BrickFiesta 2011
Sunday, July 24th, 2011 at 8:28pm
BrickFiesta took place Fourth of July weekend, and BZPower was there, in a small way. As usual, we're here now to give you up-to-the-minute coverage, three weeks later. Okay, so nobody's perfect, but at least you can see some of what we saw.
The BZPower staff made an appearance, with myself, Pat (DeeVee), Maddison (Nukaya), Ray (InnerRayg), and Adrian (Emmzee). Tohkann toa of arts stopped by to say hi too, as well as another member who forgot to sign the guestbook. Sorry I forgot your name! :(
Opening Ceremonies
At the opening ceremonies we got to meet Chris and Curt, the two awesome guys who organized the Fiesta. Then Jim Foulds came on stage to introduce Kevin Hinkle, the new North America Community Dude (or something like that). We spent a good bit of time with Jim and Kevin, and he gets the BZPower seal of approval.
Bionicle, Mecha, and Technic
Since BrickFiesta wasn't a very large convention, Bionicle didn't have a table to itself. Instead we shared with the mecha (if only you could hear me) and some other military-type MOCs. Pretty much everything on the table you've seen before, and the majority of it was made by our own DeeVee. Can you find the last-minute MOC Nukaya and I threw together though, the one-and-only Hapori Caliente? (P.S. Texas is very hot.)
Castle and Pirates
There were some impressive castle MOCs with very intricate designs and a large dragon that, while an engineering feat, didn't look very organic.
Space
The show-stealer in space was the collaborative creation by Nannan Zhang and Tyler Cites. They're both really cool, in addition to being great builders, and know of some awesome places to get food in Austin.
Custom Minifigs
Some people are very talented minifig customizers. Kaminoan is one of them. I wish I had had the time to take individual pictures of each one.
LEGO Store
Kevin Hinkle used to be the manager of the Austin LEGO Store, so he knows it like the back of his hand, so much so that he built a model of it. And because he's special it got to go in a glass box.
Miscellaneous
Some things don't fit into any category. And then there's the lifesize Batman sculpture, which outright defies categorization.
TexLUG
BrickFiesta was run by TexLUG, so the majority of the display was a large collaborative train and town layout. There's lots of gems in here - my favorite is the Ghostbusters HQ.
Closing Ceremonies
It all ended too soon. Awards were given out to those who deserved them. BZPower volunteered to count the public vote, and came up with the idea to shower the winner in his own ballots. Better than Gatorade!
BrickFiesta was a great time, and lots of fun was had by all. If it comes back to Austin next year, I'd love to go. If you couldn't make it (and most of you couldn't) try your best to come to BrickFair in less than two weeks - it'll be even bigger, with lots more BZPower members and lots of good times for all! « Return to News |