One of my most anticipated LEGO events of the year, Brickvention returned to its home in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne this year, after a brief hiatus during the pandemic.
It just felt right that Australia’s biggest LEGO fan convention made its way back to the hallowed halls of the UNESCO World Heritage building, which has been its home for as long as I can remember.
With health restrictions easing, interstate and international borders fully open, it also felt like a proper LEGO fan event, with number of guests and exhibitors that felt massive.
This is also Brickvention’s second year as a LEGO AFOL Networking Event (ANE), of which there are only 11 in the world, thus giving Brickvention a bit more prestige. After having the opportunity to attend Skaerbaek Fan Weekend 2022, I can confidently say that we hold up pretty well on the global stage.
We also had an international guest of honour, Jan Beyer from The LEGO Group, pay a visit. Jan has the envious job of managing the ANEs globally, and it was nice to catch up again after meeting him in Denmark late last year.
With lockdowns and an explosion of interest in LEGO, it definitely seemed like LEGO builders all across Australia made the most of lockdowns, bringing some incredible displays and jaw-dropping MOCs that were among some the best I’ve seen at Brickvention.
It definitely seemed like builders all over Australia stepped things up a notch, and brought their A(NE)-Game to Brickvention, and I’m pleased to share some of my personal favourite builds and highlights from Brickvention 2023!
If you’ve been following me on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook, you may have seen some of these!
I have also uploaded the full Brickvention 2023 album on Facebook with most of the builds and displays! I couldn’t fit everything into this post (which is already massive!), but these are the ones that I really liked.
The star of the show for me was Falcon’s Crest Castle, by Dave Cameron. It was a show-stopping Black Falcons Castle, which was utterly huge, and also packed with details. Can you believe that this was made by a solo builder, and this was his first ever model that he’s built for public display? It was previously on show at BrickBuilt Sydney, but still, super impressive for someone’s first large-scale MOC! You can also check out a shorter video on Instagram.
I was also really excited to see Cerulean Straits in person, a collaborative effort from Josh, Gavin, Rod, and Handoko from SydLUG, a massive LEGO Pirates MOC, but the main highlight was the dazzling blue waters, and sheer size of the thing.
Oh, and the Giant Squid made out of LEGO T-Rex parts was also very neat.
LEGO Star Wars is having a bit of a renaissance at the moment, and this massive LEGO Star Wars Battle Front 2 Naboo Palace Hangar MOC by BensSoloLEGO stole the show with its sheer size, and awesome drum-lacquered silver Naboo Royal Starship.
Check out another video of it on my Instagram which is currently going gangbusters.
For fans of the Prequel era and Clone Wars, there was this massive Battle of Sullust MOC by Gavin Dunk. The generous helping of lava, and AT-TE on fire were especially notable.
And for Sequel fans, we had this All Terrain MegaCaliber Six (AT-M6) aka the First Order Heavy Assault Walker on display too, which towered over all neighbouring builds.
Speaking of Star Wars, Aaron Monaghan and Martin Harris’ massive minifigure-scale Moff Gideon Light Cruiser stole the show. It’s an epic build made out of over 800,000 pieces, and measures 7m long and 3 m wide!
Photos don’t do it justice, so check out my 360 video of it on TikTok!
Also liked this Prideful Stormtrooper display by Lachlan Stott.
There was also lots of love for Lord of the Rings, and this Hobbiton build by Aspen was great to see in person, capturing the serene greenery and slower pace of life in The Shire.
You can also check out a video of it I made on TikTok
Adding to the Lord of the Rings love was this amazing UCS Rivendell MOC, built by Rebecca Barter using instructions from LEGOMOCLOC. If you have about 21,000+ parts in your collection, you can re-create it using instructions from Rebrickable.
Check out my video of it on TikTok!
LEGO has not been giving DC much love, but that didn’t stop brickshelf, @brickapal00za & @teflontodd from putting this collaborative Batman’s Vacation MOC together, a delightfully massive build that imagines what happen when Batman goes on vacation.
It was just jam-packed with DC superheroes and supervillains, alongside some really massive Gotham City buildings too, and was a crowd-favourite.
More DC love with this immaculate Atlantis design, based on the Aquaman movies. It was designed by the duo behind lego.focus, Stacey and Con, and definitely stood out with the great use of lighting, and the intricate details inside and outside.
Another builder I always look forward to seeing is Anthony Wilson, and he brought a whole selection of various designs. Follow him @thesecretwalrus for more of his fantastic character work.
I also really look forward to seeing what Tamara Dadswell brings, and this year, she’s conjured up LEGO Possum Magic with this fantastic tribute to Mem Fox!
It wouldn’t be a LEGO Fan Convention without awesome space-themed displays, and this Mars Classic Space mashup worked really well with some awesomely large Classic Space original designs, and the Classic Space colour scheme contrasting nicely against the orange Martian soil.
This was Space Pirates of Phillip Island by simonspace70s was really fun and playful, with a really cool-looking Classic Space Pirate Space Ship perched atop the colourful galactic fort.
And while we’re on space, I also really liked @genslego and @snowlaina’s collection of Classic Space art mosaics!
Galaxy Squad, LEGO’s last real truly original Space theme turns 10 this year, and I couldn’t help but appreciate at this hectic display packed with alien bug goodness by Dave McWilliams.
Also loved these TMNT builds from Tom Scott!
Bricker Builds had a great showing as this is Dave Holder’s and Lewis Meeny’s home turf, with Dave’s brick-built Pokemon, and Lewis’s armoury of lightsabers looking awesome.
If you want to buy these designs or instructions, you can find them on the Bricker Builds website, and if you use my affiliate coupon code JAYSBRICKBLOG, you’ll get $5 off your purchase.
More pop culture fun with this cute Toy Story Toy Soldiers display by Steve Reynolds!
Also on display were many incredible large-scale LEGO mosaics! These were from Wade Davey and Erica Houareau (rainbow ones), Sith Stalker by Damo Fett, and BB-8 and Yoda from Gillian Abdila.
My Extra Pieces podcast co-host Richard also brought out his Chima and Fabuland habitats! The legend goes that Chima evolved from peaceful Fabuland villagers, and now that I see it like this, I can definitely see the resemblance.
I love LEGO Mechs, so it was great to see this incredible lineup of Blackly.Cat’s Gundam and Transformers, with some builds contributed by Donny Chen.
I’m a sucker for all things Ice Planet, and I’ve been following HarrisBricks’ Ice Station Icarus build for months, so I thoroughly enjoyed his take on a modernised Ice Planet theme!
Winner of LEGO Masters Australia Season 4, Joss Woodyard also displayed a large chunk of his character builds!
LEGO Masters Alumni Tim and Danii also brought their best LEGO Dungeons and Dragons, and Dragons builds, which is something I always get excited about!
It was also cool to see Monstarjdc’s amazing display of custom LEGO Brickheadz characters!
Another showstopper was Veronica Young’s life-sized LEGO wedding dress, which had some immaculately beautiful and elegant details.
Also love a good diorama with this Haunted Village from Diann Leplaw and Koren Maidla, which among other things made excellent use of lighting!
And last but not least, I really enjoyed Ben Cossy’s build, entitled In The Angel City, Can You Be Tempted by The Devil, which featured stunning use of colour and contrast to tell a story.
And that’s that for my recap of Brickvention 2023, and some of my personal highlights! I couldn’t fit all the awesome builds into this post, but do check out my Facebook Album for more photos from this epic event.
Special thanks to the Brickvention team for hosting me, and to everyone that said hi! It was such an awesome feeling to be able to meet in person, and chat over LEGO.
The organisers did an incredible job running this year’s event, and it was filled with great activities, vendors, and most of all, just felt so well-oiled and magical.
To relive past Brickventions, check out my writeups and photo galleries from each year, going back to 2014!
- Brickvention 2014
- Brickvention 2015
- Brickvention 2016
- Brickvention 2017
- Brickvention 2018
- Brickvention 2019
- Brickvention 2020
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Hi Jay, awesome Brickvention coverage. I’ve tried to use the Bricker Builds coupon but it did not seem to work.