With much fanfare, in the wee hours of the morning, three of our intrepid VLC members took a model that 11 builders of the VLC had been working on for the past two months, loaded it up in three cars and moved it to LaFarge Lake Douglas Station the terminus for the brand spanking new Evergreen Skytrain Line which opened up at noon today. 

We were asked to build the LaFarge Lake Douglas Station and the neighbouring Evergreen Cultural Centre out of LEGO bricks.  I knew our guys were up to the challenge, but it was tight timeline to accomplish it, on top of completing the delivery of our annual Festival of Lights Display at Van Dusen Gardens for Make A Wish BC & Yukon Foundation which turned out to be the very same week.

Artist Rendering of the LaFarge Lake Douglas Station.

The builders include Lee Wager, Jason von Innerebner, Allan C, Will F, Tim Tosino, Paul H, Clayton W, Keith Reed, Shane W, Dave Guedes and John Kwok who took two months, over 250 hours and 40,000 LEGO bricks sourced from all over the world to bring this creation to life.  Unfortunately, in a last minute flurry of emails to the graphics department Dave Guedes was missed off the display credits.  This was not intentional and we are working to resolve this.   As well, Tim’s New Flyer bus didn’t make it into the display cabinet before the lid had to be sealed for opening. It will make it’s way into the display in the near future. 

This project will be at LaFarge Lake Douglas Station for the new few days, before moving on to Coquitlam Centre Mall.  In the spring it will move to the Evergreen Cultural Centre for an exhibit, before finding it’s final home at the Coquitlam Library. 

For more photos of the display, please visit our Flickr album.

Some of the builders who were able to attend the Opening Day Festivities. From left to right Tim T, Jason V, Jennifer F (Translink), Lee W and Will F.

Okay. So I’m way behind in posting to the VLC front page, since BrickCan 2016 has long come and gone. We’ve participated at the 30th Anniversary of Expo 86 at Science World, Vancouver’s Mini-Maker Faire at the PNE Forums, a few of us were at LEGO’s Imagine Nation Tour and then most recently at BrickCon 2016 in Seattle. Whew… that’s glossing over a lot and missed a few smaller things, but I’ll try to make separate mini posts for them and backdate so it chronologically makes sense.

So back at BrickCan 2016 in April, one of our members Keith, came up with an idea of a RLUG collaborative build. Using the popular Fallout Shelter app, which he also hopelessly addicted many of our members to in “research” for this project. He described it as kind of an ant hill, where everyone, no matter the size of their collection could contribute a room. And it worked well in that many newer VLC members built for it. Another suggestion was made to light it up internally, as we couldn’t tell where the room lighting would be facing and we wanted people to notice all the details. Another suggestion was made to recreate an elevator… and suddenly it was taking a life of it’s own.

So BrickCon 2016 is rolling around and Keith figures to open it up to neighbouring LUGs, like MILUG members who are coming to BrickCan to also build for it. So Jason whips up a new distributable sheet for the Vault 604 Fallout Shelter standards, so everyone could get on board. And they did.

VLC member Kyler has provided video of the layout.

The group won “Best Picture” in the Screen Scenes category.

So if you’re coming to BrickCan 2017, take a look at the Vault 604 Standard and build something to add on. Let’s make it even bigger and even better. Please note that the lighting standard will probably change, as IKEA has discontinued this brand of LED lights.

UPDATED: For more info: https://www.facebook.com/legofalloutshelter/

I hope that you’ve all got your tickets to BrickCan 2016 because I’ve just been informed that the public exhibition tickets are all sold out now.   We look forward to having you see the wide range of MOCs (My Own Creations) that the VLC, as well as all the convention attendees will be bringing to show.

Just to clarify some confusion that we’re hearing from the general public.  There are two things that are going on here.   The first is an adult fans of LEGO convention which is geared toward the builders, this is a four day event which encompasses the Thursday to Sunday.   The second is the public exhibition which is  on the weekend and is open to the general public and that which most of you have purchased tickets to attend in a two hour pre-chosen time slot.

Unfortunately, due to fire hazard constraints the venue will only allow a certain amount of people into the exhibition hall at a time.   It was decided that a two hour time will allow people to see most of the displays.   The hall will be cleared and then the next group will be brought in.   The event organizers will be doing their best to pre-clear everyone in advance of the announced time slot, so you’re not waiting to get in and getting the most value out of your time slot.  So please come in advance of your time slot, as arriving “on time” will probably cause a bit of delay.

If you don’t have tickets,  they also still looking for volunteers to help out, so please get in touch with the organizers if that is something you would like to do.

From the BrickCan website:

BrickCan 2016 will be Vancouver’s first ever Adult LEGO Fan Convention. It will also be the largest Public Exhibition of incredible LEGO creations ever held in British Columbia – And it all happens this coming April 21-24, 2016!

BrickCan has been created by AFOLs, for AFOLs.  We have modelled it after our favourite, sister Con – BrickCon – which happens the first weekend in October. Like BrickCon, BrickCAN is a four day event, taking place at the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond. We anticipate 200+ AFOLs from across North America and around the world. The first two days are AFOLs only, with the final two (weekend) days as display days, and open to the public. We have a very cool theatre-style space, with 10,000 square feet of flat floor display space, and huge overheads. We definitely hope to utilize the unique characteristics of the space, and would love to suspend some cool MOCs way up high.

BrickCan 2016 is rapidly approaching.   Will you be there?  Register today!

Public attendees can purchase their two hour  time slots through Ticketmaster.

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Please note:  The VLC are not running BrickCan.  Any questions should be directed to the BrickCan team at info@brickcan.com