Brick Mania Liege 2016

Here we are, back from the second Brick Mania convention of the year with my completely point of view and subjective event report.

While I would say that another year has flown by, I must admit this isn`t really true.  
Liege was shifted in our calendar this year, so after 7 months we found ourselves back in the city of the greatest soccer team in the world.

I also want to credit fellow BeLUG member Zwits for allowing me to add her pictures to the report.

Friday

It was 9.30 when I jumped in Hans`s car and we left for Liege, about an hour and a quarter drive.  Cheratte is a suburb of Liege, and it`s skyline is dominated by an abandoned factory of the mining industry.

When we arrived at the venue, we where greeted by a hall nearly completed in set-up, and we started to lend a hand where able.

It was also the making aquintance with what they call a "sandwich", half a meter of bread filled to the crams... you wouldn`t leave hungry.

At the evening, we went to a restaurant in nearby Vise, and while I passed for the local specialty, I went for an entrecote with Roquefort... and what a monster that was!

The evening was rounded out in the Hof Van Aken appartements, the same place I actually stayed myself last year.  The evenings where filled with some good chatters, but I played it safe and was usually the first to bed.

Saturday

The first day of the event, and we had about 700 visitors, not bad considering the excellent weather, a village festival one click further and the fact our national soccer team played at 1600 hours.

The final set ups where made and then we where ready to get the show on the road... after we had breakfast of course.

This is also the day I made tour of the venue, so let`s go and see what was happening this year.

The Time Traveller and the Cubes clubprojects where both present.

Some of the Star Wars UCS sets

Gaetan Burm selling the BOC range, a series of modular expansion sets.

The Moon of Endor.

Lovely city life and winter village scenes by the people behind Brick Event

A large city layout with amusement parc

A small christmas scene, as well as the artic range.

Daniel selling bits and pieces.

A lot of Star Wars figures from Deborah.

JeanMi`s Firebrigade layout.

Three of our Star Wars builders displayed together, resulting in a true plethora of vessels and scenes.

Though one did jump out "just a little"

A city layout of the Modulars and Tower Bridge being prominently featured.

Christophe`s 1978 - 1987 time evolution layout

David brought some of his gorgeous architecture works, and some sets to sell.

Another very impressive city lay out.

Bert was assuring me he would be ready right on time with his cool classic sets.

Our other german parts trader, Thorsten.

Gorrilaz by Hans

The traffic game system, where children could get their Lego driver`s license if they completed the circuit sans faute...

Michael`s Technic machinery whirring away

Kris and his team brought along their GBC circuit.

The natives where getting ready to repel the Conquistadores.

The historically accurate train station, which even featured a live build on the saturday morning.

Ghostbusters HQ was there to admire as well.

More Technic and Star Wars models, including a nice Tattooine styled display

This trader saved my buddy, as he had a Snowspeeder on sale, which i had to get for him if I came across one.

A city layout with a central park full of life.

This was my personal favorite display, a full city of Paradisa, as you don`t happen to see those a lot at conventions.

A scene that looked straight from an Indiana Jones movie

Classic Nintendo games rendered into mosaics.

I ran into Alain and his son Nicolas, who where distributing the Thank You sets, this year it was the new City Caravan set.

A very realistic train lay-out (you have to be a Belgian to get that one though)

Can you find Ally?

More of Maarten`s awesome creations

And then... the doors opened and the crowd started to enter.

There where also activities of course, like a heap of building bricks which where enjoyed by the young

And the old.

Something we did for the first time was an exchange of Minifigures and Polybags.  Needless to say, the Mannschaft where highly sought after, but there was even that other very sought after guy...

The Workshops where run by Michel, in which children received a small Creator set and then learned how to build something completely different with them

And for the innerperson, there was my beloved onion soup, as well as these freshly barbequed "pain saucisse".  Absolutely fabulous!

The Evening Event

This year, there where four parts in the evening event, the first of course being a very nice buffet, while the mix bags of parts where distributed to all present.

Then we moved on to a minifigure game, in which 18 CMF`s where shown and you needed to identify 9 who didn`t have the correct accessories.  I know zilch of those CMF series, yet somehow I managed to guess all nine correctly AND got lucky on the shifting question, so I came out second.  And won a Wall-E, an Ideas set I still wanted to get.

The second game we played was The Dirty Brickster.  I had entered a Friends Birthday Party and came out with an Avengers Ultron set, so I`m happy.

All through the evening, the Super Tombola was ran as well, and everyone that entered would be amongst the lucky ones.  For me, that meant the excellent Classic Bricks box.

But the big winner was Zwits, who won the Brick Bank Modular.  Congratulations!

Sunday

The final day, and it was a busy one, doubling the numbers we had on saturday.

The event was a great success, clocking out at 1700 visitors and once more being a very cozy and family focussed event.  The amount of children was immense, and we saw a lot of happy faces, so I would say Mission Accomplished and onwards to 2017!