Event reports from previous TNVLC shows. |
Events
Summer Show, June 29-30, 2013
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BrickFair, AL January 17 - 20, 2013
  Charles demonstrating the Cube Solver   Matt & Lisa's campground  Caleb's Ninjago Fire Beacon In addition to the layouts and MOCs that the public gets to see and enjoy, exhibitors may partake in a variety of activities throughout the weekend. As a result, there are a lot of support and organizational roles that need to be filled and our club took on many of those responsibilities. Chris returned as Bingo Caller with Jared assisting, Lisa hosted the parts draft, Will coordinated the "Dirty Buildster" game, Matt hosted the "Dirty Brickster" exchange, Pete served as the Train & Town theme coordinator and Jennifer prepared a seminar.  Jared & Chris (seated): AKA the "Bingo Duo"  Dr. Garland starts class, or perhaps this is simply Jennifer talking LEGO... Jennifer's seminar on "Engaging the Audience" was well received and Todd would probably have her present it every year if he had his way. Everyone also enjoyed hearing from Kevin Hinkle, LEGO's North America Community Coordinator, on the specific initiatives LEGO is using this year to support the adult fan community and he also gave those in the audience a real treat by revealing for the first time in the United States the next model in the modular building series, the Palace Cinema! Nearly everyone from the club also participated in a competition or giveaway at some point and the club as a whole received an unbelievable amount of stuff. To top it all off, during closing ceremonies, Chris won the Palace Cinema model that Kevin had revealed just a few days earlier!  Alex & Will's speed build team  Kate participating in the "Dirty Buildster" contest  We also remembered to bring a town & train display. This year it spanned 22 tables covering an area 17.5' wide by 22.5' long with 275 square feet of LEGO surface area. Putting that in perspective, it takes nearly 400 standard LEGO baseplates to cover that much space and our main train loop was over 130 feet in length!  Snowing in Birmingham To manage the logistics of such a large display, Pete secured a 6'x12' trailer to transport tables and MOCs. Unfortunately, the Sunday before BrickFair, Pete fractured his right kneecap, knocking him out of the convention. After a brief period of uncertainty, the club rallied and made arrangements to get the trailer to and from Birmingham and also got Pete's display packed up.  Setting up tables. All 22 of them! Assisted by other club members who took breaks assembling their sections to help, Brian and Will spent the majority of Thursday on the tedious and time consuming task of setting up Pete's display... without Pete. Fortunately, it had been thoroughly labeled, documented and photographed the night prior to his accident. By late Friday night, the layout was complete and ready for the public to arrive at 11 on Saturday.  Photostream on the iPad, setting up a section at a time  Will (L) and Brian (R) assembling Pete's section For this show, we had 9 distinct modules provided by Jared, Charles, Caleb, Le, Jennifer, Chris, Pete & Brian, David & Tammy and Stefan from the Birmingham Club. Other members contributed trains and parts to support the layout. Scott made his controllers available and fashioned some extensions for the long main loop on short notice. Alex and Trey added some engines and cars. Alan Bernstein also displayed a couple of nice GP-40PH-2s on our layout, one of which sported New Jersey Transit Colors along with two passenger cars. Overall, it was really nice being able to collaborate with people outside of the club. Hopefully, in the future we'll be able to expand this aspect of the layout even further.  Jared  Charles  Caleb Jared presented a superb WW2 display adjacent to Charles's tribute to nostalgia, otherwise known as his monorail and 12V train display. Caleb then introduced the traditional town theme which persisted through the remainder of the layout. Caleb's module featured a brick built road and several extremely creative buildings featuring many unique and advanced building techniques.  Le  Jennifer Le and Jennifer brought their beach scene back from Southerland Station and Jennifer even won an award, or "Brickee", for having the "Most Tragically Overlooked MOC." This was a great honor as it showed her peers felt she deserved recognition for her efforts even though the subject she chose to model may not have been as flashy or popular as some of the crowd favorites.  Jennifer & her Brickee  Chris Chris made significant upgrades to his module over Christmas break, including a fantastic Hess service station. Chris is now easily covering 2 tables and somehow finds ways to keep improving things despite a crazy home/work/school schedule. He even scored an interview on Beyond the Brick where he discuses his module and BrickFair.  Pete's module: as far as the eye can see (except for Stefan's buildings back left) Chris's section lead into Pete's most ambitious module to date. In an attempt to use all of his 9V track (and then some) Pete featured the club's largest and most complex rail yard to date which spanned over 6 tables and included Matt's engine shed. Not content to provide only track, Pete also included Huntsville's Regions Center, Municipal Building and Big Spring Park. One of our Nashville friends, Jenni Joy, also provided a beautiful custom library modeled to be compatible with LEGO's modular series of buildings.  Pete & Jenni's buildings foreground, Stefan's just behind including tall tan skyscraper  Stefan adding the final touches to his module On the far side of Pete's module, Stefan presented his outstanding skyscraper module which really drew visitor's eyes in our direction as soon as they entered the convention center.  Tammy, David, Michelle & Parker Our newest members, David & Tammy, continued to demonstrate their commitment to the club in addition to their skill and speed, by covering two tables with a highly detailed recreation of Huntsville's Davidson Center located on the grounds of the Space & Rocket Center.  In every respect, the club was well received. We enjoyed positive comments from the LEGO Group, BrickFair organizers, fellow exhibitors and the visiting public. We were able to support this fantastic event in our home state not only with our creations but with our service as well. The convention was noticeably improved compared to last year with more exhibitors, over twice as many registered MOCs and record attendance. Last year, some 6600 visitors attended. This year, the 8000 mark was exceeded and there was, at times, a 20 minute wait which stretched the line of visitors all the way outside the building! As a result, Todd has already committed to hosting BrickFair, AL 2014.  Jennifer greets a visitor  David answering questions  For more photos, visit Will's Flickr account: BrickFair 2013, Le's Google+ Gallery: BrickFair 2013 and Chris's Flickr account: BrickFair 2013 Photographs courtesy of Chris Bolton, Will Ellett, Jennifer Garlen & Le Pitts |
Southerland Station Open House, December 1 & 2, 2012
    These photos are a bit limited, but Chris has an extensive collection on his Flickr account. Please check them out too.           |
NormalPalooza - November 10, 2012
  Our exhibit was very well received and the "Stay and Play" area was a definite hit. Some energetic kids (and weary parents) stayed nearly the entire day! In addition to having fun with kids and adults alike, the entire staff, from organizers to volunteers, were very gracious and appreciative of our attendance. We even received mention in some pre event advertising! With support from Jennifer, Matt, Charles, Scott and Brian, Pete, Chris & families hit the road early Saturday morning. We displayed a relatively small, but detailed, 5'x15' town & train layout sporting something of a Halloween/Monster Fighter's theme. Police were deployed en mass in a futile attempt to prevent a full scale Zombiepocalypse. In hindsight, this perhaps was not the best day to plan a jailbreak...  Next door to the layout, we also spread out two tables worth of play bricks and enjoyed watching what became a huge kid magnet over the course of the day. We experienced a steady stream of young engineers and architects seeking our approval of their creations. This was definitely one of our most interactive events ever! 
 
 with little success. 
 
 
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Huntsville Depot - July 14, 2012
The Tennessee Valley LEGO Club celebrated their 5th anniversary at the Huntsville Depot in style! If there was a theme, it was variety. In addition to the town and train layout everyone has come to associate with our club, this year also saw an explosion of MOCs including some impressive ones from the Rocket City Jr. LEGO Club, the debut of a Great Ball Contraption and a LEGO themed stop motion animation room and workshop. Special thanks as well to Stefan from the Birmingham LBR store for representing the LEGO Group all day! To compliment the impressive display, we also drew a record crowd thanks in no small part to Jennifer's hard work promoting the event. The unofficial count when we left was 545, blowing out our previous best of around 360 in 2010! The Huntsville Times was on site to cover the event. Click here for their story. Annisa Graham with examiner.com also produced a great write-up.  Pete debuts a section of downtown Huntsville  Not to be outdone, Jennifer responds with an urban explosion of her own!           A closer look at the gorgeous high rise buildings Jennifer created, with detailed interiors!   Jennifer also has some excellent photos on her Flickr account. Here's a time-lapse of the day's activities from setup to teardown. Curt also took some video of setup and teardown: If you've got any pictures of the other MOCs, Great Ball Contraption or the Stop Motion Animation workshop, please send them our way! |
Nashville LBR Store Grand Opening, April 27 - 29, 2012
   TVLTC and TennLUG were able to provide some support for the event. Carl attended Friday and on Saturday, Pete and Brian from TVLTC were on hand for the majority of the day. We also got to meet several others from Nashville. Hopefully, Carl will have TennLUG up and running again very soon. As we've come to experience this year, the Nashville staff and LEGO in general were very appreciative of our support. If you get a chance to visit, please drop by the store and let them know where you're from. |
Nashville LBR Store Opening, March 29, 2012
 After spending a month and a half on those, we were finished with 2 weeks to spare. Then, somewhat unexpectedly we received 40 retail kits as well! These ranged in size from the very small to the very large. The whole club came together again to get these assembled in record time. Installation went well and the entire staff was very appreciative of our hard work and commitment to detail. |
BrickFair, January 12 - 15, 2012
 If you're not familiar with BrickFair, it is a very well run event for both the exhibitors and the public. About 150 exhibitors were on hand displaying their MOCs which spanned all themes, though particularly well represented were town, castle, technic and Mindstorms. Initial estimates are that somewhere around 7000 public visitors attended the show and despite being in the spacious BJCC, it was packed. Exhibitors got to enjoy discounts at the Birmingham LEGO store, goodie bags, giveaways, games and seminars. In addition to seeing all the LEGOs and talking to the exhibitors, the public also got in on the giveaway action with games and door prizes. Our layout:    Some more of the show. Minifig anyone?        Also check out Chris' photos from the event at flickr |
Southerland Station Open House, December 3 - 4, 2011
The Tennessee Valley LEGO Train Club returned to Southerland Station for another enjoyable weekend this year. This event sports something of a convention atmosphere with multiple displays including traditional model railroads, vintage erector sets and a couple of rooms for LEGO creations. Like the gracious hosts they are, Mr. Metzger and the entire Southerland Station staff always make us feel like an integral part of their success and we always have a good time. This year's display was a little bittersweet as it was TVLTC's first public show since the departure of our former president and founders Jordan and Kristina. I think we rallied well though with a solid town display anchored on one end by Charles' always impressive and now famous monorail tower. The theme reflected the season of Christmas with light snow on the ground, a parade and a brief visit by a certain VIMF (Very Important MiniFig) sporting a red suit and white beard at the local airport. Special thanks to Charles, Chris, Franklin, Jennifer, Le, Samantha, Scott, Trey, the whole Southerland Station crew and everyone that stopped by to visit for making this display a success!               |
Railfest, September 3 - 5, 2011
 We were there for three days along with several other model railroad clubs displaying everything from Z to garden scale. Amid the record heat on Saturday and torrential downpours on Monday we were able to steal away some time here and there to enjoy the impressive collection of full scale locomotives on display and catch a few train rides. Our layout seemed to be well received, with comments ranging from the usual, "I had no idea LEGO made trains," to the not so common, "how much for the whole thing?" We passed on the later offer before we could find out if it was serious. The layout even made the local news, airing on Chattanooga's News Channel 12. Check it out here! Overall, Railfest was a neat experience and will hopefully serve as a good warmup for our trip to Birmingham in January for BrickFair!      More photo's at Jordan's Flickr account and Pete's Flickr account. |
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