RichardGoring

Shame. But I didn't realize Amazon sold modulars. Amazon directly, anyway. I always thought it was third parties which are overpriced. Interestingly Walmart has it too, for $180. But it's a third party seller, and not sure I trust it. Too good to be true and all that. Either way, I will get it today, whether store or Amazon. Good luck on getting it too.

Same. But might try to get one in store tomorrow before they all go.

There are also 3 leaf stud plants in white and 3x3 macaroni time in dark blueish grey, which will be useful. And likely on Bricks and Pieces.

Yes, they definitely have stickers.

The vignettes are great for friends or family builds with one instruction booklet per vignette. I think they look really neat, although the CMF ones above may be even better (it's a great idea). The ice skating rink looks like a terrific playset. I look forward to getting them.

Fascinating. Maybe it's mainly a UK/Danish only thing, which would be incredible.

I agree that it's on them, but I do wonder how it started. It only appears to be people in America who say LEGOs. I've never heard anyone from Europe say it.

It's Friday afternoon, so I'll be a bit cheeky. I think that the common complaint for the Ideas threshold being 10,000 is that too many projects get to review, but only a tiny proportion are chosen. AFOLs want more of them produced. And another complaint is that they often 'dumb down' the sets. Barracuda Bay was different (although not really smaller), The Medieval Blacksmith was simpler, 123 Sesame Street was much smaller. AFOLs want bigger sets. And then the BrickLink Design Program came along and offered up to 15 sets from 30 past Ideas projects, and most are really big. And then we found out the prices of large sets and everyone went nuts at 'having to' spent $1000 on five huge sets all at once. Turns out, AFOLs like to complain. As do I. It's fun and generates (hopefully lighthearted and entertaining) discussion.

It also looks like it's a photo/screenshot from the box art, so the whole set is clearly floating around somewhere.

I'm from the UK but live in the US now. It's so strange, but British adverts (on the rare occasion that I see them) are actually a joy to watch, compared with the terrible stuff in the US (not that I watch them either much with Netflix, Prime etc). These are great!

FWIW, I took this as being validation that the projects that got to 10K but didn't get approved were still sort of approved by virtue of LEGO doing it themselves. Not that LEGO stole the idea, which clearly they didn't. But yes, agreed. They're all fabulous.

While it's true that 10,000 people voting for something on Ideas doesn't mean that all of them will buy it, the Ideas platform does a few interesting things for LEGO. It most obviously gives them an idea of whether unusual sets may be popular. They know how many people use the platform, how many visitors/sessions they have on the site, and what proportion of people that view a page/project then vote for it. The metrics behind the 10,000 votes may be very revealing. But they only use Ideas for a tiny fraction of sets they release each year, so they may not need the metrics the platform provides. It also allows them to try out new things that may be trickier otherwise. Would they have done Minecraft, sitcom sets, or buildable objects (in quite the same way) if it weren't for Ideas? I suspect that the Ideas platform means they can release stuff that doesn't fit into one of their existing themes very easily. Partly that means it's easier to market to consumers, but also means they can easily deal with internal company structures/budgets/politics, and find ways to test out or expand license partnerships. And don't forget the PR it gives them. Ideas sets seem to be picked up by mass media far more than regular sets and the narrative around being designed by the fans appears to be compelling to both journalists and readers. Many in the AFOL community complain that 'Ideas is broken' because they choose fewer than 10% of 10k supported ideas to make into sets. And yet the other 90%+ of 10k sets also make great PR for them, as does the platform in general. How often have you seen something outside of the LEGO community where someone has written 'X could be a real LEGO set'. They write about the potential, without ever saying that it's extremely unlikely to happen, and even if it does it will likely be dramatically different. It's just a good story and another way to keep LEGO in the news in a very positive way. People want to like LEGO, and this is the kind of story that helps people continue to like it and think about it nostalgically. And then, LEGO can use the Ideas for things like high quality buildable objects, see that it does well, and start targeting non-LEGO communities with things like the Adidas shoe, and they will sell really well. Could you say that it's the Ideas sets that are responsible for the new 18+ Adults Welcome rebranding of Creator Expert? Maybe. I suspect it's at least contributed to it. LEGO isn't always great at coming up with the best ideas for themes or sets. But they are good at shutting things down if they're not doing well - Hidden Side and Vidiyo recently. Ideas is clearly doing well for them.

I'm in Boston where there are (sorry about this), four LEGO brand stores and a LEGOLAND Discovery Center, which has a shop with a BAM station. I've been to three in the last two months. They have a free for all, a pre-built figures with some free for all pieces, and an all pre-built option. I think it probably varies by store manager. While choice is nice, you forget how long it takes to wade through all the bins to find the pieces you want.

I always try to get as many dual molded legs as possible from BAM, where they're much less expensive, as they're so nice. Often with printing on top.

But it looks like the Venetian Houses have been brought forward in it's place. 3470 pieces for $290. https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/introducing.page https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/designer-sets-for-adult-fans-of-lego/215680/Venetian-Houses No interior photos of it yet though. I hope they release some before Nov 9.

Similar. Got Hogsmeade and the polyjuice bathroom to get the dorm and polybag GWP, and some BAM boxes got me the flying car.

Oh really? I thought I saw the early version with fewer, but I am clearly wrong. Either way, still great end product. I saw your interview on Beyond the Brick talking about the interchangeable scenes. Really interesting.

Love your work! And the Seasons in Time set is excellent. The expanded set of vignettes is superb. I hope it gets through.

The offers page shows the Hermione polybag as an in-store GWP, so it should be available widely - https://www.lego.com/en-us/page/lego-offers-promotions (last item on the page). Does anyone know why these were on the original store calendar and then removed? Seems odd to have done it. Between Target and Zaavi sales, and these oddly timed GWPs, I rarely buy things day 1. It seems it's always better to wait, unless you need it for something specific.

PIG! I managed to find pigs at the BAM at my local LEGOLAND Discovery Centre. A bit of a shame as they charge $13 per pack instead of $10 at the LEGO Store, but I'd not seen pigs and didn't want to miss out on them. I also asked an assumptive question about whether they allowed you to pick 15 pieces like at the regular LEGO Store, or if their rules were different. Better to try. Not sure if any of these legs are exclusive, but I like the brings on them.

I've just watched Tiago's video review and while the initial image didn't look great, after seeing it in a video and going through it all, I really like it. I can see the point about it looking messy, but then again, I can see this being exactly why it will be great to build and excellent to play with. My daughter is five and hasn't seen Home Alone yet. This will be an excellent Christmas for us all!

Yes. Totally fair. It's a shame that the other sets aren't available to build yet, or there are reviews of the sets in this round before thinking whether these are worth the cost. Are the MOCs as stable as you'd expect from a standard LEGO set. I know they've been through testing, but we don't know what that testing entails.

Oh, and their language suggests that PDF instructions will be generally available, rather than just in the LEGO app, which is nice.

While they're very expensive, that's likely because they sets in this round are that much bigger (in terms of piece count) than the last round. The price per piece is pretty consistent at about 0.08c per piece. Castle in the Forest $179.99 1973 $0.091 BIONICLE® Legends $119.99 1573 $0.076 Great Fishing Boat $129.99 1606 $0.081 Sheriff's Safe $49.99 578 $0.086 Kakapo $79.99 1062 $0.075 Particle Accelerator $99.99 1500 $0.067 Pursuit of Flight $54.99 540 $0.102 (Average $0.083 per piece) Mountain Windmill $179.99 2085 $0.086 Modular LEGO Store $179.99 2149 $0.084 Seasons in Time Calendar $249.99 3010 $0.083 Retro Bowling Alley $229.99 2779 $0.083 Brickwest Studios $279.99 3741 $0.075 Ruined House $299.99 4002 $0.075 Clockwork Aquarium $64.99 874 $0.074 Quest Builder $259.99 3415 $0.076 Science Adventures $35.99 414 $0.087 (Average $0.080 per piece). I wonder if these will be as popular as the first round, given that they are so much more expensive. Will they sell out in the first few minutes, or even at all?

Ha! Now I wish I'd put more than a few minutes effort into it. Although we'll see the real thing soon enough. Whatever the final result, I'm looking forward to it. Some kind of curve to the corner would be terrific.