The 2025 Chinese International Import Expo is now underway, and we have seen several sets across a range of themes revealed. These include Chinese New Year Fireworks, as well as a Galloping Horses Canvas for the Spring Festival; the first of the 15th Anniversary Ninjago sets , the four weapons blacksmith, and a Bouquet of Tulips, the first 2026 Botanical set to be revealed. These are sets due for release in January 2026.
The public expo runs Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th January 2026 at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton (just outside the CBD of Melbourne, Australia).
“For two decades, Brickvention has brought Melbourne an explosion of colour, creativity and community,” said Brickvention spokesperson Jason Cichon. “Public Expo sessions regularly sell out, so we encourage families and fans to book early…”
There will be hundreds of original, never-before-seen builds crafted by Australian and International builders. There will also be build zones, workshops and interactive areas. Its a great chance to catch up with fellow LEGO Enthusiasts and creators. And of course, a chance to find exclusive merchandise, and hard to find sets from the vendors.
We have been taking a look at the 10366 Tropical Aquarium, coming out in mid November 2025. This is a large, expensive set, quite unlike anything that the LEGO Group has produced at this scale before. It’s not based on a renowned piece of Architecture, it doesn’t tie in with any preconceived cinematic universes, and neither does it follow up with one of the regular ICONs subthemes. It’s a 52 litre fish tank, filled with corals, plants, and fish of unrealistic provenance. However, I must admit, it looks quite neat. Impressive even.
Fish tanks often feature decorative elements within them. The Tropical Aquarium features a treasure chest, tucked away in the back corner, serving as a bubbler, along with a rock cave and shelf. However, beyond that, it is comprised of all plants, coral, and anemones.
In fact, it’s beginning to look like one of those colourful underwater layouts you often see at LEGO Conventions, with lots of hidey holes and scope for exploration and storytelling. This left me thinking about the broad range of underwater exploration themes that have cropped up over the years, and more importantly, made their way into my collection. And how they could add life to this set.
Let’s start with a quick look at some of the sets which I own (and some that I don’t), which feel as though they might serve as aquarium decorations .
The 10366 Tropical Aquarium will be released in mid November. In our previous article, we looked at the overall build experience. The set is the most expensive LEGO® Set that is not based on an external IP, such as a movie, or large piece of architecture. The final model is also quite large. I suspect this will be a model that has its ardent fans, but a lot of people will, quite rightly, be put off simply by the $AUD699.99/USD379.99/ €449.99 / £399.99 price tag.
Despite the pricing, this set is not without its merits. Today, I want to show you some of my favorite learnings from the set, which can be translated into models of your own. If you think they are interesting things, download the manual, or look up the relevant parts of construction in the LEGO BUILDER App. In my next installment, I’ll look at some other ideas for customising the model, while I intend examine the value in fourth of my review series. I am grateful that the LEGO Group sent a copy of this set over for review: all opinions and thoughts in here are my own.
The Tropical aquarium is a premium LEGO® set, which at first glance seeks to tie the neat parts usage that characterises the Botanicals range, with the less official ‘Life Size Objects’ sub-theme that we have seen in recent years across LEGO ICONS and IDEAS. This represents a landmark in LEGO Set marketing: to date, it is the most expensive set released that does not tie in with any preexisting external intellectual property. I also recognise that if you are considering whether or not you are going to spend $AUD699.99/USD379.99/ €449.99 / £399.99, you probably want to be pretty sure that this is a set for you. The set represents a significant multifactorial investment – in monetary terms, display space and the time taken to assemble. I am grateful that the LEGO Group sent a copy of this set over for review: all my opinions are my own, as much as can be possible.
In this first part of a multi-post review, I will look at the set itself, including the building experience.
In our next installment, I’ll show you some of the things that I learned from building the set. In part three, we will consider some ways you mightchoose to customise the display. In our final part, we will examine whether or not there is actual value for money in the set.
It was the mid-1980s, and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment seemed to do no wrong. On the tail of E.T. the Extra terrestrial (1982)and Gremlins (1984), in 1985 Steven Spielberg’s production company went on to present Back to the Future and The Goonies. While these are not the only films released by Amblin in that period, these four were all represented in LEGO Dimensions (released in 2015) – with various packs released over the years that the theme ran.
A couple of these films have also had sets released under the LEGO Ideas label – Last month’s LEGO Ideas Gizmo, from Gremlins, along with 2014’s Delorean Time Machine.
Today, we see the formal reveal of 21363 The Goonies. Like Gizmo, this submission was part of the ‘If we could turn back time – 1980’s’ challenge that ran on the Ideas platform in March 1984.
Based on the design by Delusionbrick, this set has 2912 pieces, and will be priced at $AUD499.99 /$USD329.99 / 299.99€ /£269.99. It includes 12 minifigures, and will be released on November 1 2025.
Great news: Tickets for the Brickvention 2026’s Convention Day are now on sale. As Australia’s AFOL networking event, we expect to see a fantastic collection of models on display. By attending the Convention Day, you are among the first to see them, to say nothing of the fun and celebrations of Brickvention’s 20th anniversary.
Let your mind drift back to the past. To a time when things were much simpler. Take yourself back to 2013. The Time Machine from Back to the Future was the fourth set to be released through the relatively new LEGO Cusoo program. With 401 pieces and two minifigures, it was the only set released through what would become ‘LEGO Ideas’ that year. The set was on the market for around 18 months. And it was gone.
Now, if you grew up in the 80s and 90s, Back to the Future is one of our cultural touch stones (even if the movie’s initial release date is now further back than the time jump that Marty McFly experienced in that first movie). The Time machine has been revisited in LEGO Dimensions as well as the more recent ICONs set – the earlier models are long discontinued, and the ICONS version takes up just a little too much space on a shelf.
If only we had some sort of time machine that would allow us to bring back a conveniently sized model at a sensible price. One that you would happily share with your kids.
Today, the LEGO Group have revealed the 77256 Speed Champions ‘Time Machine from Back to the Future.’ The set has 357 pieces and two minifigures. It will be priced at $AUD39.99/ $USD27.99/ 27.99€ / £22.99 and will be available on January 1 2026.
The latest LEGO® Icons set has been revealed, a 4154 piece model of a tropical aquarium.
If you have been observing the range adult-focused LEGO models released over the past few years, you will have noticed a number of recurring , popular subjects for realisation in LEGO models. One is the Botanical collection, debuting as a subset of ICONS in 2021, life size flower models have taken the world by storm, and (re) introduced LEGO Bricks to people who may not have picked one up for years. In parallel with this, life size real-world objects have become a trend that transcends third party IP: starting with the LEGO Ideas Typewriter, taking in a Globe of the World, Harry Potter artefacts, Disney Villain VHS cassettes, video game consoles and sports shoes.
And today we see a set revealed that combines the two: a collection of corals and anenomes that rival the Botanical collection in their crazy, colourful parts usage in the outline of a fishtank that looks to be the right size to fill up a dentist’s office.
Set 10366 has 4154 pieces and will be priced at $AUD699.99 / $USD479.99 / €449.99 / £399.99. It goes on sale on the 13th of November 2025. Let’s see what we know from the press release:
We first took a look at Lightbrick Studio’s Builder’s Journey back in 2021, and while that game has been updated a couple of times, the announcement of their latest game, LEGO Voyagers, back in June that really piqued my interest. We bought a copy of the game from the Nintendo online store, and sat down with our regular games correspondent, Harry, as we played the game through over the course of a few nights. Read on, below the break, to read his review…