Whats the deal with the 2015 pirates line?

[Captain Fortune]

Mither Phes has explained the Business Plan several times.

However, this matter is difficult to understand. As you said, the sets seemed to sell well. Here in Barcelona, in summer it was difficult to find Pirates sets. Then, I travelled to London in august, hoping that I would find plenty of sets there. On the contrary, I found the same thing: vey few sets. I even had a look in Harrod's: no Pirates at all.

It seems that this 2015 wave was like a "flash mob": They launch the sets, they are sold, and it' over.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Captain Fortune

[mon-o-mat]

In order for a Wave to feel loved, it must have originality, an impulse set and above all, a "flagship" set. And by flagship i don't necessarily mean a ship (or a rehearsal of an older one) rather than a (medium to big sized) intriguing build that despite all criticism, if any, really stands out and gives color to that wave. Something like Eldorado fortress or Imperial trading post or even what 6253 was to the 2009's pirate line. Or Islanders sets even better. A think-out-of-the-box kind of set. I hope that next time TLG gets a manager to coordinate pirates line designers, will think of that and show us some love

Thats the problem with the last Waves of Pirates. You could actually feel, that they weren't designed with love. The small sets were neat, but the bigger sets still small and quite boring.

[King_K]

Personally, i would like a second wave, but Lego seems to only want to make one. hopefully this means POTC next year for the movie.

[Mister Phes]

Love your typical cold and hard statements in these forums. You are even worse than me.

I've somewhat grown to disdain typical fanboy "I think this will happen" statements which are based on little more than personal conjecture, instead I lay the facts down straight, if I have them.

Panic-buying AFOLs? Already low stock levels, so those few before Christmas were the last few? Note that not selling well is not the same as not selling at all.

Actually, that's not what I meant.

I was absent from the forums for a few months so did I miss an official statement from the LEGO Group informing us how well the recent pirate sets sold?

If there has not been an official statement, then we won't know how well the pirate sets sold until the LEGO Group releases their next fiscal report.

[Captain Fortune]

I've somewhat grown to disdain typical fanboy "I think this will happen" statements which are based on little more than personal conjecture, instead I lay the facts down straight, if I have them.

And we appreciate it. At least, those who can disdain -love this word!- our innocent childhood conception of Lego, from the real business corporation that it is -which is not a criticism but, again, a fact-.

[Mister Phes]

And we appreciate it. At least, those who can disdain -love this word!- our innocent childhood conception of Lego, from the real business corporation that it is -which is not a criticism but, again, a fact-.

Nah, I'm a killjoy who takes the fun out the speculation. I'm actually bad for the discussion and someone should cap me irons...

[Captain Baker]

I think the New line is still pretty cool, not as much on offer as other Pirate lines from the Past but that's probably due to Lego focussing more on other Lines. I'm excited for what we may get with the New POTC Movie though, surely that's bound to spawn a New Line of Awesome sets, based on various scenes from the Film :)(:

[BrickOn]

...

I was absent from the forums for a few months so did I miss an official statement from the LEGO Group informing us how well the recent pirate sets sold?

If there has not been an official statement, then we won't know how well the pirate sets sold until the LEGO Group releases their next fiscal report.

Just out of interest, now that the annual report has been released, is there any way of dissecting it to see how well pirates sold? Maybe I am not report savvy enough to find the data, but I can't see enough of break-down in the figures to judge if pirates sold well or not. Sales were up in general and pirates were not in the top 5 sellers (The Disney Frozen castle being number one), so hopefully they weren't a complete flop, but maybe other themes outperformed?

They seemed to have missed out the convenient themes summary I was hoping for :-(

[Aanchir]

Just out of interest, now that the annual report has been released, is there any way of dissecting it to see how well pirates sold? Maybe I am not report savvy enough to find the data, but I can't see enough of break-down in the figures to judge if pirates sold well or not. Sales were up in general and pirates were not in the top 5 sellers (The Disney Frozen castle being number one), so hopefully they weren't a complete flop, but maybe other themes outperformed?

They seemed to have missed out the convenient themes summary I was hoping for :-(

Generally when talking about individual themes, the annual reports only mention highlights like the top-selling themes, "big bang" themes like Elves, and new product categories like Dimensions. As usual, this year's annual report kept mum about the sales for other themes — even entirely new ones like Speed Champions, Scooby-Doo, and Jurassic World.

Frankly, I'm impressed that this year's report even told us the five top-selling sets in order, since that's something the LEGO Group doesn't always disclose. At most they might tell you the single top-selling set (like in 2012, when it was Olivia's House from LEGO Friends).

[TeufelHund]

It seems to me that Lego timed the last Pirates wave pretty well - it seems all the product sold out in a timely manner and isn't sitting around on retailers' shelves, they're not competing with their own Ninjago line's pirate theme and there's scope for a new Pirates of the Caribbean theme to arrive with the next movie in 2017. Overall I'd say they'd be reasonably happy with the results given they probably didn't have huge expectations.

Of course TLG being happy and AFOLs being happy are two entirely different things.