Michigan LEGO® Users Group

Attendees:

Overall Picture Directories:

Larry Pieniazek

Ken Koleda

Rick Hallman

 

Report by Larry Pieniazek

We have been participating in the Toy and Hobby Expo for some time now and this was our third appearance. This show has been going on a long time, and for the past few years has been held in the Novi Expo Center. It is primarily a toy and doll show, dealer focused, but has a significant MR dealer presence. In addition to our layout there was a large O "hirail" layout there (loosely based on a New York Central (NYC) prototype and an operating (2 foot gauge?) kiddie train.

We had planned for our Train layout to be on our own tables as well as doing a space layout and a large creations table on show supply tables.

Setup

Setup started early Saturday with team members showing up at 7 AM. Unfortunately there was some confusion about our location as the main hall was full and we needed to share a different hall with the NYC layout and the kiddie train. We staked out space, but then the hall management took a chunk of our space and curtained it off, to allow the woodworking show behind us to have bathroom access.

We started setting up tables around 8 AM and as it turned out, we had JUST enough with no overage at all, not even 1 over. Note to self, don't set up the entire long way table side then flip it, leave it divided in half, as when we flipped it there were some rather sickening noises. Due to the space crunch (from the loss of space to the bathroom access and the NYC layout) and the need to keep electrical lines only in roped off areas, we put the space layout and large creations on same set of tables and kept them within the same roped off area so that power could flow to them from the main layout without being a tripping hazard to the public. The large creations included Spencer's microfig buildings, PD's BioniWars series, and a few of Rick's Eastern Block ships, including, periodically, his big capital ship. Or chunks of his big capital ship, depending on whether it had just tipped over and broken up, which happened at least three times, all just about as he was nearly done reassembling it. Naturally, Rick was teased mercilessly about this throughout the show. We mostly adhered to our layout plan, but Steve Ringe reengineered the yard area to make it more effective.

To enable the harbor section of the layout, Steve Ringe did a drop table. This drop table was done differently than before, it uses shortened legs with adjustable screw in feet. It worked really well (as usual for anything Steve does.)

Newish member (and WamaLUG refugee) Greg Kramer contributed MOCs again, as he did for Festival of Trees. Greg's grain elevator looked good with the VLC originated Lar built covered hoppers in front. We swapped Greg's Monorail station out to make it work better and to highlight it,as it was blocked by the two tall tan towers. Steve did a new park complete with swing sets, a spinning go round, and a grill with burgers on the picnic table. Near there was a diagonal road rail crossing which we may need to do more engineering on to get it to look good, but it was good enough with just some tiles on the ties. Amy's courthouse area features some of her trees with bright green foliage, and some folks holding hands on the back side.

Show Day One: Friday

We completed setup in plenty of time for the show to open up to the public at 5pm. The crossing for the trolley looked good but the ATSF cars are now interfering with it when they cross. the wheelset axles have eroded enough to where even with tiles on the truck bottoms instead of plates, the edge of the tiles pick at the crossing. So we did not run the ATSF stuff much. Greg's UP streamliner does not have this problem. His cars are longer and look better anyway.

This show was unique in that it had the neatest drop area we've done yet. We've got to try an include more of these in the future. Ken's armory had a copter on the top, I said "the copter doesn't operate" to Ken to give him a hard time... so on Saturday Trevor had built an operating copter. BTW Trevor was a great help throughout the show, he set up a lot of areas with trees and figs.The big city side had creations by 10 different builders (Nik/Lar, Jason, Ken (all in castle land), Justin, Jim, Chris, Amy, Lester, and Steve3). That may be a new record for us...

Show Day Two: Saturday

We did have a few wrecks from kids running the train, but nothing major happened, thankfully. Thomas did a floor excursion on the inside of the layout (Sneeze guards ensured no outside excursions), he broke a coupler but that's no big deal.

Jim's Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) had a crime scene in progress, a missing painting was being removed by "helpers", but the police had been tipped off and were there to foil it. It also had sculptures in the front and "Museum" etched into the stonework.

Show Day Three: Sunday

Lester brought his DCC controller and 2 motors. I brought my 2 DCC motors as well. We did some testing/playing on a small loop in the center tables but did not DCC anything on the layout. Sunday seemed busier than Saturday but overall the show did poorly this year.

We haad a good promotional TV spot on Fox channel 2 again this year but unfortunately, it wasn't till Sunday. Since I had went last year I knew what to expect (stagehands have to carry everything due to union work rules, don't say anything loud too close to the studio door, be prepared to route wearable mike through clothing, on air personality is going to say LEGOS no matter how much you warn them, they ask the same questions every time, and so forth. I even knew where the greenroom was and where the soda machine was to get some pop. Greenroom was crowded with chorus singers. That bunch was way too perky that early in the morning if you ask me.

Teardown: Sunday Evening

We tore down in about 1.5 hours, a very good time. Not sure if it's a record but it might be a record for this large of a layout with our own tables.

Layout Details:

Event Pictures:

Town/Train

Moonbase/Space