It’s early November and for the 5th year running, the Chinese International Import Expo has been the place for the LEGO Group to showcase some of the new sets for next year. This is the event where the Spring Festival sets made their debut back in 2019. Now into the 5th year, the LEGO® presence at CIIE has also seen some of the flag ship sets in other themes presented – and while media coverage has not been readily accessible (Thanks to Jays brick blog and Dylan Chow for the heads up), images of some of these sets have made their debut on the LEGO Builder App.
The Piranha Plant first appeared in Super Mario Brothers, back in 1985 and has been a stalwart enemy of the franchise since that time. We have seen several of these gigantic carnivorous plants crop up in the LEGO Super Mario sets, but they have been a relatively small scale models, designed to be used in the Gamer Mode for LEGO Super Mario. This 540piece sculpture looks like it might promise to bring a little more joy to a bookshelf than previously encountered Piranha Plants. I was delighted when the LEGO Group sent a copy of this set over: it feels that while we have had an onslaught of LEGO sets aimed at adults in recent years, there has been a relative paucity of sets that might come at less than $100 AUD, not releated to flowers, Star Wars or Super Heroes while still leaving enough room on your shelves for other things. This set does both with a RRP of AUD94.99 (59.99USD). This is just shy of the $99.99AUD shelf price of your standard botanical Collection set
So, is this set worthy of your time, real estate and hard earned funds? Lets take a closer look…
The Modular buildings have, over the years, given us a mix of Dining, Retail, Residential, Professional sevices, Community Service and Entertainment venues. this year, its something a little different. After months of speculation, the annual game of ‘what will this year’s modular look like comes to an end with the reveal of the 10326 Natural History Museum. With 2014 pieces, and a foot print of 25×38 cm (32×48 studs), it has a slightly higher part count than the 4002 than 2017s Assembly Square.
As well as its size, this set breaks a 10 year tradition of the January 1st release, with the official release date moved forward to December 1st, providing AFOLs with an extra special item to put on their Christmas list. The set will cost $USD299.99/€299.99/£259.99/$AUD 449.99 /2499 CNY/121990 HUF/389.99 CAD and is available to preorder NOW! (affiliate link)
Ever since we got our first look at the Floral Bouquet, the Botanical Collection has become a go-to place for hunting down mind bending recolours, improbably geometries and parts usage that is down right unexpected (and , dare I say, somewhat neat). The latest addition,10329 Tiny Plants is no exception. Following in the footsteps of the last year’s Succulents, this collection brings us 9 plants in total, brought to us in the context of small pot plants. – Three groups of Three, each with uniting theme: Tropical plants, Carnivorous Plants and Arid Plants. So how does the building experience stack up? I was delighted when the LEGO Group provided a copy of the set for review before its release on December 1, 2023. Let’s take a look…
A few weeks ago, we revealed that, in the spirit of Australia’s penchant for Big Things, the world’s largest LEGO Shop will be opening in Australia Mall, overlooking Pitt St, Sydney, and now we have a date: the store will open its doors on November the 11th at 9:30 am. ( and eagle eyed subscribers will have noticed that I initially placed an incorrect date in the text. This has been corrected. Thanks to you all)
You’d think that someone with a track record for themes with a nostalgic call back – be it space, castle or time cruisers would be right on top of posting this sort of news. Unfortunately, I’ve had a couple of things to work through, that have occupied a chunk of my energy. That said, I was excited to see the latest Nintendo sets previewed last week. I could not help but feel that there is at least a little Fabuland Inspiration at play here. Perhaps I might consider the notion that Animal Crossing is to Fabuland what Friends is to Paradisa: There are certainly some similarities, but plenty of differences too.
January is still a few months away, but Tickets are now on sale for Brickvention 2024. The Public Expo will Take Place on January 20-21, 2024 at the heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Buildings in Melbourne.
With International borders now well and truly open, and a Melbourne Summer providing a welcome respite from the Northern Winter, there is also the chance for LEGO® Fans from around the world to attend Convention Day on January 19. This also includes admission for the duration of the public exhibition.
This year we will have over 300 exhibitors from across Australia and Around the World displaying their new and creative builds from a wide variety of themes and genres – there will be something for the entire family to enjoy. For the Die Hard Fans, there are still tickets available for the Convention Day – a day of games, workshops, talks and a chance to wander around the exhibits the day before the show opens to the public .
In recent years, we have seen more frequent use of the tile wedged between two studs on a brick or plate. And almost inevitably, the question will crop up in some online forum ‘Is this LEGAL?’ I wrote a little about this back in 2017. This topic of conversation has come up again most recently as a result of a small detail on the LEGO ICONS Concorde model, and has, I suspect, resulted in a surge of activity on that previous post.
Now, there is no LEGO Police (outside of LEGO City, LEGO Town and most recently LEGO Friends) who will come and enforce the way you have built your model: You do you. If it goes together in an aesthetically pleasing way, we won’t judge you. But it might put some of your LEGO Elements at risk…
Every year, around this time, we see an adult focussed set drawing inspiration from LEGO Super Mario: be it the Retro TV, the Mario 64 Question Mark Cube or the Mighty Bowser. These sets have drawn heavily on nostalgic aspects of the Super Mario games, to present an artefact that has certainly been a talking point in many households around the wolrd. Each of these sets has had a suitably impressive price tag attached, too (priced from 300-400AUD This year, perhaps as a sign of the times, with cost of living being what it has become in 2023, the scale has been somewhat reduced. This year’s adult focussed LEGO Super Mario set is a shelf sized model of the Pirhana Plant. With 540 pieces, the set will be released on November 6th and priced at $AUD94.99/$USD59.99 / €64.99 / £57.99.
Over recent years, the LEGO Group have been responsive to the cries of adult fans – Give us more, give us bigger – and now it has become apparent that the major problems that these large LEGO sets have give AFOLS are related to two major factors:
one is cost with the previous adult focussed Super Mario sets, we have seen prices starting at $USD199.99
another is display space. I love the look of the new Concorde, but at over 1m in length, there is no doubt that I have nowhere to reasonably build it or display it without causing major disruption to the family living spaces.
We are approaching the end of September, and around the world, people are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the annual Winter Village set. Today we can reveal that the set for 2023 is a warm and cosy alpine lodge. Over the last few years, we have gone from the fantasy of the Gingerbread house and the Elves clubhouse to the urban reality of Santa’s Visit, and the holiday main Street. This year, we are headed out of town, as we move towards the Alpine Lodge. With 1517 pieces, 5 minifigures and a brick built outhouse, the LEGO® Icons Winter Village set will be available for LEGO insiders from 1st October 2023 at www.LEGO.com/alpine-Lodge and LEGO Stores for all from 4th October 2023 priced at €99.99 / £89.99 / $99.99/ 899.0 CNY/ 169.99 AUD /129.99 CAD.
