Okay, Brickvention is both seriously cool and completely nerdy all at the same time.  It’s awesome that such an event exists and is so ridiculously popular; I love seeing creativity, engineering and ingenuity being celebrated and Brickvention ticks all those boxes.  Open only for two days to the public, tickets sell out well in advance (and are not available at the door) so if you or your kids are LEGO fans then don’t miss out on tickets Brickvention!

When: 16 – 17 January 2015, 9am – 5.30pm

Where:  The Royal Exhibition Building, Nicholson Street, Carlton

Cost:  Adults $15,  Children 4 to 14 $7.50, 3 & under Free.  Click here to buy tickets.

Review

When you purchase your tickets you choose an allocated time to arrive – and it is expected that you will need about 1.5 hours to view all the exhibits.  Once you are inside however you can technically stay for as long as you like.

Also the queue to get in looks pretty insane (see picture above) but people like to arrive early and tickets need to be individually scanned/checked so it takes about 15 minutes to process.  Naturally if you don’t want to wait around then arrive 15 minutes late – however if you’re more than 20-30 minutes late there might be questions asked at the door (there probably wont be, but there might be or you might have to wait till the next session).

What to expect inside – well some pretty insane LEGO constructions.  There will be prize winners on display too – entrants include school kids (very sweet to see them so proudly displaying their work) through to globetrotting LEGO experts.  As well as the displays there are a number of constructing tables set up where you can get creative with LEGO while you’re there and of course a shopping area populated with stall holders who are either collectors or specialist retailers.  (Hint: if you have any mint condition LEGO from your childhood in storage and want to sell it this is a good opportunity to find out what it’s worth and if anyone is interested in purchasing.)

We easily spent 1.5 hours exploring, revisiting favourites, getting stuck into the constructing tables and of course navigating out way through the retail stalls.  And when we got home – the LEGO came out and lots of creating took place for the last week or so of the school holidays.

The venue has a cafe set up for drinks and snacks, however if you want to head out for any reason you are able to request a pass-out.