ShaydDeGrai

While not a GWP first day of release story, I can relate to this on one special occasion. I recall one year getting a physical invitation in the mail from my local Lego Store (with a postage paid RSVP card to reserve my spot if I was planning to attend). The invite was for a special "VIP Black Friday Preview Sale" (way back before there were "Insiders Rewards" and all that stuff on the website) to be held the Saturday before Thanksgiving at some crack of dawn hour of the morning. They were opening the store a few hours earlier than the mall's regular business hours, but they let us in even before the store itself opened and let us hang out in the mall outside the store for an hour or so. They served us coffee and donuts and the manager ran a Lego Trivia game with sets as prizes. They had Lego name tags made up for us. We also got gift bags with assorted Lego bling, including leftover GWP sets from earlier in the year. Between the swag bag and prizes I probably got about $75 worth of kits, minifigs, keyrings and parts before I even started shopping. When the store itself actually opened (again several hours before it was open to the general public), we each got assigned a "personal shopping assistant" who had a checklist of all the kits they had in inventory and all I had to say was, "I want one of these, I want two of those..." while pointing things out in the store and my assistant packaged the whole thing up from fresh inventory in the back room. He even got a hand cart and loaded my purchases into my car for me. Oh, and of course, we got first crack at that years' special holiday GWP set and a set that was supposed to be released on Black Friday itself. I can honestly say it was the best experience I've ever had "shopping" (Lego or otherwise). I met some great people, some of whom I kept in touch with for years afterwards and remained very loyal to that particular store (I live within reasonable driving distance to four Lego Shops) for the remainder of that manager's time there even when I might have saved a few bucks at Amazon. There were only a dozen or so of us (not counting kids and spouses) who'd attended the event (which I later learned was targeted at the top 25 VIP purchasers (in person and on-line combined) in the region) but we had a blast. The "privilege" of being one of the first people to click a link on a website just doesn't compare. Then again, the current insider's program kinda pales by comparison to a store that not only calls you a VIP but actually treats you like one (even if it was only for a few hours once a year). And speaking of partying at The Lego Shop, maybe the (theoretical) GWP given out shouldn't go to the first people to buy Minas Tirith, it should go to the first customers who buy at least one copy of the set while dressed as a character from the LOTR. Ridiculous, I know, but more festive and might keep the GWP in stock a little longer

From an economics standpoint, TLG should TOTALLY have larger production runs on GWPs, especially when it's a real exclusive tied to a high-end "flagship" set like Barad Dur or The Enterprise. I'd even go so far as to say that from a marketing perspective small production runs to capitalize on FOMO actually work _against_ the company. Any fan who's going to spend $500+ on some exclusive, near-to-their-heart-themed set is going to buy that set whether they get a GWP or not; some might hold off (or save up for it) , others might and wait pray for a lightening deal on Amazon, but everyone (including TLG) knows they are "destined" to get it eventually and typically have two years or more to follow through. BUT if TLG offers an exclusive minifigure or cool shuttlepod (or both) and only makes enough to elate a handful of fans and disappoints (or pisses off) everyone else. like (several of) their Comic-Con exclusives strategies, it might create buzz, but it's lousy customer relations. Let us not forget that LEGO wholesale distributors typically buy kits in bulk at somewhere around 60-65% of MSRP . They then take their cut and resell the items to retailers who honor (or even discount) the MSRP and make a profit for themselves. If I were TLG, and I had the option of selling a kit like Minas Tirith for sixty cents on the dollar so it could eventually end up on Barnes and Noble or Amazon versus selling it myself at full MSRP, I'd like more of the money to come to me rather than middle-men and competing retailers. Now the guaranteed bulk sale is really nice and TLG certainly doesn't want to walk away from this revenue stream, but the margin is low. Let's say the kit sells for 650USD, at sixty cents on the dollar that kit could be wholesaling for $390 ($240 less than MSRP) If TLG can convince people to buy directly from them, they make rake in two-thirds more money than they do on the wholesale market. Moreover, since "profitability" is already factored into the wholesale price, every dollar they bring in above the $390 threshold is (nearly - still have the overhead of running the website, shipping and handling) pure profit. Enter the GWP. If I can bundle a high priced item (or high enough priced collection of smaller items) with some sort of exclusive and convince a customer to buy direct (where I get, say $200 more per transaction than I would have if they shopped at Amazon) then a decent GWP (FOMO or not, from a marketing perspective) is totally worth their time and effort. I'd make the GWP production run for the same number of units the initial run of sets is going to be and go on bundling them until the set is back-ordered. If the set turns out not to be as popular as expected (or Amazon sales - without a GWP - are cannibalizing the supply chain) and they have extra GWP sets, put them on hold for a year or so then make them available as insider rewards once the scalpers on eBay have driven up demand. As for a GWP for Minas Tirith, without going so far as to tap something that could be a recognizable set in its own right, I wouldn't mind a siege tower or a decent trebuchet and some rank-and-file minifigs.

Couldn't agree more on that front. I'm a major fan of form language (and have lived through multiple eras where overly simplistic designs relied way too much on stickers and printed parts to convey to the user what the model was actually supposed to be). A good design should let the shape and textures of the parts speak for themselves. Failing that, I prefer printed parts over stickers, but those parts should be few in number and essential for the overall design. For my own MOC-ing purposes, printed parts are far less versatile than a plain brick so I don't want to clutter up my collection with a lot of "limited use" parts. Ironically, the one theme where I don't actually mind the stickers is Speed Champions. The switch to 8-wide (and introduction of a fair number of new molds in recent years) has allowed that line to really embrace quality form language and brick-built detail but it still uses some of the most complicated sticker sheets around; but I'm okay with that precisely because the models are race cars and if you real NASCAR vehicles, you quickly realize they are covered in stickers too so, in this one, exceptional, case the presence of stickers (at least philosophically) adds to the realism (even if correctly placing and aligning them is a pain in the neck).

I was just cleaning up a bit this weekend and happened across some old LOTR and Hobbit "spare" sets (either kits I never got around to building or extras I bought to MOD-out official sets into something more suitable in scale in my mind - looking at you puny Weathertop, pathetic little Orc Forge and Black Tripping Hazard on a Hinge Gate). If I'm being honest, and no disrespect to the original designers of these sets intended, I really don't think TLG needs to worry about revisiting any of their prior efforts on this theme. It's been more than a decade since those sets first came out and some of them were pretty forgettable even in their heyday (I had an "oh yeah, they DID have a Moria set didn't they. Nice doorway, now where's the rest of it" moment when I found the box.) I can appreciate TLG needing to make sets at various price points when targeting a playset line, but if the game plan is to do one 18+ flagship set a year, the should just ignore any prior art and make the best kit they think they can feasibly market to the AFOL and/or adult Tolkien fanbase. While its likely true that there are current owners of Orthanc, Helm's Deep, and/or a Corsair of Umbar who might not rush out to buy a revisit of those particular models (IMO the three best offerings of the original 2013-2014 sets), I think it equally likely that those people are outnumbered by the number of people (teens who didn't have rich parents, college students, recent grads living in mom and dad's basement until their student loans are paid down, etc.) who wanted those sets back in the day and just didn't have the disposable income to pursue them. There might even be a few people out there who might buy a revisit despite owning the originals (lord knows I need to check Brickset to keep track of all the variations on Snowspeeders, X wings and Millenium Falcons I've collected over the years - and my snowspeeders all look a lot more similar to each other than The Council of Elrond looks to Rivendell.) In the end, I think it's less about the subject matter than it is about the treatment. Don't set out to build a 100USD set, targeted at a ten-year-old consumer, inspired by Helm's Deep; Set out to build an impressive, but practical, model of Helm's Deep then price it and grade it accordingly. Would I, personally, prefer to see something original, certainly but when I compare a set like Rivendell to, well, pretty much everything that came before it in this theme, I realize that just doing real justice to the source material IS original in my book.

I remember back in the day (nearly half a century ago now) AMT (maker of the original Star Trek plastic, assembly required models) put out a kit called simply the Star Trek Space Ship Set. The kit was made up of three (smaller than the solo model kits) original series (well, at that point the only series unless you count the animated cartoon) ships, the Enterprise (NCC-1701), a D9 Klingon Battle Cruiser*, and a Romulan Warbird displayed on a common base. I'd love to see TLG's take on recreating a set like this. * Fun (but useless) facts, AMT actually bought the model kit rights to Star Trek very early on in the show's existence in a clever bit of marketing/producing/fundraising on the part of Desilu Productions (Lucille Ball 's production company) The "D9 Klingon Cruiser" was designed by Matt Jeffries (designer of the Enterprise for the show) as a model for AMT to produce BEFORE any Klingon ships had actually appeared in the show. Later in the series when the scripts called for a Klingon ship to appear, they reused the design on screen. The Romulan Warbird from TOS, had a very short life on screen. Behind the scenes the SFX model had been damaged beyond repair and they didn't have enough stock footage of its prior appearance on screen to make the episode work, so they tweaked the script to say that Romulans were now using Klingon designs and used the D9 model instead.

I think it's a safe bet that future Star Trek sets (at least, no pun intended, the flagship ones) will be aimed at the 18+ crowd simply because people who grew up watching (and building real emotional connections to ) TOS, TNG and DS9 are all getting on in years. Wil Wheton's kids are now older than he was when he played Wesley Crusher on TNG ( I think his youngest graduated from college recently) More recent offerings that a younger audience is more likely to have seen, just don't seem to have resonated with the newest generation of fans the way the old series did with my generation. As far as models themselves go, while there have been some gems (story-wise) among the Paramount+ offerings they haven't really contributed anything truly "iconic" to the cannon (probably just because these aren't mass media shows, they fill a streaming niche for a specific pool of subscribers with eight episodes here, a nine hour movie divided into ten segments there, etc. That's a far cry from two dozen episoded a year, every year for the better part of a decade being broadcast for free to millions of views). The biggest thing I got out of the Kelvin-verse movies was learning that JJ Abrams really wanted to be directing a Star Wars movie instead and had no understanding why Star Trek was a different franchise with a different fan appeal, so that source material's a bit of a non-starter for a lot of die-hards. Even Enterprise and Voyager, while their titular vessels could make interesting sets, they just aren't the ST show people tend to wax on about or active seek out from the streamers. I see articles about DS9 and TNG show up on a near daily basis on my news feeds, I'm pretty sure the last time I saw a mention of Star Trek Enterprise was because a former cast member had died. All of which brings us back to TOS, TNG, DS9 and the pre-Abrams Films (which is still a pretty extensive palette to draw from). Personally, my top choice would be Deep Space 9 itself, along with the full cast of minifigs (just like they did with the Enterprise D) - though this could raise a debate as to which Dax to include (oh well, can anyone say GWP Runabout with alternate Trill?)

Yeah, I hear the UCS Crack House, Strip Joint and Fake Youth Hostile Run By A Serial Killer sets just didn't resonate with the focus groups.

I kind of hate to admit this, but I actually was so dissatisfied with the official offering that I actually wound up buying four of them (yeah, I know, I can hear you thinking "Wait, what? You didn't like the set so you bought three extra copies of it? Huh?") Like you, I bought a second copy to complete the gate and have two towers, then I decided the whole thing was too short so I bought two more copies just for parts to make the gate eight studs taller and double the height of the towers. (Sauron now has four mouths and I have an excess of Gandalfs and Aragons, but whatever...)

If I had to pick just one theme that still embodies "the old ethos" of LEGO from my youth (which was quite awhile ago now but I'm trying not to dwell on that...) while also trying to be new and fresh, capitalizing on new parts, colors and building techniques, I think I'd have to go with Friends. I build these sets with my daughter and we both enjoy the experience. We build them, she plays with them then she scraps them for parts and does what she calls "free build" because she doesn't like the term MOC (sounds too much like "mock" and she doesn't want people making fun of her creations - hey, it apparently makes sense to a 10 year old...) Now, to your point, she also loves Harry Potter, but those sets are build once and keep as playsets in her mind - to the point where we have to rebuild periodically to correct for wear and tear and pet-related damage (The Great Hall was not so great after the cat knocked it off a shelf) Anyway, my point is that, even with all the 18+ plus marketing, licensing, specialty molds and grossly overpriced collectables, there are still some really good kits out there that (give or take a minidoll versus a minifigure ) embody the spirit LEGO we grew up with and I'm glad I can share that with my little one. Creator 3-in-1 is another go-to favorite for this (City used to be, but lately it feels like its given into the trend of simpler builds with more specialized parts). Are store shelves skewed in favor of the flashy stuff? Probably, they only have so much shelf space and want to stock the stuff they know will move. More and more these days I find myself shopping on-line (and when browsing things with my daughter, using filters to level the marketing playing field). As a former educator, I'm a great believer in open-ended play and my biggest concern with marketing licensed sets to kids is the risk of encoraging them to recreate existing narratives rather than inventing their own. As I said, my daughter loves the Friends kits, but has never seen the cartoons or any of the media tie-ins, she doesn't know the official names of any of the minidoll characters and just makes up names on her own. I think that's wonderful. While I have little objection to her slowly turning our playroom into a full recreation of Hogwarts for that particular IP I think its important that her own imagination gets an unencumbered place to play as well.

While Smaug wouldn't be MY first choice for their next Middle Earth set, if they were to do it I think it would have to be brick built and large enough to do justice to the character. Smaug should be large enough to swallow a dwarf like a TicTac, so if you want something you can pose with minifigures it would need to be at least twice the size of anything they've done for Ninjago or D&D before I'd consider it a serious offering (and yes, that would make it a very pricey set). What would I do instead of Smaug? Well, I would say the Argonath, but, as you can tell from my avatar, I've already got one of those, and anything TLG came up with in an official kit would likely be a lot small than mine). It might be nice to see them done as a pair of bookends though (I've been meaning to MOC this up for years and just never got 'round to it.) I think Meduseld, the Golden Hall of Edoras, would be a strong contender for the "Rivendell Treatment" I could see that being a cool model for either display or play with enough complexity to appeal to the 18+ crowd. I also wouldn't object to a UCS revisit to Helm's Deep. I have the entire original line of LOTR kits (and frankly, was a bit disappointed by most of them when compared to the sorts of MOCs people had been building for years just based on the books before the movies came out) and while Helm's Deep was probably the best of the lot (especially when combined with a half dozen Uruk Hai Army battle packs) the scale of the set really didn't due justice to the setting. And speaking of scale, they could also revisit Cirith Gorgor and Morannon (a.k.a. The Black Gate). This location is supposed to be the Towers of the Teeth (Narchost and Carchost) and the Black Gate, not The Tower of the Tooth and the tripping hazard as realized in the original model. The original effort was so scaled back, you needed two of them (building one looking at the instruction book in a mirror) just to complete the scene and even then you were left with a "gate" that inspired the meme "One does simply hop the fence into Mordor"

This is a good point, recent years have seen a lot of one-offs aimed at (essentially) non-AFOLs. This usually takes the form of some (possibly overpriced) Ideas set that speaks to someone in a particular way and motivates them to shell out for a "novelty" item. Case in point, I know someone who was a serious Big Bang Theory fan and when she heard about the set (on social media), she berated me for not telling her first (as she knew I was into LEGO and just generally assumed that TLG runs all their plans past me personally...) Anyway, she rushed out to go buy it (despite being a regular fixture in the mall, it may well have been the first time she set foot in The Lego Store) Then she asked me to help her assemble the minifigures (I warned you she really wasn't an AFOL) which she then put on a shelf and gave me the rest of the kit (still in pieces) saying she just wanted "the dolls". I'm sure she's not the only person in the world who's done this. Does it sell product? Sure. Could it be a "gateway drug", getting people who never go into the Lego Store or visit their website to discover other kits that might appeal to them? Maybe, but in the case of my acquaintance, she pretty much went in with blinders on and couldn't have left faster if the place had been on fire. Is it a sustainable business model? I don't know, but it's been going on for a while, so it must be working for somebody. Personally I think its just one prong of a much larger game plan and TLG (finally*) recognizing that there may not be a "typical" Lego consumer and that not everyone has to like everything or like the same things for the same reasons; its perfectly fine to like Botanicals and not give a damn about Technic; I can collect Speed Champions because I enjoy the cool SNOT techniques that goes into building them, someone else might be a motor head and loves the cars they model and if they weren't buying Lego sets they'd be building plastic glue-together models of them instead. Back in the '70's and '80's it felt like TLG was always trying to appeal to the same (small) crowd and sell them as much as possible ("Oh you like our castles? Have you considered adding Pirates?") and when they tried to diversify they seemed to forget their roots and came off as more pandering and condescending than welcoming to certain demographics (I'm having flashbacks to negative reactions to Belville with many mom's I know considering it insulting compared with Elves and Friends and the (many) great sets that have come out of that return to their roots and simply embracing subjects with broader appeal to a wider audience. These days I think they just want to diversify their customer base as much as possible and if they can't sell a Technic Set to someone who likes Mosaics, so be it, they'll just sell that person more Mosaics and, as MAB observed, if that person is only buying one or two kits a year, maybe they won't object as loudly as the rest of us when they see the price tag because, to them, it's a special purchase, not a weekly expense. *Perhaps "finally" is too strong a word, they have certainly known for decades which demographics they are most popular with and where there were "untapped marketing opportunities" but its really been since COVID (and adults rediscovering hobbies during lockdown) that TLG has devoted serious time and energy to catering to specialty niches without trying to upsell everyone on their entire product line.

The closest I've ever come to a "corporate gift" of LEGO was actually just a bag of basic DUPLO clone bricks that had been custom printed with buzz words and the company logo - limited quantity and definitely lacking in quality. It was really more of a market gimmick than any sort of customer or employee appreciation effort. HOWEVER, many years ago I did get involved with a wedding party that wanted, not a kit, per se, but LEGO centerpieces for their reception. I designed the model, actively avoiding hard to find parts and rare colors, designed and printed up perfect-bound color instructions books (complete with event appropriate dedication pages and injected trivia about the couple) and got all the parts. I also printed up a custom sticker sheet, though if I were to do this all over again today (and had the lead time) I'd go with Eclipse GrafX (or similar company) and get custom parts printed for the occasion. Because it was a wedding and most of the bridal party was relatively local, the bride decided that she wanted a building party so rather than the traditional rehearsal dinner, the weekend before the actual wedding we sent out for pizza and I coordinated an event where all the ushers, bridesmaids, close friends and immediate family built the centerpieces. We started with a parts draw where I'd set up a "buffet" of all the parts needed to build the model. Everyone got a cafeteria tray and a parts list then went through the line picking up all the parts they'd need to build two centerpieces (one for the reception, one to take home). Then people retreated to various tables where their instructions books awaited. Because some people were far more familiar with Lego than others ( the wedding party was largely made up of engineers, teachers and lawyers - the lawyers tended to need the most help) I floated around the room helping as needed. People had a blast at the building party (even the lawyers). The centerpieces went over great at the reception (each table had a randomized "winner" to see who could take the model home and people were clamoring to get them (felt like a mini Comic Con (but friendlier)). If I'd had the time, I probably could have turned this experience into a regular side-hustle; I got a lot of positive feedback from the builders and a number of the regular guests asked about my hosting similar events for them including one who wanted me to work a 300 person Bar Mitzvah party ( which was the request that made me realize I didn't want to be in the business of doing this professionally - I think I'd need an entire staff to deal with that size of an event.)

Welcome Rolf! Rest assured you are not the only person here with more than half a century of life experiences behind him who still finds joy in Lego bricks; we even have a badge for that. Check out the "Older than Dirt" thread if you'd like to join the club!

But we must also pity those young'ins who will never know the joy of discovering a radical "new" colors like "tan"/"brick yellow" and "sand green" for the very first time. Speaking as someone raised on the basic white, red, and black with occasional dashes of blue and yellow with a green baseplate... it was just - wow - The joy of "discovering" the new world of "Earth Blue", "Earth Green", "Dark Red", etc. more than makes up for the (ongoing) anguish of the grey and brown color shifts. Sure, it's still cool to get a new color (or an old part finally available in a particular color) but after after living with a half dozen colors for decades and having to mentally justify why all the window frames and slopey roofs on every building are red then suddenly (by comparison) getting an entire palette of mature and interesting tones, that's way more excitement than I think a younger AFOL could ever must over say, finding a new shade of medium nougat. And for the record, I'm kinda okay with old light gray, I've mixed that with new light blueish grey for weathering effects quite effectively in the past. As for the old brown, that's becomeing less of a problem every day, as those parts are so brittle, someday I won't have any left. Old dark grey is still a issue though, they don't blend well for my tastes and just get used as filler or prototypes.

While not a narrative theme (sorry, very little computer game, comic book or animated series potential), I wouldn't object to an official line of Great Ball Contraption kits. We've already got Art and Botanicals why not add frivolous engineering desktoys to the mix? Each kit could have the option of running in a stand-alone loopback or be pipelined together (as per the standard conventions) You could have a range of offerings embodying the basic families of mechanisms varying in scale and complexity: ball pumps, ramps/seesaws, conveyer belts, scissor lifts, stair steppers, screws, etc. At the higher end, the kits become more complex and stylistic/themed (amusement park rides, robot arms, Rube Goldberg-esque devices, etc.) Low-end kits could be designed to be cranked by hand or allow for motor (sold separately) to be added. High end (flagship models) would include a motor and batter box. I was recently CHristmas shopping for my daughter (who wanted a marble run kit) and was more than a little surprise by the breadth and variety of the options out there. If the global economy can support 200+ varitions of "ball on a ramp reacting to gravity" surely there must be room in the marketplace for at least a few "ball moving uphill in clever ways - some assembly required" offerings. If nothing else, it might turn more people onto the GBC sub-culture and make official Lego balls a lot easier/cheaper to come by.