LEGO 80103 Dragon Boat Race release details

April 28, 2019 | 14

The third Asian-exclusive LEGO set of 2019, 80103 Dragon Boat Race has been officially unveiled and will soon be available for purchase if you’re lucky enough to live in the Asia Pacific region.

Update: The set will available for those in the USA on 1 July on LEGO.com

The set contains 471 pieces, and a whopping 15 minifigures!

Like the first two Chinese New Year sets, the sets will be available from 1 May 2019 onwards in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South East Asian region (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam etc), South Korea as well as Australia and New Zealand.

The Australian RRP has been confirmed at AU$79.99 and it will be available from the 1st of May onwards.

UPDATE: IT’S AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE ONLINE ON THE AU/NZ Shop @ Home Store

The set commemorates the Dragon Boat Festival, a traditional Chinese holiday marked by the racing of Dragon Boats on bodies of water.

The boats are typically long row-boats, rowed by small teams and feature ornately decorated boats.

In addition to Dragon Boat Racing, the holiday (like most Chinese holidays) revolves around the making and eating of Zongzi, pyramid-shaped rice dumplings that are typically wrapped in leaves of reed, lotus or banana.

Personally, my fondest connection to this time of the year is most closely related to eating dumplings my grandmother made, and I’m really glad that like the Chinese New Year’s Eve set, a plethora of printed elements such as a rice dumpling piece is included in the set.

Tips on how to get yourself a set of 80103 Dragon Boat Race

So here’s the tricky part. Like the first two sets, the limited nature of this set is going to be make securing these sets particularly tricky, even if you’re lucky enough to live in the countries where it’ll be officially available.

In Asia, they’ll be available from LEGO Certified Stores, Legoland Malaysia, as well as selected retailers such as Toys R Us, and specialised LEGO retailers (may vary from country to country).

In Australia and New Zealand, the distribution will be similar to that of the first. Here are the list of participating retailers:

Australia: Department stores like Myer & David Jones, and independent retailers like Toyworld. They’ll also be available at the LEGO Store at Dreamworld, the Sydney LEGO Certified Store, and for us Melburnians, the Chadstone Legoland Discovery Centre Shop.

New Zealand: Toyworld, Toyco, Mighty Ape and specialty toy stores.

Do note that they’ll be available from the 1st of May onwards, and this varies depending on when stores actually receive stock.

The best tip I can give you if you’re in Australia, is to contact your local independent store like Toyworld, and ask them to hold a set for you. They’re usually pretty great with releases like these.

If you’d like to shop in the big department stores like David Jones and Myer, they previously had waitlists where you could put down your name, so that’s an option, but the policy depends from store to store.

Lastly, you might also want to keep a close eye to the social media pages of the Legoland Discovery Centre Melbourne or Bondi LEGO Store for up-to-date release details.

Good luck! These are going to be super limited (some shops only receive 1 or 2 sets), so it’s going to require quite a bit of work, but it shouldn’t be utterly impossible.

If you’re unlucky enough to be in the US, UK or Europe, you should be able to find solace in the fact that LEGO has pledged to do-away with regional exclusives, and release them 3 to 6 months after their initial release in wider fashion.

Let me know in the comments if you’ll be hunting down the Dragon Boat Race set!