Attendees:
David Kohrman
Larry Pieniazek
Jason Spears
Overall Picture Gallery:
Jason Spears
 No time to Dawdle
- Only 2 days to plan a show
Thursday March 13th... Morning... David Kohrman and Gina Matson
(Curious Kids' Museum's Education Manager) played email and phone tag.
Noon... David emailed the MichLTC list saying they (CKM) wanted us to display during their LEGO® CONTEST! David said that he was going to show and asked if anyone else was interested. Larry Pieniazek and Jason Spears take up the call to arms and started planning offlist.
Afternoon... Jason headed over to the CKM to talk with them about the show, how much space we can get and other show details. Gina was very excited about the MichLTC presence and Jason was more than happy to leave
the CKM with ~20 FAQ Flyers. (We later learned that these flyers went pretty quickly over the next two days and word was slowly getting out about their coming display.) After that meeting, things became a dizzy blur quickly, with layout ideas being tossed around, and baseplate and cross-state skirt pickups being hastily arranged. Larry decided that coming down Friday evening was the only way to make the 8am setup time, while David planned for a pre-dawn run into St. Joe.
 Layout Design on the Fly
- Layout plan centered around Larry's Mountain & David's Courthouse
Saturday March 15th... Morning... The crew was informed that they could have more tables than they had planned, so the track designer files were scrapped. (We went from thinking we had a 6 foot by 11 foot area to a 8 foot by 13 foot area. We got 4 eight footer tables instead of the 3 six footer mentioned on Thursday.) Also with only two hours to set up we were hustling to get everything planned and set up quickly. Vehicles were unloaded and creations were assessed for their ability to work within the space allotted.
It was decided that Larry's mountain and David's Kalamazoo City Courthouse (as the two largest creations there) would serve as focal points in the layout and everything else would be fit around them. The tables were set up in an "U" shaped layout and Larry's mountain was placed at one end, then baseplates were measured out.
We quickly decided that this town didn't need all of its road space and the track would overlap some of the road part of the baseplate. This allowed the town buildings the largest area possible, while still
having more than one train loop. In the layout plan you can see that we ended up with one dogbone loop end at each far leg of the U, while the other loop encircled the town. Larry promptly insisted that the town loop have a jog in it so he could fit in a crossover. (He won't admit it, but he seems to live for realistic operation, such as operating two trains on the same loop and frantically throwing switches to avoid actually touching the trains with flesh.)
 Small Crowds, Large Potential
- Small display, no advertising, but possibilities abound
- Future Workshops, Future Museum Shows, Future West side shows
- Bribing the Education Manager with Frog Statuette
While the LEGO CONTEST! had advertising (jumping from 12 entries 2 years ago to 50 entries this year) the MichLTC appearence was the very definition of short notice and hence we were a suprise to most people.
Announcements (over the CKM internal P.A. system) were made throughout the day and some 300+ people came down to the basement to view the layout. Most were quite impressed and interested to learn that not only did LEGO
make trains, but that regular people (well, sorta) could make such detailed and interesting creations. LEGOLAND™, the LEGO Imagination Center at Disney Village, and the Mall of America displays are frequently
brought up to discuss. "Have you been to ...." etc. Of course the usual barrage of questions followed, which were meet with the usual answers;
"Do you glue? - Absolutely not, LEGO can afford to glue things but alas we cannot afford to waste pieces that way."
"Are there instructions for these? - No, it's all up here." *Pointing at our heads*
How long did it take to build all this? - "About 15 minutes" *wicked grin* "hours, countless hours"
How many pieces are here? - 75,163 give or take 25,000." *grin*
We had a great time working with the CKM and hope to work with them again. The topics of future museum shows and building workshops were discussed. We were so delighted with the idea of west side shows, museum shows, and workshops that we even gave Gina a little frog/swamp
statuette to ensure that we would be remembered. (This was also because Gina was so captured by the frogs at the bottom of Larry's mountain waterfall that she mentioned them to just about every other person that came down to see the layout. We later learned that she was a collector of toy frogs and had quite the collection (upwards of 200) of them. We were pretty sure that this was her first LEGO frog.)
 Set up - Teardown, a Vicious cycle
- We constantly set up a new town, only to destroy it a few days later
- Exciting to see it come together, Sad to see it go
Sunday March 16th... Evening... So with another show behind us, we had to tear down yet another layout. (45 minutes, a new record!) This is always a bit of a sorrowful time. We take such time and care
to set up the layout and they are impermanent things... they are small glimpses of a different world. With each show being a unique layout we are building and destroying in a cycle that seems to never end. The ray of sunshine is that we get to go home and sleep in our own beds and that we will build again, a new plastic town, with new possibilities, and new adventures for our little ABS buddies.
|
Layout Details:
Layout Pictures:
|
