Thousands Of Lego Addicts Find Fix At Cheyenne Convention

CHEYENNE — Meg and James Simpson drove four hours from Lander to Wyoming’s capital city Saturday to play with Legos. It was a rare opportunity for some mother-son bonding over a shared passion for the plastic building bricks.

That Meg is 65 years old and uses a walker to get around and James is 40 was irrelevant to the thousands of people who packed the Cheyenne Ice and Events Center over the weekend for the Lego Brick Convention.

Meg got hooked on Legos about three years ago when James gave her an advanced grand piano kit.

“It was really hard to do, but it was so cool that I could put that together,” she said. “And it would play music and the keys would move. I was hooked after that.”

Now, mother and son each have dedicated Lego rooms in their homes with Meg playing catch-up with James. She laughs out loud at the juxtaposition of her buying Legos for her son when he was young, and now for herself.

“Yup, I got her hooked, which means she has less money now,” said James as both were in line at the convention’s swag booth packed with commemorative T-shirts and tiny — but pricey — Lego figurines.

Meg said now she understands why kids and adults love Legos so much.

“I like interactive things that have stuff that move, but I like the movie house Legos too, like ‘Hocus Pocus,’ ‘Home Alone’ and I just got hooked on ‘Harry Potter,’” she said.

Despite their shared love for Legos, both left the convention without buying anything.

“That’s because everything we saw, I already have it,” Meg said.

Round 1

Getting into each session of the Lego Brick Convention seemed like trying to buy Taylor Swift tickets at the gate.

A long line stretched outside and around the Ice and Events Center, but it moved quickly. Then after standing in line to get in, the Legomaniacs had another line waiting for them, eliciting flashbacks to those hurry-up-and-wait attractions at Disneyland.

This new line was for all the Lego Brick Convention merchandise.

That’s where Starla and Wayne Sexton were with an excited and eager 7-year-old grandson, Whitt.

Whitt had been looking forward to the Lego convention with nearly as much excitement as Christmas, Starla said.

“We watch this thing on TV with him all the time, ‘Brick Master,’” she said, referring to the reality show “LEGO Masters,” that features teams of people building elaborate things out of Legos.

Whitt’s not at that level yet, but said he’d like to be.

“I like to make cars and, like, robots,” he said. “At my mom’s, I have a big bucket of Legos.”

While adults like James are serious collectors and have been for years, 10-year-old Javi Dull is an aspiring one.

He couldn’t get past the first booth without leaning in close to examine each of the hundreds of tiny Lego people lined up.

“Don’t Touch” signs lined the front of the booth, and for good reason. Some of the more rare and desired figures sell for hundreds of dollars.

Dull was particularly interested in a rare Lego Boba Fett, the bounty hunter from the “Star Wars” franchise.

But at $120, it was a little out of the price range.

Round 2

Inside, the convention lays out like someone crossed an amusement park with a museum. It’s all cool, but there’s a lot you can’t touch.

Like the intricate displays of entire Lego cities. One that attracted the largest crowd was a recreation of Mos Eisley, the rough-and-tumble spaceport city on the planet Tatooine from the “Book of Boba Fett” Disney series.

The force of “Star Wars” is strong at these Lego conventions, which attract crossover collectors.

“I’m into ‘Star Wars’ and the wife is more into the city sets,” said Jacob Renard, adding that he loves to work with his hands, which makes Legos a perfect hobby.

“I’m a heavy-duty diesel mechanic, so I do wrenching for my career,” he said. “But then it’s kind of fun with the Legos, putting things together and taking them apart.”

Renard and his wife, Toni Cline, said creating with Legos is something they both love and can do together. They spent more than two years building their own elaborate Halloween city with all of Toni’s Legos.

“It’s a whole bunch of different city sets we turned into a whole town,” Jacob said.

To add more Halloween to the display, they used big orange wheels from some sets to make pumpkins.

Round 3

The Lego convention isn’t just for serious collectors willing to spend serious money — like the $750 price tag on a chrome Darth Vader. There are plenty of affordable ways to get into building with the bricks.

One booth called Build-A-Fig was packed with kids and adults digging through large plastic bins filled with tiny parts.

For $5, you can choose your own hat or hair, head, torso and lower body to make a unique Lego character. Many spent quite a bit of time trying to make tiny versions of themselves.

The most inexpensive table at the convention offered pieces for $1 each. And that’s exactly what they are — pieces.

Just about every teeny Lego piece imaginable is presented like they’re nuts and bolts in a hardware store. Missing the brown hair from a figure with a curl in the front? Yup, you can find a replacement. Want a different color of cape for your superhero? That too.

That’s where 9-year-old Grayson McKee was Saturday, carefully picking through the hundreds of options while mom Amy Scharaswak watched.

“Every little piece we’ve probably stepped on or vacuumed up is right here,” she said. “I have three boys and so, finding little fun pieces is way cooler than the big sets.

“This is like a 9-year-old’s dream for shopping. If they have fun for an hour, that’s great.”

That doesn’t mean everybody was bargain hunting. High-end booths with names like Bricktoria’s Secret and Topher’s Brick Emporium were three to four people deep after the big sets that sell for hundreds of dollars.

Then there are the independent vendors who make their own Legos, like Big Kid Brix.

Using generic Lego figurine bodies, Big Kid uses 3D printers to make accessories and create characters that appeal to collectors. Especially popular are those from the ‘Star Wars’ franchise not made by Lego.

They caught the eye of Chris Magee.

“I know a lot about Lego ‘Star Wars,’ that’s for sure,” he said. “I grew up with ‘Star Wars’ since I was about 4. Yeah, I’m a little collector.”

He said he also grew up building things with Legos, and that building and collecting are totally different hobbies. Events like the Cheyenne Lego Brick Convention scratch that itch for both.

Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.