A week and a half ago, Brickworld 2022 came back with a bang. More than 1,000 LEGO fans from all over the world descended on Chicago to show off their MOCs, catch up with friends, and celebrate the LEGO hobby. For BrickNerd, the convention almost turned into a family reunion. We had more than 15 contributors and patrons all in the same place at the same time—and for a digital publication that was quite amazing! Though as much as we enjoy chatting online and planning amazing content, nothing can beat meeting someone you respect for the first time.

To share a bit of Brickworld with you, we would focus on three areas: Food, Friends and Fun. Several of our contributors and patrons have shared their thoughts on our favorite foods eaten while at Brickworld, the people we were happy to finally meet and hang out with, and the things we had fun doing. So please enjoy this look into Brickworld from the perspective of a few BrickNerds!

Bagels & BrickNerds - Dave Schefcik

Brickworld was special for me because it was the first time I met most of the BrickNerd contributors in person! We chat daily on our Discord, but in-person discussions are so much more personal. I was really looking forward to seeing their MOCs in real life and learning everything I could from their talent.

That goes right along with my favorite meal--when we hosted our BrickNerd Bagel Brunch with all our Patrons and we really just got to relax and enjoy each other’s company. Stuart Harris from LEGO also stopped by and made us all feel appreciated in his special way.

The most fun thing I did was hanging out at the con until the early hours of the morning--Brickworld is special in that the exhibition hall never closes (and has no windows) so you can keep chatting until someone notices it is 4 am! So that's what I loved about Brickworld--the community and the people.

People & Priorities - Ted Andes

“It's people! Brickworld is made out of people…. You've gotta tell them!... Brickworld is people!”…

I may have taken some liberties with quoting the movie Soylent Green above, but it really is true. Brickworld Chicago is all about the people. It’s about finally making in-person connections with people that up until now I have only known through various online LEGO communities... And this year there were so many new people to meet! Brickworld 2022 hit a new record of 535 new attendees - out of a record 1,150 total registrants! To say that people were excited for Brickworld’s return this year is an understatement.

Don’t be fooled by the bag. The best thing on the menu is a beef sandwhich and cake shake.

This year I finally got to meet our BrickNerd-in-Chief Dave Schefcik, many of my other fellow BrickNerd contributors like Maria Straatsma (who you might remember from Season 2 of US LEGO Masters), and of course our wonderful BrickNerd patreons like Liz Puelo. I also finally got to meet old-school classic spacers Chris Giddens and Mark Sandlin, Ryan McBryde with whom I have sparred with during countless Star Wars-themed building contests, and Josh Allinger with whom I had collaborated with during the Summer Joust last year, and I hadn’t even realized he would be attending!

Dale Klein, pizza coordinator extraodinaire.

There are plenty of food traditions at Brickworld too (like going to Portillo’s or Kuma’s Corner). My favorite food tradition will always be the “pizza night” that Dale Klein hosts on Saturday after the public hours are over. Dale takes orders during the public hours on Saturday, and has it delivered to the display hall. Each person gets 2-slices of your choosing and a piece of garlic bread, all for a small contribution (he refuses to take more, I’ve tried). From what Dale told me, the tradition began when he overheard European attendees saying that they had never tried Chicago deep-dish pizza before. Well, that was something he could not abide. Dale put in a group order and brought it back to the display hall, and in that spirit of community a Brickworld tradition was born.

As for fun, my #1 activity at Brickworld is just walking the aisles of the display floor and talking with people about their displays. As a result, I always end up missing so many events and seminars during the day because I am busy just talking with people. Even when my phone alarm goes off to remind me about an event I wanted to attend, I'm usually like "meh" and I just enjoy the company of whomever I am with at the time… Bottom line. If you ever feel like you are missing out on something (FOMO) at Brickworld, there is always something else going on to make up for it, or someone interesting to talk to - so in reality, you are never missing out at all!

Chris Dunkle explaining to me how to view their autostereogram mosaic

Lights Off & LUGs - Doug Hughes

Attending BrickWorld was an amazing experience, I really enjoyed meeting many online acquaintances from BrickNerd, OrphanLUG, and from various other interactions like MOC pages or Flickr games and more. Go pizza-club! (inside reference only my allies will understand). I was also pleasantly surprised to meet up with some others who either regularly or sometimes attend my usual northwest cons.

As for food, it was great to always have the option to join OrphanLUG and eating at restaurants like Fat Rosie's with the group was a blast! I also had the opportunity to pop into Chicago and I'll give a shout-out to Duck Inn which had the most magnificent rotisserie duck. My favorite event was probably the World of Lights display because you can tell many Brickworld attendees really make an effort to create spectacular lighting for their MOCs.

Pizza & Unexpected Chats - Simon Liu

Brickworld is essentially my home convention - despite it not being my hometown, nor the convention not being in my hometown. But it's my first big boy con and everyone welcomes me with such open arms as the new kid that I've felt a deep need to pay it forward. My favorite part of Brickworld is that many people do go out of their way to make newcomers feel like old-timers. Inside jokes, activities aren't gatekept, they're actively open with banners and new folks are forced through the gates.

While maybe not the healthiest food, one of the best times is the Saturday Pizza party with Dale—a long time ago they were so busy building in the hall that they just ordered pizza and realized, why not do this more often? And invite friends! It's grown since then to be an “anyone come for $5” and have a slice of thick Chicago-style pizza and a seat with some random dinner mates.

While I know a lot of people (and want to get to know a lot of new people), I'm actually kinda shy. (Yes, you read that correctly—I'm just good at faking it.) I don't always have the nerve to meet everyone or interrupt them (so many LEGO Masters I didn't get a chance to meet, so I saw them from afar…).

So while I was just hiding behind my builds, a mother and son came up and wanted to try my puzzle. It was great to just sit down and chat with them and have them work on the puzzle. I never did figure out where their builds were, but it wasn't till AFTER the convention when I saw their Instagram story that I realized they were none other than Emily and Liam, LEGO Masters Season 3 contestants! And then I figured out they built the wonderful Link and Avatar characters. Even though I see so much of the con, I seem to always miss something!

Quilting with Friends - Megan Lum

I so enjoyed this Brickworld Chicago! It was the first in-person con for me in over two years, and it had been at least three since I had seen some of them. It was so good to see everyone again, and make some wonderful new friends! The MOCs were awesome as always. My favourite meal was almost every one that I got to share with a fellow AFOL. I have a few friends with whom I have a tradition of meeting for a meal whenever we meet at a con, so I had a few meals to catch up on this time around!

Fun was had the whole weekend, but the most memorable for me was conducting the WBI workshop, where I met some amazing women AFOLs and taught the Lowell Sphere technique. Some attendees had never built before and watching the “aha’ moment of the build come together was priceless. We had attendees build quilt squares for our collaborative build - the WBI quilt - which was so successful we will be repeating that effort at future conventions. I can’t wait!

The WBI quilt made up of 154 individual 6x6 squares. Can you find the nerdy one?

Heavy Metal & More - Markus Rollbühler

A Sunday night post-con dinner at Kuma’s

See... picking favorites at Brickworld is hard if not impossible. It is such a whirlwind of highlights, both of the social and the culinary kind, especially considering I live in the gastronomic wasteland that is Billund. For Sunday night it has become a tradition for my circle of friends to end the week at Kuma's Corner, a heavy metal-themed gourmet burger bar. Granted, having conversations over the loud music is hard if not impossible but the food more than makes up for it, and it is a wonderful combination of post-con-indulgence and eager talks about what to do next year.

When I returned to work and people asked how it had been, my standard answer was along the lines of "The best week of the past three years!". And what might sound like an exaggeration is simply the truth, when you suddenly get to see all your US-based friends again that you had only interacted with online since before the pandemic. Hosting the Cube Games together with Simon brought a whole bunch of them together for Friday night, and while as game masters we didn't get to play watching the banter almost made up for it!

Friends & Frisbee - Geneva Durand

Yes, that lamp is LEGO and built by Alysa Kirkpatrick

Brickworld Chicago is the best convention I've ever been to--also the only one (but you didn't know that). I love wandering the tables and spotting brilliant part solutions or little bits of humor hidden in large displays. Then there are the builders... a whole hall full of people who speak the LEGO language. From just a few quick sentences about a MOC to a parts-intensive conversation during a draft, it's always great to hang out with people who know what a headlight brick is.

And of course the activities! For me the Simon Games (Markus Games? LUG Games? Cube Games? whatever) have been the biggest highlight both years I've attended, so much fun even though my head is usually pounding after playing Ultimate Frisbee earlier in the day (I need to figure out how to schedule those better).

There is a Dots cube hidden in there that inspired this awesome build.

Fortunately, Portillos arrived and a nice meaty sandwich got me going again in time to participate in the last round and help InnovaLUG keep its spot as the Games' champion LUG. So I guess it's just possible that Brickworld is my favorite con because it's been my only one, but it has definitely set the bar high!

As you can see, a LEGO convention is so more than just the LEGO builds (though those are incredible too!). From the very beginning, BrickNerd has been for and about the community, and Brickworld felt like our very own “home” con. It is amazing how international friends, yummy food and LEGO fun can really bring us together as a group.

We hope to see you in-person at Brickworld 2023 or at another con around the globe. Keep an eye our for all that nerdy swag!

What was your experience like at Brickworld 2022? Let us know in the comments below!

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