Guest Blog Post: Bricks in Florence Festival

On 10th - 11th November, ToscanaBricks held its main event in Florence, at the Obihall - Theather in Florence. Bricks in Florence Festival, BiFF for its friends, is our biggest and most important event: this was the second edition and we are already working on the next years! The aim of BiFF, is to give exhibitors a wonderful experience together with many friends and AFOLs, under the banner of our common passion for the LEGO world. All the meetings we had starting from this summer were focused on organizing BiFF.

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We had so many themes and MOCs: a city diorama, a huge castle diorama (from CLV), Pirates, Super Heroes, Classic Space, Monster, Technic, Trains, LOTR, Jurassic Park... and many more! We had the pleasure to host two LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery participants and their MOCs, Melanie and Cristiano. I don't want to mention some MOCs instead of others so please, have a look at the gallery on Flickr! Near our desk we had two showcases dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the brick, with vintage iconic sets, and to the 40th anniversary of the LEGO minifigure, with rare and precious minifigures.

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We had also three photo galleries on display. The first one was in memory of our friend Luca, who left us at the end of summer, with pictures taken by himself of his MOCs. The second, by a local group of photography enthusiasts, and the third, by Domenico, were LEGO-Photography themed. Finally we had LEGO MINDSTORMS demonstrations held by Terza Cultura, a local group of science enthusiasts who organize robotics summer camps for children.

For the first ever time we chose to have a pre-opening on Friday evening, for a small number of visitors, while the set-up was still going. We wanted to answer to the question we heard so many times: "...how do you build all this?". The visitors who participated were really happy, even if not everything was ready, and they were able to talk with exhibitors with no hurry.

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We held a couple of activities. Our exhibitors could join in the Parts Festival sessions (held by Tim, New Elementary, with some help from Francesco) and in the workshop "Introduction to Brickset" (held by Huw), both in the lounge area reserved for exhibitors and some guests. Huw also gave a special prize to his favorite MOC. Exhibitors from abroad enjoyed a free guided tour in the city center on Saturday.

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There were many activities for the public to participate in:

Brickz! - Online quiz prior to the event

The hunt for 5 Golden Bricks hidden in the dioramas on display to win a special brick

Construction of the large mosaic, featuring iconic minifigures from the past decades

The construction of the NINJAGO City set

Play area with loose bricks

Fairy Brick charity tombola, held by Kev and Leanne with some help from us to get donations for local hospitals

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Some lucky visitors, whose birthday happened during BiFF, received a special gift from us to celebrate their birthday.

We also organized the "Galleria per Giovani Costruttori" (Young Builders' Gallery): the young registered visitors (35 for each day) were able to exhibit their MOCs.

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