Submitted by bob.luzenski on Sat, 09/05/2009 - 00:41
It's hard to believe it's been two weeks since we got home from BrickFair 2009. Attending a new event in a new location, introducing our company and our products to a new geographic area, seeing folks we know and meeting new friends. We had a great time!
We drove from Michigan to Virginia, and had a chance to spend time in the car working on new product designs. We took all the products we had in stock with us, and between the convention attendees and the public, we sold them all. It was a great trip, and we're definitely looking forward to attending again next year.
For a more complete report on our trip, including images, follow the "Read more" link below.
The story of our trip actually begins the weekend before BrickFair, with our second production run of LightBeams. We produced a total of 84 boards. Two of the boards received blue LEDs instead of white. These were provided to the folks at BrickFair, one for a door prize on Friday, and one for the Charity Auction. We really enjoy the production step, and we'll try to write up a story about it the next time we do a build.
After packaging up the LightBeams Wednesday evening, we left Michigan for DC on Thursday morning. We reached the Ohio border under partly cloudy skies and some rain.
We passed over the Cuyahoga River and Cuyahoga Valley National Park southeast of Cleveland by early afternoon.
A good bit of the drive was spent working on new product development, in what amounted to a day long product development meeting. Bob did the driving while Paul worked on his laptop. We had a DC-to-AC inverter, so we could keep the laptop running after the battery ran out. Paul's iPhone also came in handy if we needed to look something up on the internet.
We crossed into Pennsylvania just before 3 PM, leaving the Ohio Turnpike for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Bob received a dollar coin for change when paying the Ohio Turnpike toll. Having never seen the new US Dollar coin before, he promptly turned it over to the toll booth attendant collecting tolls upon entering the PA Turnpike.
We reached the Allegheny Mountain tunnel just after 5 PM...
and crossed into Maryland about an hour later.
Traffic wasn't too bad as we approached the Beltway, but as soon as we crossed into Virginia it slowed to a stop. We finally found our exit at Leesburg Pike, and promptly turned into the Tysons Corner Center, in search of the Lego retail store. After an eleven hour trip we had found what we were looking for.
We went straight for the Pick A Brick wall, and met Randy, the PAB manager. Randy had a number of boxes of various brick styles and colors already pulled and waiting for the visiting AFOLs (Adult Fan of Lego). He asked us what we were looking for, and then went in the back and brought out several boxes and opened them up. Bob's son has become fond of the 1x2 trans clear plate, as he likes to build abstract designs with it. When asked that morning what he wanted from the PAB wall, that's all he could think of. So Bob filled an entire large PAB cup with just those 1x2 plates, straight from a brand new box. It was definitely worth the drive ;)
We found our way up Leesburg Pike to the hotel, sorted out parking, and went inside. We met Todd, and got our goodie bags and badges. After unloading the car we took the container with Bob's moonbase modules to the ballroom. While we were there, Bryan and Kathie Bonahoom (of Brickworld fame) showed up, and were pleased to annnounce to all that they were the folks with "no responsibility". Having attended the first three Brickworld events, it was nice to see Bryan and Kathie looking relaxed and having fun.
Friday morning came soon enough, and after a quick check of the beakfast menu at the hotel restaurant ($ouch$), we headed off in search of food. Paul's iPhone helped out, and we soon found a local place called the Silver Diner. From the moment we walked into the place, we knew we had found our breakfast spot. We were greeted warmly by the staff, and we loved the food. The hostess noticed our BrickFair badges with blinky LightBeams attached, and asked us all kinds of questions about the event. We went back there for breakfast all three days we were in town.
Friday was the first full day, and we weren't quite sure what to expect. When we attended Brickworld in June, our vendor table was located in the main ballroom, mixed in with the MOC tables. At BrickFair, the vendors were all located together in a series of rooms on a separate floor, away from the main ballroom with most of the MOCs. This turned out to be no problem at all, and we had a steady stream of customers all day.
We also had great neighbors, with Daniel Siskind of Brickmania at the table to our right. Greg Hyland, who does the minifig comics and artwork for several sets, along with custom illustrations while you wait, was to our left. Next to Greg's table was Bella Deux from Australia, selling jewelry made of Lego bricks. Behind us was BrickArms. BrickArms' tables had customers two and three deep most of the time. When we ran low on singles to make change, they were more than happy to help us out by exchanging some of our twenties for stacks of ones. We really appreciated their help.
One of the nice things about having the vendors all together at BrickFair is that the schedule had fixed hours for the vendor rooms to be open. So we didn't feel obligated to be at the table all day, every day. This was nice, as it allowed us to enjoy the event. As a result, when we attend Brickworld next year, we plan to post fixed hours when our table will be open.
We closed up the table just after 5pm, and got to the Evening Ceremonies late. By then they were already reading off names for the Door Prizes. We didn't win anything. When that wrapped up we headed out in search of dinner, before heading down to the Potomac Mills store for the after hours sale event. Again with the help of Paul's iPhone, we decided to eat Chinese, and ended up finding a little place called "Hunan Lion" in one corner of a very unusual office building.
Paul has several Architecure students as roommates, and he was quite taken by the building. The food was just OK though, nothing spectacular.
We got to the Potomac Mills Lego retail store before close, and headed straight to the Pick A Brick wall. They had a nice trans clear panel piece that Paul thought would work well with the moonbase, so we tried to figure out how many we could get in a large PAB cup. Then, just to be silly, we looked the part up on BrickLink (love that iPhone) to see if it was cheaper this way, because we could. By then there were lots of BrickFair attendees at the PAB wall, so we had lots of help and advice while we were doing this.
We drew tickets for the after hours sale, but didn't get in the first two groups. Paul went in with the third group. Bob had already spent way too much at the Brickworld after hours sale (as in 10195 Republic Dropship - at least it was 50% off), so he really didn't need to buy anything more.
Paul made his selections and got in line quickly, then slowly worked his way through the line. While Paul was standing in line, Bob was able to talk to folks waiting outside the store, and harass Paul about about his progress via text messages:
- Bob (10:38 pm): Wow, you're flying!
- Paul (10:41 pm): That's just mean
- Bob (10:57 pm): Are we there yet?
- Paul (11:01 pm): Don't make me turn this store around. I will...
- Bob (11:02 pm): LOL
By the time Paul had just about made it to the front of the checkout line, the line to get into the store had reached the end. So Bob was able to walk in and harass Paul in person, as well as help him carry his big yellow bags out to the car.
Saturday morning we were running late, after getting back to the hotel late from the Lego store the night before. By the time we got out to the car to go to breakfast, public visitors were already forming a line in the hotel lobby, and the parking lot was filling up. Luckily breakfast at Silver Diner was quick, and we got back about 15 minutes before the doors opened for the public. We made a quick stop at the moonbase, and then grabbed our stuff from the room and headed to our vendor table.
The public hours on Saturday were simply amazing! We were very pleased with the interest from the general public for both of our products. We were busy the whole time, and were quite surprised when 5:00 pm came around and we were able to close up the table for the day. And what a day it was, our best single day's sales ever, by a wide margin!
We had arranged to have dinner with Bob's friend Mark, who lives in the DC area. Bob has known Mark for over 30 years, since they met on the same dorm floor in college. A number of years ago Mark had introduced Bob to Ledo Pizza, so that's where we went for dinner. We eventually found the location in Reston, after giving up on the printed directions and pulling out Paul's iPhone again. We ordered a large pizza with pepperoni and pre-cooked bacon, and it was simply delicious!
They don't make pizza like that in Michigan. We can't wait to come back for more!
Saturday evening was quiet after a very busy day. We caught the tail end of the speed/challenge build, and then stuck around for the "Drunken Speed build", before heading back to the room for some rest.
Sunday was a much more relaxed day than Saturday. We had only a few products left to sell, which had us feeling pretty upbeat as we wrapped up the weekend.
The Interior Lighting Modules ended up selling out twice. We thought we had sold them all late on Saturday afternoon, but then we found several more that had been misplaced. These sold out quickly on Sunday, even without our display model to demonstrate them. By 2:00 pm we had sold out the LightBeams as well. So we packed everything up and took it out to the car, then went out to get gas and supplies for the trip home.
We got back to the hotel and relaxed while waiting for the public hours to end, so we could pack up the moonbase. We finally had a chance to walk around and get some pictures of the MOCs on display. One of our favorites was a micro-scale space scene by Joe Meno, called "Just Another Day at the Bay".
It's hard not to like micro-scale, and micro-scale space is even better.
Public hours finally came to a close at 4:30 pm. We broke down the moonbase, and by 5:15 pm it was in the container and ready to go. But they were still reading off names for the door prizes, so we stuck around just in case. Eventually they ran out of things to give away, and declared BrickFair 2009 officially closed. We headed out to the car, and left for home just before 6 pm.
The ride home was long, but enjoyable. The view coming into Frederick on I-270 as the sun was getting low in the sky was beautiful. We stopped at the Longhorn Steakhouse in the Prime Outlet mall in Hagerstown, for a nice quiet dinner before heading the rest of the way home.
By the time we were finished with dinner the sun had just set, and there was a nice crescent moon hanging low in the southwest. We drove through the night, discussing how well the weekend had gone, and making plans for what to do next. We made one stop for gas after getting into Ohio, and then got off the turnpike south of Toledo, just before 3 am. We got to Paul's house just before 4 am, and unloaded all his nice yellow bags full of Lego fun. Bob managed to drive the rest of the way home without falling completely asleep, arriving home just after 5 am.
This was a great trip, and we really enjoyed it. We had fun meeting lots of new people, and introducing everyone to our company and our products. We definitely plan to return next year for BrickFair 2010. As it turns out, Bob has been to the new BrickFair location before, having attended a national N Scale model railroad convention at the Dulles Expo Center in 2004. We're looking forward to seeing everyone again, and showing off the new products we have in development. We're looking forward to some good places to eat as well. Bob has already scouted out the nearest Silver Diner and Ledo Pizza locations, as well as remembering that Willards Real Pit BBQ is located in the shopping strip adjacent to the Dulles Expo Center. Can't wait for next year!
