Building on a playful experience

FOLLOWING its remarkable success last year, the LEGO Show has returned to the island for a second round of brick-building brilliance, at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre.

As someone who was not a particular fan growing up, prior to attending this event, I had always thought LEGO was nothing more than a bunch of multi-coloured bricks you could use to build a tiny house. This week, I was proven wrong.

Upon entering, the venue was wide and only got bigger and better as I navigated my way through the aisles.

On one side, millions of green bricks had been scattered into a colossal pile, where children would sit and assemble as much as they wished.

Blue LEGOs were compacted into a pool, with a LEGO ship in the centre for the younger kids to physically sit inside, which I found quite adorable.

On the other side of the room, made up of yellow and orange blocks to mimic sand, there was an island made up of LEGO, where children and parents gathered spending quality time as they built various objects together.

Even I had a go at building, just in the interest of this article, you understand. I sat myself down on the outskirts of the faux island and began constructing what I believed looked like a cute little apartment duplex. But from the manner in which I was getting glared at by bemused neighbouring five- and six-year-olds, maybe my attempt at architecture wasn’t as great as I imagined.

Moving on, I discovered a gold-brown enclosure featuring traditional Arabic offerings. There was a LEGO man dressed in a thobe, a life-size eagle and falcon on opposite ends of the enclosure, as well as other carefully-crafted objects capturing local culture.

Directly outside this in an Ice Age domain, I also encountered larger-than-life models sculpted entirely from small bricks such as a sabre-toothed tiger and a mammoth, both very impressive to look at.

The event didn’t stop at building things. Different challenges and obstacle courses were set up all over the arena. There was a section where children would climb ropes and cheerily jump over numerous hurdles, and an interactive race in which you are running against a virtual LEGO man on a projector in front of you.

There was even a Disney Princess division, where I found most of the parents had sat down to relax, while their children roamed off to engage either in the races, constructing mini settlements or the play area complete with a slide and softball pit.

Multiple booths have been set up to present a striking series of machines, weapons, and action figures – of course, all assembled from LEGO. Spread out vastly across a table were Star Wars lightsaber hilts among other weapons, belonging to Takamichi Irie, who had built the models himself.

On the table beside Takamichi’s intricate and colourful figurines were neatly designed sets with designated name plaques belonging to Will Galbraith, 26, who explained that these models were his own creation.

“I have been building LEGO since I was two and even today, I love it” he said. “The reason I wanted to make my own models is because although LEGO is diverse, you can’t find everything you imagine, so I started letting my mind wander. You can’t buy these creations in stores, they are totally one-of-a-kind.”

The LEGO Group is a privately held company based in Denmark and began the production of the now-renowned bricks back in 1949. Since then, games, conventions, movies, competitions and amusement parks have been developed under the brand, with themes ranging from science, dinosaurs, undersea exploration to the Wild West. Approximately 60 billion LEGO bricks are manufactured annually, while a total of 600 billion produced in recent years, figures revealed.

Coming from a technology-driven generation, this teenager found it somewhat refreshing to see children with LEGO pieces instead of iPads.

It’s won over this cynic because before my own eyes I witnessed how little plastic bricks can teach children the importance of patience, sharing and playing in the real world … and not through a screen. The fun continues until Friday.