pieces would be taken the most and would be build by the others. Even if I felt to build a proper spaceship that is rich of play features, but I wanted to challenge myself with something more difficult. If there would be a proper moment to give a good first impression to twelve designers, it would be the right time.
Having spend the entire night in the building room, it took me until 4:30 in the morning before I finished my model. See the picture above, presenting my model "Ripper" (blame 4:30 AM for name creativity). At least, "Ripper" was just a proof of concept - and I wasn't afraid to mention that on my description that would be presented with it. I began to become so tired near that time that I couldn't finish it entirely (including a proper name) - so it lacked some design, consistency in its play features and a slight bit of safety (some gears were exposed).
The model can be described as a punching robot. Even if that may sound very generic, consider that LEGO® has also released a bunch of them in the past; I wanted it to be a level higher and something refreshing in that spirit. Often, punching robots from LEGO® are fixed in one specific direction (horizontally or vertically) and made out of Technic pins - because I always seem to overuse towball joints in my models (for play features and to create odd angles in shapes), I made an asymmetrical punching robot. One that makes a side punch with its right arm and makes an uppercut with its left. Because of using towballs, it gives the robot a more realistic movement, because the arms move freely in all kind of directions.
Instead of having levers on the back for (either of) both arms, the punches would be activated by rotating the waist of the robot. By pushing a large "canister" on the back of the robot (the large corner piece that you can see on the picture), the upper body would rotate through its waist, retracting one of the two arms while extending the other. During the uppercut, the body of the robot faces forward - while during the side punch, it turns around its waist a lot, as most "larger figures" (read: humans) tend to do. In case it might still be complex to understand, or if you skipped this wall of text without even reading the self-awareness of this blogpost, or in case you'd be craving for some footage, here you go:
Despite it still being a proof of concept, I did take sturdiness into consideration. The model itself can handle some hefty playing, although the legs should've been fixated instead of CCBS parts... The parts inventory has been chosen carefully, I tried to repeat a lot of the same parts "to keep the price down" and cheaper variants of common parts (red axles are cheaper than black ones). By looking at the amount of (different) parts in total, the set itself would've been probably near the same price point as the more larger (and expensive) Bionicle models from the past.
Being tired as (...), it was almost 5 'o clock when I went to bed. I needed to get up at 7:30 for breakfast... The next day had some activities on schedule which I was looking forward to badly.
Because the dinner was short and we all were occupied for the night, I promised the designers to show my projects after the Building Challenge Award Show instead - they seemed to be looking forward and interested to it.
Tour Day #3 - Probably the second best of the four of the Tour
Feel free to skip this if you're not interested about (endless) rambling about the possibly second best day of the tour.
The third day of the Tour was probably the most "Inside" of the LIT. Nearly the entire day was scheduled in different facilities, although not all. Even though it's possible to walk between the facilities, we went by bus - this made traveling easier in my view, it would be welcomed by people who are less mobile and consider the weather in Billund can be "surprisingly" unpredictable (not for somebody from the Benelux) we stayed dry when it was raining during that day.
Taking the Tour bus from the LEGOLAND Hotel to the LEGO® Headquarters (LHQ) only took a few seconds (as expected). On the way to the LHQ we saw other facilities we didn't visit, such as the Innovation House (next to the LIH), several "unnamed" LEGO® offices and the main parking garage.
Finally arriving at the LHQ, I have to be honest that the building is a lot less high than you'd see on pictures. It's just one floor high. Nevertheless, what I thought was the most exciting building of the few that we visited was different than I expected it to be.
Arriving at the reception, we already saw a lot of sets that had yet to come out (but for people like me, we already knew those from Toy Fairs and such) sitting on shelves and a few doorways to different departments. We had to wait a second before moving on so we had to the time to look around (at the reception). Moving on to the (what I expected it to be) first conference room, we've been greeted by one of the people that works with TT Games for the LEGO® Videogames (LV) department - we had an interesting presentation about one of the upcoming videogames.
I was delighted that they managed to put something from the LV department in the Tour (of course, because I like to play these games occasionally), it's something refreshing that I wouldn't expect to be in the tour at first sight.
Moving to the next room by following the Tour Staff, oh... we ended up back at the reception. It seems that there wasn't more "Inside" about the LHQ and I can understand why. Even if we have signed a NDA, walking through the Designer Department, R&D, marketing, etc would probably be too sensitive for just tour attendees. Ah well... so far it's limited to drooling at the pictures online.
Going to the next facilities; the main factory Kornmarken (KOM) and another interesting facility: Havremarken (HAM). Arriving at KOM first, we've had a decent tour around the main factory. There were some surprises, but also some disappointments.
Before we arrived at the factory, we had watched an introduction movie for main factory. This short is actually very important before going to the factory, read on to know why...
We first had a small introduction to the background of the factory, including one of the first Injection Moulding machines that the company has used (one of the first milling machines for their wooden toys was on display in the LIH).
Walking through the first door into the main halls of Kornmarken, there was already quite some various (automatic) traffic right from the start. When looking around at the second you walked in, you can easily understand why the factory is near to half a kilometer long.
The tour through the factory was as expected, it's a chronological order from the granulate to the sets themselves. KOM is segmented in five sections, presumably:
1. Raw material storage & receiving
2. Parts warehouse
3. Injection Moulding & printing
4. Packaging Room
5. Sets warehouse & transport
The first segment we walked into was the area that receives the granulate. For readers who have no knowledge about plastic manufacturing, or Injection Moulding at least, the bricks we play with start as gravel-like stones. The granulate arrives from trucks and the granulate is stored in various silo's. The most common colours are stored in the larger ones which are basically extracted automatically from this area to the injection moulding department - the less used colours are stored in manual (smaller) silo's. We haven't seen that much of the entire area, but there was enough to understand the concept of it. I don't expect seeing more of this area would've added more value.
The second segment we walked into was the parts warehouse. This is the location where all the manufactured parts are being stored. The room was gigantic, being a few floors tall and the end of the room was unlikely to be seen with ease. It consisted of many enormous structures, with hundred thousands of pieces stored in containers. Every structure had its own automatic crane and there were main two conveyor belts leading to the room; one that would bring the parts to be stored and one that would bring the parts to the packaging room. Even seeing this room so many times through pictures, seeing it in real is incomparable with any visuals I've seen before... keep in mind that where we walked inside is one of the many parts warehouses that KOM has...
The third segment we walked into was a storage room for the moulds, which would lead us to the Injection Moulding room later. It was impressive to see those moulds together, you could easily see from a distance that they are taken well care of. I expected the room to be larger, but that's because I'm used to something else (I will get back to this in a second).
The fourth segment we walked into was the Injection Moulding area. At least, we walked into "Room 7" of the Injection Moulding area, hinting that there would be more of these rooms in total.
There was quite an impressive amount of rows of moulding machines, being able to see the hoses that come all the way from the granulate storage down to this room. Several robots drive around and collect filled up boxes to bring them back to the parts warehouse. It's impressive to see all of these areas work together, but also having a huge part of it being automatic. This is kind of where the factory tour ended.
"No matter how many times I see this, I never get used to it."
I can tell that the Kornmarken (KOM) main factory is surely a sight to behold. I've been to quite an amount of (main) factories in the past before, such as Ahrend, Philips, Dorel and Esko; and from all the factories that I've seen, this is the most impressive one for sure. Biased because it was LEGO®'s main factory? I'm not. The size of the factory doesn't matter (and Kornmarken wasn't the largest one I've seen at all), it's about the process itself. The factory is nearly fully automated, the segments are cohesive and work together instead of independently. A lot of things I've seen being automated aren't in most factories (recycling of plastic, receiving and transportation of granulate, storing manufactured parts and bringing them to the warehouse). Safety is in some area's more thought out than other factories - and most importantly, it's much cleaner. Bonus points for having thought about sunlight getting inside the factory; during the morning at the factory there was nearly no need for lights at all.
However, despite the positive points, there were some disappointments during the factory tour. We haven't seen the packaging room or the set warehouse at all... Even during the Injection Moulding area, we haven't seen anything related to printing parts or the part assembly line (such as the Technic suspensions, minifig parts or spring loaded shooters). Sure, the factory was a sight to behold, but it still feels it lacks some more things to see.
On to Havremarken!
Havremarken (HAM) is a building that includes the department for developing building instruction for sets, the customer service, a lot of meeting rooms and the IT department. Although we haven't been to the IT department during the Tour, it was said that it supplied the worldwide infrastructure for The LEGO® Company (in example, connecting all the different offices together around the globe).
Starting at the department for building instructions, we had an interesting presentation about how the building instructions are written. The presentation included the validation of building instructions themselves (in example, can the age target build this particular set?) and the history of the instructions in the past. It was interesting to know that the older instructions (especially prior to the millennium) were hand-drawn...
Next up, the customer service department. We entered this large warehouse, which had all kind of shelves with parts in three sections. These parts are the ones that are send from LEGO®'s Pick-A-Brick / Bricks & Pieces ordering system and the customer service itself (in example, missing or broken elements that have to be replaced).
The middle section of the warehouse is the current parts inventory that is being used for sets that are now in stores. It was build from many small metal structures with an endless amount of small containers, which had all the pieces from that current inventory.
The back section is a larger section, which stores the parts inventory dating from up to 3 years ago (or important elements older than 3 years that are likely to be requested as well). This is also the place where (older) instructions are stored, presumably sticker sheets as well.
The front section is the largest section, and is just a parts supply to refill the middle section.
We had a brief explanation about how the customer service worked - starting from the moment we send in an inquiry until we receive the parts we've ordered. I felt kind of bad when I realized they had to go through my inquiries in the past, which included several hundreds of different pieces haha... "Don't worry, it's their job" they said. Still quite some work though... I can now understand why some orders took forever.
Leaving the warehouse, there was a small surprise before we went for lunch. Of course I won't spoil what happened - it was just worth to mention. Lunch was included in the program (unlike Day 2), and we had another large buffet, similar to Day 2. After some quite heavy lunch, we had a presentation from the LEGO® Foundation.
The LEGO® Foundation (TLF) is one of the initiatives from the company that try to leave the world a better place. How cliche (and Bruce Wayne-y) it might sound, there was quite some interesting facts behind it. The foundation also uses LEGO® pieces to show the value of the system, not just for play, but also to improve brain performance. Shortly after that fact, a box of carefully stacked DUPLO bricks arrived...
We got a simple assignment (at first sight) where we had to stack different coloured 4x2 DUPLO Bricks in a specific sequence - which would be shown briefly on screen. We would have only a few seconds to mimic that sequence with the right bricks. Starting easy at first with three bricks stacked on each other, the assignment got quite hard when they started making three-dimensional stacks of different colours.
Closing the presentation, we would head to the Employee Store as our next visit.
Havremarken (HAM) was in my view a welcomed addition to the tour, showing certain things about the company that you would not think about it at first sight, however I have a few remarks about it. The tour at HAM felt kind of unstructured, going quickly between different locations (including the lunch itself, which kind of felt like a short break). My main issue of HAM however, was the presentation of TLF. It felt lengthy compared to the other activities. Perhaps because it was lengthy, or maybe it was just the way it was presented, or I was just tired from having not much sleep...
The Employee Store is a restricted store, limited to LEGO® employees. Similar to most LEGO® facilities, the entrance can only be opened with a key card; so don't expect to get in when you are just on holiday. It's an interesting store, which has some "obscure" wares, including a hand full of Education sets, LEGO® Wear, polybags, merchandise and even LEGO® plushies! Next to this, your regular Shop At Home assortment was available as well, including some highly-sought-after EOL'd (End of Life) sets like The Tower of Orthanc, sold for its original retail price. Other EOL'd series like Galaxy Squad and Monster Fighters were also on the shelves; being discounted as well to sell them out. However, there are some remarks to give about the store.
Every attendee can receive a rather large cardboard box to fit in sets they can't bring home by themselves (in example, going back by plane). These would be send to your home and LEGO® would pay for the delivery fee themselves! If you attend the tour with family members or friends, you can receive a box for every person in your group. The box itself can hold a few UCS boxes, most likely four € 200-ranged sets.
You're limited to two identical sets per person. Keychains and CMF (Collectable Minifigures) can be bought in higher quantities (CMF's are max 16 if I remember correctly). All the sets have to stay sealed, you're not allowed to unbox to save space. Then again, why would you bother to throw away the box? Only die hard LEGO® fans would understand why I mention this...
You're not allowed to purchase adult clothing. There will be LEGO® Inside Tour T-Shirts available; but keep in mind: they are going to be sold out very quickly (I got myself the last XXXL just in time...) and they arrived a bit later than we arrived (so keep that in mind if you check out early).
The final remark is about Danish Krones (DKK). Many people mention that LEGO® sets are more expensive in Denmark compared to most countries; but I can confirm that in The Netherlands it's more expensive. Feel free to check the Danish Shop At Home and calculate to compare to your retail price (preparation might not hurt) - during the visit at the Employee Store the staff will help with calculating if you ask them. You're allowed to check out more than once; but there's no VIP System (customer loyalty reward system from Shop At Home) at the Employee Store.
Leaving the Employee Store, we would have a short visit to the construction site of the LEGO® House (LH). The LH is an ambitious project that will become a large place of recreation. It's a rather complex building (with having multiple floors overlapping each other), build in the center of Billund, scheduled to be finished in 2017.
The building itself will have different floors, including restaurants, shops and the second LEGO® Brand Store in Denmark (the first being in Copenhagen). You can slightly relate it to a shopping mall. It is also planned to have a museum of the company's history, on a few parts similar to the Idea House.
The construction site had an overview balcony, where you could watch over the entire construction site. Be warned if you are afraid of heights... you might want to take your time with taking the staircase.
Interestingly enough, because the building is that complex, they have to start building the top floor first, followed by the first floor. The middle floor is the final section that they will have to build. There's a scaled model in an exhibition hall nearby the site, giving more detailed information about the house itself.
After the LEGO® House activity, we had a two-hour break back at the LEGOLAND Hotel. After the break, we would have dinner in the Western Restaurant in LEGOLAND itself. Similar to the dinner of Day 2, the designers and Tour Staff would join the meal as well. There was this special meal prepared for us; a rich assortment of small grilled steaks, with a baked potato. A salad bar was available as well, but as the potato I am myself I only got some cheese and bread croutons (for shame!).
Fun fact: LEGOLAND Western was the first themed area in the park that they made in the second half of the twentieth century. This was actually made a few decades before (the first) LEGO® Western sets came out in the nineties.
Finishing dinner, the last activity of Day 3's schedule would arrive: The Building Challenge Award Show. Getting back to the conference room, the Award Show was ready to start.
I don't want to spoil certain surprises or questions you might have, but I can tell that every winner announcement was linked to a designer that was related to you. It could be that you knew the designer from the past, or that you designed something from Star Wars (and thus a Star Wars designer), or something that happened during the tour.
My model "Ripper" gave me the 5th place. That might seem worrying for somebody who wants to become a LEGO® Product Designer, but let's look at the entire picture instead.
One of the skills a Product Designer (in any company) must face is the bitter taste of defeat. This includes negative feedback. Most people don't realize that there will always be people who are not satisfied with your product, because a product is for a "general" public and not an individual itself.
The impact that my model gave to the design team was way beyond my expectations. The evening after the Award Show a handful of designers were enthusiastic about what I've designed. I heard them talking positively about the idea that I came up with and that it could be a proper set to play with. A few of them also noticed the fact that I've taken the inventory into consideration to lower the price as well.
The model itself was made in 7 hours. It was still a proof of concept. 7 hours for something like this is short. It's still unfinished. I dedicated the entire night for a small assignment like this while I could've had proper sleep instead. Other tour members and the LEGO® Staff were impressed by developing such model that works in such a short time.
I've been concentrating a bit too much on finding Mokarr/Makarr during the Tour. I actually managed to meet and talk broadly to the designer that designed the entire Galidor line! Thus we did ended up talking about Mokarr/Makarr as well.
He was the designer that ended up being the one announcing to announce my place in the building challenge. Every winner had a small anecdote that the designer would present you with; and this was mine:
"I know that you are a Galidor fan, and actually the head of the model you've designed reminds me of a Galidor I've designed." (hints towards to #8312 Jens) "I would like to give you this LEGO® Movie set, because the robot you've designed reminded me of the one in the set. Emmet started somewhere as well, before he became a Master Builder."
Being #5 out of 35 attendees is also impressive in my view for such a short challenge. We're talking about die hard fans that attend it, consider the tour is too expensive for the majority.
After the Award show, we had the remains of the evening (which was quite some hours!) to socialize. This was the opportunity for me to showcase my projects, so I hurried to my hotel room (which was basically around the corner) to bring the plastic containers that contained MK. 2 and MK. 3. Arriving back at the conference room, I got quite some attention from the attendees and the LEGO® Staff.
I managed to find a table to showcase my projects, and those hours went beyond my expectations. I've been talking to a lot to everyone, they all seemed to be impressed about my projects. You can imagine that that kind of feedback means a lot to me. Near the end of the evening my Constructor's (MK. 3) battery was empty...
One of the designers from LEGO® World I managed to keep my "promise" with found it unfortunate that the other designers from back then couldn't be here. He thought for sure that they would have loved to see the projects.
Basically, it became a late evening again. Close to 11 'o clock, we closed the evening because we were all tired haha. Getting up early again for breakfast, it is...
Starting the fourth day as early as the previous two, it was required to check out in the morning at the LEGOLAND Hotel if this would be your last day to stay. Don't worry about your luggage if you are attending the tour, there was a secured room where you could leave it to pick up at the end of the LIT.
One practical advice: the LEGOLAND Restaurant closes 30 minutes earlier on Friday, at 9:30 AM instead of 10:00 AM. If you are a person that always manages to do things last minute, you might want to wake up 30 minutes earlier this day.
Arriving at the conference room, the first thing on today's schedule was the LEGOLAND Backstage Tour. Starting with a presentation first, we learnt a lot of interesting facts about LEGOLAND that aren't really easy to find on the internet. Before we would leave to see the park behind the scenes, the Tour Staff reminded us of bringing that "homework assignment" (the Miniland figure) with us. We would place it on the table on the image above. Can you find mine?
Hint: mine does not have arms to simplify the design (damn the lack of SNOT enablers).
Leaving the conference room, there was a table full of black LEGO® Inside Tour bags. We would be able to grab one before going into LEGOLAND for the behind the scenes, with everyone (including me) rushed to them. We weren't allowed to peek inside before the presentation ended, so you might expect what we expected it to be. I won't say what we obtained from that bag, but I can do say that Eduard Khil would've been proud of this moment...
Starting from the LEGOLAND hotel, we walked all the way to the Studios Cinema. The park was still closed during that time (although close to opening) so walking to it wasn't a tough call.
Not going for the cinema itself after all, one of the doors next to it was the point of going that direction. Passing through the door, we went behind the actual park, seeing a lot of storage (including back ups for defected vehicles or attraction parts), all kinds of maintenance facilities and so on.
"I can't find this location on the LEGOLAND map..."
Walking around the edges of the park, we were able to enter the maintenance rooms (in example, some bridges above indoor attractions) of a handful of attractions. It was funny to see that the infamous LEGOLAND Castle was entirely plain (and unpainted) from the back, having a modern fire safety staircase and some other maintenance props.
At the end of the path behind the park, we ended up at the Model Department, a location where many LEGOLAND models are made, repaired or replaced. Seeing a lifesized model of Hagrid and Harry Potter reminded me of Lux working on his Harry Potter 2 Walkthrough, haha. It was interesting that they had the LEGO® Fan Weekend edition of the LEGOLAND Train set somewhere on a shelf, which was a reissue of last year's LEGO® Inside Tour exclusive set.
Getting back "in" the park itself, we would have a more detailed explanation of Miniland itself.
I would like to notice that by the time you get back "in" the park, the park will be filled with a lot of people because it has opened. Please keep in mind, if you are an attendee during the Tour, you should stick close to the group because there's always the possibility that the crowd might separate you (in example, parents with children).
Walking around the entire Miniland, I did notice that Miniland was smaller than 10 years ago when I last visited the park. It was later explained that in order to keep the Miniland experience refreshing around the globe, they moved certain Miniland sections to other LEGOLAND parks - keeping at least the ones for the countries that visit this park the most. Closing at the final section, we ended up in Denmark's Miniland...
Hey, wait! We've been hoaxed! We've been walking around the restricted area of the park so that they could put our homework assignments in Miniland! Not being serious aside, we all had a great laugh seeing that these have been placed here. This was probably why we went to the backstage segment of the LEGOLAND Tour before the park was opened; so that they could ninja the figures in Miniland before opening.
Ending the Miniland tour, we had one and a half hour for ourselves to enjoy the park. Despite being able to go in all attractions I would've loved to that moment, I decided to do something else. I decided to make pictures of the park, which was something I couldn't do the days before (either the day being gloomy, it being late in the evening or me being lazy). So half-panicking like the potato I am myself, I just ran over a kilometer around the park to make pictures of nearly every attraction I wanted to have on camera. Didn't take me more than an hour, dang...
After the short break, we would all gather together at the LEGOLAND Castle for some lunch. Of course, buffet! But in my view this was the best buffet of the entire tour. If you like barbeque and meat, be sure to expect a treat (unless they change it in the next tour). Having enjoyed it a lot, we went back to the conference room for a final presentation.
The final presentation was something interesting that I did not expect: the LEGO® designer recruitment process! I actually really appreciated this presentation, because it's something I barely knew about. They talked about the recruitment process itself, but also a handful of requirements that might help increase the odds of getting that job (such as a particular set of skills). I managed to ask some practical questions which that has been bugging me for the past few years - and being able to have them answered gave me some rest on that part. There's actually a department in The LEGO® Company that aids new employees to settle in Denmark properly, where the employee and his/her family members are also free to ask about concerns and such.
Ending the final presentation; the LEGO® Inside Tour was about to end. Before we would all say goodbye to each other, one last designer came to the conference room. It was about the LEGO® Inside Tour exclusive set; a set that's limited to that specific year to only for attendees. Every set has been quite desirable on the aftermarket, of course the demand differs per set. Every year is different, but it is related to the Tour itself.
Of course I won't spoil the set itself in this blogpost. You can find it on the internet yourself. There will only be 80 of them released (keep in mind that LEGO® has to have at least one in their Vault as well, in example marked as 81/80) and it's limited to this year's Tour. There's always a possibility of LEGO® re-releasing the set (similar to the LEGOLAND Train I've explained earlier in this post), but don't expect that to drop the value of the original; that's just how the aftermarket works.
After obtaining the LEGO® Inside Tour set, the Tour officially ended. Saying goodbye to the LEGO® Staff and other attendees, thanking them for a great week, getting back to that similar environment in The Netherlands the next day. As if I haven't traveled that much but stayed close to home, heh.
I can't deny that I had a blast. Looking back it was an experience to behold. However, if I would recommend the LEGO® Inside Tour or not is up to you.
The Tour is something for a specific type of LEGO® fan, it's not something for your average fan...
You can describe the suitable type of person the "All-around LEGO® fan, who never grows out of the brand, who poured his heart and soul into the product and doesn't have any particular dislikes to anything related to it or could forgive them."
If you are a die hard LEGO® fan, you probably won't learn new things. Consider there's a lot of internet influence today, most things can be found only through Brickset alone. A lot of NDA information is what you can see from leaks months before the Tour does it. So if you are a data junk like I can be sometimes, it wouldn't matter if I hear the same interesting things several times.
If you are passionate about the brand and you love to share it, the LEGO® Inside Tour might be enjoyable. The Tour itself is a lot about you, it's not just a "get in and get out" system where every attendee is just a number by itself. The Tour is personal, and most attendees would love to share their passion as well.
If you already find the price of the tour glaring, keep in mind that's just the start. Most attendees will end up purchasing more items during the Tour itself (Employee Shop, LEGOLAND Store, etc). Because of this, if you'd expect yourself purchasing things during the Tour, it might be wise to go by car if you live within a proper distance...
If you have little interest in the brand and community itself, but just for a Tour around the company, this is not something for you. You probably won't see as much of the HQ as you would like to. This remark is also related to if you don't like to socialize, spend your budget in something else. If you don't like to go on holidays, skip this as well - Billund might be a much different town than you would be used to, unless you live in the middle of nowhere like I've been doing for a large part of my life.
The Tour itself is slightly commercial itself. There's a lot of positivity and little negatively, but you can't blame them for doing that; it what makes the Tour fun. If you are only a LEGO® Builder or LEGO® Collector and limited to a small group of themes, you probably won't find much satisfaction because the Tour concentrates on everything of the brand. In example, if you don't care about things like IPs (Star Wars, Jurassic World), Friends, LEGOLAND, LEGO® employees, and so on - this might not fit entirely for you.
Last but not least, you need to have some sense for "Legocentric" humor. There will be a lot of puns and jokes related to the brand, in a similar fashion to The LEGO® Movie (seriously, that movie is like 90% inside jokes and 10% actual story).
If you are somebody who would love to meet employees of LEGO®, keep in mind there are several other ways to meet them. Most highly-populated and large LEGO® (community) events (as mentioned, LEGO® World used to be one) might have a handful of designers. A lot of them are also available online. But I can tell you honestly that during the Tour they'll be likely to have more time than during a LEGO® event, especially the designers as well. It's a shame though that a lot of people only seem to care about the designers, and only if it's a well-known name...
For me, as a person myself, the Tour gave a good "first" impression of the company itself, although limited. I'm gladly enough to have managed to keep my "promise", and to be honest... I ended up having added about 11 other designers to that "promise" as well after I left the tour... Including some more community support as well...
The glory of pressure!
What about Mokarr/Makarr? Well, even if I haven't seen the model itself at The Vault, one designer told me he has seen a prototype of it two years ago at the HQ...
TO BE CONTINUED?
=================================
Thanks to the LEGO® Inside Tour Staff and the attendees for a great time.
Some pictures of this blogpost has been supported by them as well.
Please read these other reviews by the fellow attendees for the LIT of 2015 if you want to. I will try to find the other reviews from the other groups as well.
You might want to avoid the following URLs if you want to keep my face and/or real name a mystery for yourself.
5th May - 8th May 2015
Svein Tore B.'s review on Brikkebloggen (English)
William B.'s review on HothBricks, Part 1 (French)
William B.'s review on HothBricks, Part 2 (French)
William B.'s review on HothBricks, Part 3 (French)
Megan L.'s review on Brickset (English)
19 May - 22 May 2015
Nothing yet!
9 June - 12 June 2015
Eric S.'s review on TravelBabbo (English)
15 June - 19 June 2015
Nothing yet!
If you have found a review that is missing from the list above, please feel free to share in the comments.
The third day of the Tour was probably the most "Inside" of the LIT. Nearly the entire day was scheduled in different facilities, although not all. Even though it's possible to walk between the facilities, we went by bus - this made traveling easier in my view, it would be welcomed by people who are less mobile and consider the weather in Billund can be "surprisingly" unpredictable (not for somebody from the Benelux) we stayed dry when it was raining during that day.
Taking the Tour bus from the LEGOLAND Hotel to the LEGO® Headquarters (LHQ) only took a few seconds (as expected). On the way to the LHQ we saw other facilities we didn't visit, such as the Innovation House (next to the LIH), several "unnamed" LEGO® offices and the main parking garage.
Finally arriving at the LHQ, I have to be honest that the building is a lot less high than you'd see on pictures. It's just one floor high. Nevertheless, what I thought was the most exciting building of the few that we visited was different than I expected it to be.
Arriving at the reception, we already saw a lot of sets that had yet to come out (but for people like me, we already knew those from Toy Fairs and such) sitting on shelves and a few doorways to different departments. We had to wait a second before moving on so we had to the time to look around (at the reception). Moving on to the (what I expected it to be) first conference room, we've been greeted by one of the people that works with TT Games for the LEGO® Videogames (LV) department - we had an interesting presentation about one of the upcoming videogames.
I was delighted that they managed to put something from the LV department in the Tour (of course, because I like to play these games occasionally), it's something refreshing that I wouldn't expect to be in the tour at first sight.
Moving to the next room by following the Tour Staff, oh... we ended up back at the reception. It seems that there wasn't more "Inside" about the LHQ and I can understand why. Even if we have signed a NDA, walking through the Designer Department, R&D, marketing, etc would probably be too sensitive for just tour attendees. Ah well... so far it's limited to drooling at the pictures online.
Going to the next facilities; the main factory Kornmarken (KOM) and another interesting facility: Havremarken (HAM). Arriving at KOM first, we've had a decent tour around the main factory. There were some surprises, but also some disappointments.
Before we arrived at the factory, we had watched an introduction movie for main factory. This short is actually very important before going to the factory, read on to know why...
We first had a small introduction to the background of the factory, including one of the first Injection Moulding machines that the company has used (one of the first milling machines for their wooden toys was on display in the LIH).
Walking through the first door into the main halls of Kornmarken, there was already quite some various (automatic) traffic right from the start. When looking around at the second you walked in, you can easily understand why the factory is near to half a kilometer long.
The tour through the factory was as expected, it's a chronological order from the granulate to the sets themselves. KOM is segmented in five sections, presumably:
1. Raw material storage & receiving
2. Parts warehouse
3. Injection Moulding & printing
4. Packaging Room
5. Sets warehouse & transport
The first segment we walked into was the area that receives the granulate. For readers who have no knowledge about plastic manufacturing, or Injection Moulding at least, the bricks we play with start as gravel-like stones. The granulate arrives from trucks and the granulate is stored in various silo's. The most common colours are stored in the larger ones which are basically extracted automatically from this area to the injection moulding department - the less used colours are stored in manual (smaller) silo's. We haven't seen that much of the entire area, but there was enough to understand the concept of it. I don't expect seeing more of this area would've added more value.
The second segment we walked into was the parts warehouse. This is the location where all the manufactured parts are being stored. The room was gigantic, being a few floors tall and the end of the room was unlikely to be seen with ease. It consisted of many enormous structures, with hundred thousands of pieces stored in containers. Every structure had its own automatic crane and there were main two conveyor belts leading to the room; one that would bring the parts to be stored and one that would bring the parts to the packaging room. Even seeing this room so many times through pictures, seeing it in real is incomparable with any visuals I've seen before... keep in mind that where we walked inside is one of the many parts warehouses that KOM has...
The third segment we walked into was a storage room for the moulds, which would lead us to the Injection Moulding room later. It was impressive to see those moulds together, you could easily see from a distance that they are taken well care of. I expected the room to be larger, but that's because I'm used to something else (I will get back to this in a second).
The fourth segment we walked into was the Injection Moulding area. At least, we walked into "Room 7" of the Injection Moulding area, hinting that there would be more of these rooms in total.
There was quite an impressive amount of rows of moulding machines, being able to see the hoses that come all the way from the granulate storage down to this room. Several robots drive around and collect filled up boxes to bring them back to the parts warehouse. It's impressive to see all of these areas work together, but also having a huge part of it being automatic. This is kind of where the factory tour ended.
"No matter how many times I see this, I never get used to it."
I can tell that the Kornmarken (KOM) main factory is surely a sight to behold. I've been to quite an amount of (main) factories in the past before, such as Ahrend, Philips, Dorel and Esko; and from all the factories that I've seen, this is the most impressive one for sure. Biased because it was LEGO®'s main factory? I'm not. The size of the factory doesn't matter (and Kornmarken wasn't the largest one I've seen at all), it's about the process itself. The factory is nearly fully automated, the segments are cohesive and work together instead of independently. A lot of things I've seen being automated aren't in most factories (recycling of plastic, receiving and transportation of granulate, storing manufactured parts and bringing them to the warehouse). Safety is in some area's more thought out than other factories - and most importantly, it's much cleaner. Bonus points for having thought about sunlight getting inside the factory; during the morning at the factory there was nearly no need for lights at all.
However, despite the positive points, there were some disappointments during the factory tour. We haven't seen the packaging room or the set warehouse at all... Even during the Injection Moulding area, we haven't seen anything related to printing parts or the part assembly line (such as the Technic suspensions, minifig parts or spring loaded shooters). Sure, the factory was a sight to behold, but it still feels it lacks some more things to see.
On to Havremarken!
Havremarken (HAM) is a building that includes the department for developing building instruction for sets, the customer service, a lot of meeting rooms and the IT department. Although we haven't been to the IT department during the Tour, it was said that it supplied the worldwide infrastructure for The LEGO® Company (in example, connecting all the different offices together around the globe).
Starting at the department for building instructions, we had an interesting presentation about how the building instructions are written. The presentation included the validation of building instructions themselves (in example, can the age target build this particular set?) and the history of the instructions in the past. It was interesting to know that the older instructions (especially prior to the millennium) were hand-drawn...
Next up, the customer service department. We entered this large warehouse, which had all kind of shelves with parts in three sections. These parts are the ones that are send from LEGO®'s Pick-A-Brick / Bricks & Pieces ordering system and the customer service itself (in example, missing or broken elements that have to be replaced).
The middle section of the warehouse is the current parts inventory that is being used for sets that are now in stores. It was build from many small metal structures with an endless amount of small containers, which had all the pieces from that current inventory.
The back section is a larger section, which stores the parts inventory dating from up to 3 years ago (or important elements older than 3 years that are likely to be requested as well). This is also the place where (older) instructions are stored, presumably sticker sheets as well.
The front section is the largest section, and is just a parts supply to refill the middle section.
We had a brief explanation about how the customer service worked - starting from the moment we send in an inquiry until we receive the parts we've ordered. I felt kind of bad when I realized they had to go through my inquiries in the past, which included several hundreds of different pieces haha... "Don't worry, it's their job" they said. Still quite some work though... I can now understand why some orders took forever.
Leaving the warehouse, there was a small surprise before we went for lunch. Of course I won't spoil what happened - it was just worth to mention. Lunch was included in the program (unlike Day 2), and we had another large buffet, similar to Day 2. After some quite heavy lunch, we had a presentation from the LEGO® Foundation.
The LEGO® Foundation (TLF) is one of the initiatives from the company that try to leave the world a better place. How cliche (and Bruce Wayne-y) it might sound, there was quite some interesting facts behind it. The foundation also uses LEGO® pieces to show the value of the system, not just for play, but also to improve brain performance. Shortly after that fact, a box of carefully stacked DUPLO bricks arrived...
We got a simple assignment (at first sight) where we had to stack different coloured 4x2 DUPLO Bricks in a specific sequence - which would be shown briefly on screen. We would have only a few seconds to mimic that sequence with the right bricks. Starting easy at first with three bricks stacked on each other, the assignment got quite hard when they started making three-dimensional stacks of different colours.
Closing the presentation, we would head to the Employee Store as our next visit.
Havremarken (HAM) was in my view a welcomed addition to the tour, showing certain things about the company that you would not think about it at first sight, however I have a few remarks about it. The tour at HAM felt kind of unstructured, going quickly between different locations (including the lunch itself, which kind of felt like a short break). My main issue of HAM however, was the presentation of TLF. It felt lengthy compared to the other activities. Perhaps because it was lengthy, or maybe it was just the way it was presented, or I was just tired from having not much sleep...
The Employee Store is a restricted store, limited to LEGO® employees. Similar to most LEGO® facilities, the entrance can only be opened with a key card; so don't expect to get in when you are just on holiday. It's an interesting store, which has some "obscure" wares, including a hand full of Education sets, LEGO® Wear, polybags, merchandise and even LEGO® plushies! Next to this, your regular Shop At Home assortment was available as well, including some highly-sought-after EOL'd (End of Life) sets like The Tower of Orthanc, sold for its original retail price. Other EOL'd series like Galaxy Squad and Monster Fighters were also on the shelves; being discounted as well to sell them out. However, there are some remarks to give about the store.
Every attendee can receive a rather large cardboard box to fit in sets they can't bring home by themselves (in example, going back by plane). These would be send to your home and LEGO® would pay for the delivery fee themselves! If you attend the tour with family members or friends, you can receive a box for every person in your group. The box itself can hold a few UCS boxes, most likely four € 200-ranged sets.
You're limited to two identical sets per person. Keychains and CMF (Collectable Minifigures) can be bought in higher quantities (CMF's are max 16 if I remember correctly). All the sets have to stay sealed, you're not allowed to unbox to save space. Then again, why would you bother to throw away the box? Only die hard LEGO® fans would understand why I mention this...
You're not allowed to purchase adult clothing. There will be LEGO® Inside Tour T-Shirts available; but keep in mind: they are going to be sold out very quickly (I got myself the last XXXL just in time...) and they arrived a bit later than we arrived (so keep that in mind if you check out early).
The final remark is about Danish Krones (DKK). Many people mention that LEGO® sets are more expensive in Denmark compared to most countries; but I can confirm that in The Netherlands it's more expensive. Feel free to check the Danish Shop At Home and calculate to compare to your retail price (preparation might not hurt) - during the visit at the Employee Store the staff will help with calculating if you ask them. You're allowed to check out more than once; but there's no VIP System (customer loyalty reward system from Shop At Home) at the Employee Store.
Leaving the Employee Store, we would have a short visit to the construction site of the LEGO® House (LH). The LH is an ambitious project that will become a large place of recreation. It's a rather complex building (with having multiple floors overlapping each other), build in the center of Billund, scheduled to be finished in 2017.
The building itself will have different floors, including restaurants, shops and the second LEGO® Brand Store in Denmark (the first being in Copenhagen). You can slightly relate it to a shopping mall. It is also planned to have a museum of the company's history, on a few parts similar to the Idea House.
The construction site had an overview balcony, where you could watch over the entire construction site. Be warned if you are afraid of heights... you might want to take your time with taking the staircase.
Interestingly enough, because the building is that complex, they have to start building the top floor first, followed by the first floor. The middle floor is the final section that they will have to build. There's a scaled model in an exhibition hall nearby the site, giving more detailed information about the house itself.
After the LEGO® House activity, we had a two-hour break back at the LEGOLAND Hotel. After the break, we would have dinner in the Western Restaurant in LEGOLAND itself. Similar to the dinner of Day 2, the designers and Tour Staff would join the meal as well. There was this special meal prepared for us; a rich assortment of small grilled steaks, with a baked potato. A salad bar was available as well, but as the potato I am myself I only got some cheese and bread croutons (for shame!).
Fun fact: LEGOLAND Western was the first themed area in the park that they made in the second half of the twentieth century. This was actually made a few decades before (the first) LEGO® Western sets came out in the nineties.
Finishing dinner, the last activity of Day 3's schedule would arrive: The Building Challenge Award Show. Getting back to the conference room, the Award Show was ready to start.
I don't want to spoil certain surprises or questions you might have, but I can tell that every winner announcement was linked to a designer that was related to you. It could be that you knew the designer from the past, or that you designed something from Star Wars (and thus a Star Wars designer), or something that happened during the tour.
My model "Ripper" gave me the 5th place. That might seem worrying for somebody who wants to become a LEGO® Product Designer, but let's look at the entire picture instead.
One of the skills a Product Designer (in any company) must face is the bitter taste of defeat. This includes negative feedback. Most people don't realize that there will always be people who are not satisfied with your product, because a product is for a "general" public and not an individual itself.
The impact that my model gave to the design team was way beyond my expectations. The evening after the Award Show a handful of designers were enthusiastic about what I've designed. I heard them talking positively about the idea that I came up with and that it could be a proper set to play with. A few of them also noticed the fact that I've taken the inventory into consideration to lower the price as well.
The model itself was made in 7 hours. It was still a proof of concept. 7 hours for something like this is short. It's still unfinished. I dedicated the entire night for a small assignment like this while I could've had proper sleep instead. Other tour members and the LEGO® Staff were impressed by developing such model that works in such a short time.
I've been concentrating a bit too much on finding Mokarr/Makarr during the Tour. I actually managed to meet and talk broadly to the designer that designed the entire Galidor line! Thus we did ended up talking about Mokarr/Makarr as well.
He was the designer that ended up being the one announcing to announce my place in the building challenge. Every winner had a small anecdote that the designer would present you with; and this was mine:
"I know that you are a Galidor fan, and actually the head of the model you've designed reminds me of a Galidor I've designed." (hints towards to #8312 Jens) "I would like to give you this LEGO® Movie set, because the robot you've designed reminded me of the one in the set. Emmet started somewhere as well, before he became a Master Builder."
Being #5 out of 35 attendees is also impressive in my view for such a short challenge. We're talking about die hard fans that attend it, consider the tour is too expensive for the majority.
After the Award show, we had the remains of the evening (which was quite some hours!) to socialize. This was the opportunity for me to showcase my projects, so I hurried to my hotel room (which was basically around the corner) to bring the plastic containers that contained MK. 2 and MK. 3. Arriving back at the conference room, I got quite some attention from the attendees and the LEGO® Staff.
I managed to find a table to showcase my projects, and those hours went beyond my expectations. I've been talking to a lot to everyone, they all seemed to be impressed about my projects. You can imagine that that kind of feedback means a lot to me. Near the end of the evening my Constructor's (MK. 3) battery was empty...
One of the designers from LEGO® World I managed to keep my "promise" with found it unfortunate that the other designers from back then couldn't be here. He thought for sure that they would have loved to see the projects.
Basically, it became a late evening again. Close to 11 'o clock, we closed the evening because we were all tired haha. Getting up early again for breakfast, it is...
Tour Day #4 - Closing the Tour
Starting the fourth day as early as the previous two, it was required to check out in the morning at the LEGOLAND Hotel if this would be your last day to stay. Don't worry about your luggage if you are attending the tour, there was a secured room where you could leave it to pick up at the end of the LIT.
One practical advice: the LEGOLAND Restaurant closes 30 minutes earlier on Friday, at 9:30 AM instead of 10:00 AM. If you are a person that always manages to do things last minute, you might want to wake up 30 minutes earlier this day.
Arriving at the conference room, the first thing on today's schedule was the LEGOLAND Backstage Tour. Starting with a presentation first, we learnt a lot of interesting facts about LEGOLAND that aren't really easy to find on the internet. Before we would leave to see the park behind the scenes, the Tour Staff reminded us of bringing that "homework assignment" (the Miniland figure) with us. We would place it on the table on the image above. Can you find mine?
Hint: mine does not have arms to simplify the design (damn the lack of SNOT enablers).
Leaving the conference room, there was a table full of black LEGO® Inside Tour bags. We would be able to grab one before going into LEGOLAND for the behind the scenes, with everyone (including me) rushed to them. We weren't allowed to peek inside before the presentation ended, so you might expect what we expected it to be. I won't say what we obtained from that bag, but I can do say that Eduard Khil would've been proud of this moment...
Starting from the LEGOLAND hotel, we walked all the way to the Studios Cinema. The park was still closed during that time (although close to opening) so walking to it wasn't a tough call.
Not going for the cinema itself after all, one of the doors next to it was the point of going that direction. Passing through the door, we went behind the actual park, seeing a lot of storage (including back ups for defected vehicles or attraction parts), all kinds of maintenance facilities and so on.
"I can't find this location on the LEGOLAND map..."
Walking around the edges of the park, we were able to enter the maintenance rooms (in example, some bridges above indoor attractions) of a handful of attractions. It was funny to see that the infamous LEGOLAND Castle was entirely plain (and unpainted) from the back, having a modern fire safety staircase and some other maintenance props.
At the end of the path behind the park, we ended up at the Model Department, a location where many LEGOLAND models are made, repaired or replaced. Seeing a lifesized model of Hagrid and Harry Potter reminded me of Lux working on his Harry Potter 2 Walkthrough, haha. It was interesting that they had the LEGO® Fan Weekend edition of the LEGOLAND Train set somewhere on a shelf, which was a reissue of last year's LEGO® Inside Tour exclusive set.
Getting back "in" the park itself, we would have a more detailed explanation of Miniland itself.
I would like to notice that by the time you get back "in" the park, the park will be filled with a lot of people because it has opened. Please keep in mind, if you are an attendee during the Tour, you should stick close to the group because there's always the possibility that the crowd might separate you (in example, parents with children).
Walking around the entire Miniland, I did notice that Miniland was smaller than 10 years ago when I last visited the park. It was later explained that in order to keep the Miniland experience refreshing around the globe, they moved certain Miniland sections to other LEGOLAND parks - keeping at least the ones for the countries that visit this park the most. Closing at the final section, we ended up in Denmark's Miniland...
Hey, wait! We've been hoaxed! We've been walking around the restricted area of the park so that they could put our homework assignments in Miniland! Not being serious aside, we all had a great laugh seeing that these have been placed here. This was probably why we went to the backstage segment of the LEGOLAND Tour before the park was opened; so that they could ninja the figures in Miniland before opening.
Ending the Miniland tour, we had one and a half hour for ourselves to enjoy the park. Despite being able to go in all attractions I would've loved to that moment, I decided to do something else. I decided to make pictures of the park, which was something I couldn't do the days before (either the day being gloomy, it being late in the evening or me being lazy). So half-panicking like the potato I am myself, I just ran over a kilometer around the park to make pictures of nearly every attraction I wanted to have on camera. Didn't take me more than an hour, dang...
After the short break, we would all gather together at the LEGOLAND Castle for some lunch. Of course, buffet! But in my view this was the best buffet of the entire tour. If you like barbeque and meat, be sure to expect a treat (unless they change it in the next tour). Having enjoyed it a lot, we went back to the conference room for a final presentation.
The final presentation was something interesting that I did not expect: the LEGO® designer recruitment process! I actually really appreciated this presentation, because it's something I barely knew about. They talked about the recruitment process itself, but also a handful of requirements that might help increase the odds of getting that job (such as a particular set of skills). I managed to ask some practical questions which that has been bugging me for the past few years - and being able to have them answered gave me some rest on that part. There's actually a department in The LEGO® Company that aids new employees to settle in Denmark properly, where the employee and his/her family members are also free to ask about concerns and such.
Ending the final presentation; the LEGO® Inside Tour was about to end. Before we would all say goodbye to each other, one last designer came to the conference room. It was about the LEGO® Inside Tour exclusive set; a set that's limited to that specific year to only for attendees. Every set has been quite desirable on the aftermarket, of course the demand differs per set. Every year is different, but it is related to the Tour itself.
Of course I won't spoil the set itself in this blogpost. You can find it on the internet yourself. There will only be 80 of them released (keep in mind that LEGO® has to have at least one in their Vault as well, in example marked as 81/80) and it's limited to this year's Tour. There's always a possibility of LEGO® re-releasing the set (similar to the LEGOLAND Train I've explained earlier in this post), but don't expect that to drop the value of the original; that's just how the aftermarket works.
After obtaining the LEGO® Inside Tour set, the Tour officially ended. Saying goodbye to the LEGO® Staff and other attendees, thanking them for a great week, getting back to that similar environment in The Netherlands the next day. As if I haven't traveled that much but stayed close to home, heh.
Final Verdict
The Tour is something for a specific type of LEGO® fan, it's not something for your average fan...
You can describe the suitable type of person the "All-around LEGO® fan, who never grows out of the brand, who poured his heart and soul into the product and doesn't have any particular dislikes to anything related to it or could forgive them."
If you are a die hard LEGO® fan, you probably won't learn new things. Consider there's a lot of internet influence today, most things can be found only through Brickset alone. A lot of NDA information is what you can see from leaks months before the Tour does it. So if you are a data junk like I can be sometimes, it wouldn't matter if I hear the same interesting things several times.
If you are passionate about the brand and you love to share it, the LEGO® Inside Tour might be enjoyable. The Tour itself is a lot about you, it's not just a "get in and get out" system where every attendee is just a number by itself. The Tour is personal, and most attendees would love to share their passion as well.
If you already find the price of the tour glaring, keep in mind that's just the start. Most attendees will end up purchasing more items during the Tour itself (Employee Shop, LEGOLAND Store, etc). Because of this, if you'd expect yourself purchasing things during the Tour, it might be wise to go by car if you live within a proper distance...
If you have little interest in the brand and community itself, but just for a Tour around the company, this is not something for you. You probably won't see as much of the HQ as you would like to. This remark is also related to if you don't like to socialize, spend your budget in something else. If you don't like to go on holidays, skip this as well - Billund might be a much different town than you would be used to, unless you live in the middle of nowhere like I've been doing for a large part of my life.
The Tour itself is slightly commercial itself. There's a lot of positivity and little negatively, but you can't blame them for doing that; it what makes the Tour fun. If you are only a LEGO® Builder or LEGO® Collector and limited to a small group of themes, you probably won't find much satisfaction because the Tour concentrates on everything of the brand. In example, if you don't care about things like IPs (Star Wars, Jurassic World), Friends, LEGOLAND, LEGO® employees, and so on - this might not fit entirely for you.
Last but not least, you need to have some sense for "Legocentric" humor. There will be a lot of puns and jokes related to the brand, in a similar fashion to The LEGO® Movie (seriously, that movie is like 90% inside jokes and 10% actual story).
If you are somebody who would love to meet employees of LEGO®, keep in mind there are several other ways to meet them. Most highly-populated and large LEGO® (community) events (as mentioned, LEGO® World used to be one) might have a handful of designers. A lot of them are also available online. But I can tell you honestly that during the Tour they'll be likely to have more time than during a LEGO® event, especially the designers as well. It's a shame though that a lot of people only seem to care about the designers, and only if it's a well-known name...
For me, as a person myself, the Tour gave a good "first" impression of the company itself, although limited. I'm gladly enough to have managed to keep my "promise", and to be honest... I ended up having added about 11 other designers to that "promise" as well after I left the tour... Including some more community support as well...
The glory of pressure!
What about Mokarr/Makarr? Well, even if I haven't seen the model itself at The Vault, one designer told me he has seen a prototype of it two years ago at the HQ...
TO BE CONTINUED?
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Thanks to the LEGO® Inside Tour Staff and the attendees for a great time.
Some pictures of this blogpost has been supported by them as well.
Please read these other reviews by the fellow attendees for the LIT of 2015 if you want to. I will try to find the other reviews from the other groups as well.
You might want to avoid the following URLs if you want to keep my face and/or real name a mystery for yourself.
5th May - 8th May 2015
Svein Tore B.'s review on Brikkebloggen (English)
William B.'s review on HothBricks, Part 1 (French)
William B.'s review on HothBricks, Part 2 (French)
William B.'s review on HothBricks, Part 3 (French)
Megan L.'s review on Brickset (English)
19 May - 22 May 2015
Nothing yet!
9 June - 12 June 2015
Eric S.'s review on TravelBabbo (English)
15 June - 19 June 2015
Nothing yet!
If you have found a review that is missing from the list above, please feel free to share in the comments.
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