Wizarding World 2023 - Rumors & Discussion

[Huigberts Builds]

I really don't think a $200,- Great Hall is too farfetched. It has to stand out from the previous 2 versions, one of which is even still on the shelves. I've already heard of multiple people that they aren't really interested in collecting Hogwarts a third time unless they really step up their game. If people pay more than double that amount for parts of Diagon Alley, I'm sure Hogwarts sections will do just fine as well. And keep in mind we are promised to get "the most detailed LEGO® brick-built Hogwarts™ Castle scene ever". That will probably require a pretty high price tag. If it's gonna be more detailed than the previous versions it will probably come with the rocks underneath (as the boathouse will have to connect somewhere) and a pretty big grand staircase tower. Let alone the interior. I doubt they can do all that for about the same price as the Chamber of Secrets.

[krimimimi]

@BrickMatit, I think some real contributors to the drop in discussion are the reduction in leaks and the fact lego now puts out good quality photos on their site relatively soon after the leaked set pix appear. When we're looking at unidentified parts or small, fuzzy photos, we spend pages upon pages speculating and discussing, only to revise our positions once the real material appears. Just think about how people's opinions changed once the official 2021 pictures appeared. At least half of that discussion disappears with the way they're handling things now, it just sort of deflates. That and no CMF series recently. 

1 hour ago, Huigberts Builds said:

I really don't think a $200,- Great Hall is too farfetched. It has to stand out from the previous 2 versions, one of which is even still on the shelves. I've already heard of multiple people that they aren't really interested in collecting Hogwarts a third time unless they really step up their game. 

The real question is probably who the sets are meant for, new fans or old. They can also do it in stages, the GH as one set, and then later any combination of potions classroom / Snape's office / Slytherin / Hufflepuff in (a) separate set(s) to gain the height that will show off the Boathouse to best advantage. Reel the customer in bit by bit. It would work even better if there were some flexibility to which sets were required, for example if you only needed two of those four for that section, but a later bridge set perhaps makes the remaining two more appealing once more. If you tell fans from the outset it will cost them $600-700 (the modular's were already ca. $470; how much "stepping up" can most folks reasonably afford?), they're more likely to balk.

[BrickMatit]

8 minutes ago, krimimimi said:

The real question is probably who the sets are meant for, new fans or old.

Until now, LEGO tried to please both, and I think they will continue.

In what scenario LEGO would produce a new Hogwarts modular castle, with high threshold Great Hall, just to appeal old collectors? And risking to discourage new collectors?

They can simply make a new castle with the same skyline (obviously) and the same, but different, iconic Great Hall (like they did with the 2018 and 2021 Great Hall). Of course, maybe some buyers that have every sets since 2018 won't buy it, but new collectors will and probably even 2021 collectors that want a castle scene better depicted (if LEGO is true when promising that for the future, but we'll see ).

Anyway, LEGO can seduce old collectors with well done remakes (as Accio Lego suggested, Halloween feast Great Hall, with Winged Keys, Chess and Final Challenge with Quirrell underground), never seen location or scenes (Owlery and Boathouse, maybe Troll on the Loose, Bell Towers, a proper Grand Staircase Tower), new characters (and Seaber has a list of them), new moulds, new variants (100th Dumbledore outfit )... and so on. Of course, some of the old collector would not buy a less than 200$ Great Hall and would leave on shelf the 3rd Great Hall in 7 years, but some would buy it... on the contrary, in my opinion, producing a high cost Great Hall could discourage new collectors to even start their Hogwarts modular castle and so maybe even make them buying less sets.

[Black Falcon]

17 hours ago, krimimimi said:

If they gatekeep the Great Hall behind a $200 dollar buy in, especially from the outset, I think the new castle is going to be a non-starter for a lot of people. One of the things that helped the massive 2021+ modular version was that most of the sets were in the $50 - 80 range (the two outliers were $20 and $150, and iirc, it started out less), which meant people were more likely to stretch for a set they might not have otherwise bought to have a complete castle. By and large, they were manageable steps. Plus CoS is still on the shelves, which would cannibalise potential sales.

If it really does belong to the castle, I wonder if they could do something like a Bell Tower, greenhouse & bridge set, though, which would feel more optional, and still be able to fit the 2021+ castle, too, with minimal tweaks. 

I agree with you, that it would likely be a bit much for some people, however for many it wouldn´t matter that much if they buy two sets for half the price or that price or one - in the end it will be avaiable for less anyways. And while think that the 139,99 one is more likely to be the great hall + whatever but wouldn´t hold it impossible that the 199,99 could be that aswell.

However, the question would remain, if the 199,99 one isn´t the great hall, what would it be then? It seems unlikely that any other set from the Castle System will have that Price, so it would either need to be something completely different. Or, it will just be the chambers of secret + other rock sections like potions class  - and you can just leave the Castle without the rockwork if it is to expensive to you, without that it would look that much like something is missing.

3 hours ago, BrickMatit said:

There are, I imagine, a lot of variables influencing the number of replies and views and I think that COVID is a very important reason behind the 2020 numbers, but it's interesting to see that 2023 was less appealing, at least for people on Eurobricks, than any other year.

While there will surely be several reasons, I would also think that discussions in other groups (FB, Instagram, TG, reddit) might have become a bit more common with time.

[Huigberts Builds]

4 hours ago, BrickMatit said:

Until now, LEGO tried to please both, and I think they will continue.

In what scenario LEGO would produce a new Hogwarts modular castle, with high threshold Great Hall, just to appeal old collectors? And risking to discourage new collectors?

But that's the thing, you're thinking as a collector, I feel like we're forgetting about the "casual" lego fans. When the theme was first brought back in 2018, a lot of fans bought just the Great Hall to put on display and never bothered getting the other sections. It's just that iconic of a location that it could easily work on it's own. They just see the Great Hall and think "Cool, I own Hogwarts Castle."

To this day, when I watch non lego youtubers or visit new people I catch them with just that one on display. Or ofcourse just the bigger (or smaller depending how you look at it) nano scale one. And not just with the Great Hall, I also see plenty of people who have just the Clock Tower, or the Chamber of Secrets, or even the Astronomy tower. Granted more so for sections of the 2018 wave rather than the 2021 ones as those didn't work too well on their own.

But what I'm trying to say is that the fast majority of lego buyers were never going to collect them all in the first place. Most people aren't completionist and are just happy to get one of them. Most children definitely won't get them all. Just taking myself as an example, I remember eyeing the lego catalog back in the day looking at the big Hogwarts sets (4709 etc), knowing I would probably never get them, but that didn't stop me from getting the smaller ones. To me I still had Hogwarts. As long as lego manages to make every one of these sets work well on their own I think they will do just fine. We can basically already say this for the 2 sections that were revealed so far, the owlery already stands alone, and the boathouse is pretty separate from the rest of the castle anyway, they didn't even bother including it in the previous 2 versions, plus you can easily put it next to either of those and call it a day, just requires a slight modification.

I don't think it stops people from buying the creator modular buildings just because they don't have every one of them, nor will people skip the Avengers Tower because they missed out on the Daily Bugle. And sure, the castle sections are ofcourse more connected than those individual buildings, but even here we name them by section, poa fans are more interested in a clock tower, halfblood prince fans in the astronomy tower, etc. Plus the castle changes all the time anyway.

The question is, is lego really going to pass on a big, ultra detailed Hogwarts just because not everyone will buy it? Are they just gonna pump out slight variations of basically the same set every couple of years so that in another 10 years we end up with 6 small Great Halls of relatively the same size, but with slight variations and not a single big one for those that are interested in that?

Not to mention there already was disappointment in how small the current 2 Hogwarts Castles looked like on display next to diagon alley. I can already see the same reactions when we will inevitably get the Big Burrow set. Hogwarts Mocs all over social media are often getting comments of people wishing lego would put out a set like that or asking whether they could get/buy the instructions to make it themselves. There's clearly a demand for a Hogwarts Castle like that, so I think it's definitely in the range of possibilities, lego has surprised us before.

Edited January 2 by Huigberts Builds

[JeanGreyForever]

Whatever Hogwarts we get next, I just hope we get actual classrooms since the modular system never bothered with that outside of the original Chamber of Secrets set. Actual classrooms, dungeons, and common rooms.

[Roebuck]

12 hours ago, BrickMatit said:

Just out of curiosity, I've searched for every Wizarding World - Rumors and Discussions threads since 2018 to see how many replies and views there were:

- 2018 8377 replies and 1154751 views

- 2019 6171 replies and 812533 views

- 2020 18542 replies and 1993818 views

- 2021 11343 replies and 1304625 views

- 2022 4166 replies and 560481 views

- 2023 3123 replies and 375691 views

There are, I imagine, a lot of variables influencing the number of replies and views and I think that COVID is a very important reason behind the 2020 numbers, but it's interesting to see that 2023 was less appealing, at least for people on Eurobricks, than any other year.

From your noob statistician it's all 

It is interesting and probably reflects rather well how I personally feel about the theme however I do not think it say much about how well the theme is selling overall. I have gotten several pictures from friends this x-mas with their kids building HP sets they got now. 

[Ferder]

On 12/31/2023 at 8:55 AM, BacktoBricks said:

Rumoured Summer 2024 price list from Maxbautde on Youtube:

Lego Harry Potter 76427 - 723 Pieces - $59.99

Lego Harry Potter 76231 - 397 Pieces - $39.99

Lego Harry Potter 76433 - 579 Pieces - $69.99

Lego Harry Potter 76434 - 195 Pieces - $19.99

Lego Harry Potter 76435 - 1732 Pieces - $199.99

Lego Harry Potter 76439 - 744 Pieces - $89.99

Lego Harry Potter 76440 - 1229 Pieces - $139.99

Let the speculation begin. 

Guessing 76435 might be a well known family's humble abode? 

Time for a new 2024 Rumor and Discussion Thread?

[BacktoBricks]

1 hour ago, Ferder said:

Time for a new 2024 Rumor and Discussion Thread?

I'd say so. We've been discussing March and Summer 2024 sets for a good 10 pages now, but it's up to the Mods. 

[MaxHeadroom]

14 hours ago, BrickMatit said:

Just out of curiosity, I've searched for every Wizarding World - Rumors and Discussions threads since 2018 to see how many replies and views there were:

- 2018 8377 replies and 1154751 views

- 2019 6171 replies and 812533 views

- 2020 18542 replies and 1993818 views

- 2021 11343 replies and 1304625 views

- 2022 4166 replies and 560481 views

- 2023 3123 replies and 375691 views

There are, I imagine, a lot of variables influencing the number of replies and views and I think that COVID is a very important reason behind the 2020 numbers, but it's interesting to see that 2023 was less appealing, at least for people on Eurobricks, than any other year.

From your noob statistician it's all 

2020 was also boosted by fake leaks and riddles.

A major part of the dropoff recently I haven’t seen anyone mention is that the structure of the theme is gone. Before the 2021 soft reboot we could easily speculate about what Lego would make for the next two movies and even after the soft reboot it seemed like they’d be covering a couple movies each year in chronological order since 2021 was Stone/Chamber and a bit of POA. Now that the structure is kind of gone (2022 I guess focused on POA-OOTP and 2023 was kind of HPB-DH) and it’s all a bit too general to do as much constructive speculation. 
 

The majority of sets now are also either remakes of recently made sets or buildable creatures/objects. The remakes just aren’t as exciting to discuss in general and it’s not too difficult to figure out what is going to be remade, when, and what those sets will contain. The buildable creatures/objects inspire even less discussion. We have an unrevealed buildable mandrake coming and even if we don’t all know every exact detail of what it’ll look like, from the title alone I think we all know exactly what it’ll contain. Only question is if the figure will be our third Sprout since the 2018 reboot or our third Neville in herbology gear since the 2018 reboot. 

[BrickMatit]

2 minutes ago, MaxHeadroom said:

2020 was also boosted by fake leaks and riddles.

Yeah, I didn't remember it... At that time I lurked the forum but was not an active user.

[Yaxley]

76433 Mandrake ;)