Normally right about now, members of the Saskatchewan Lego Users Group would be signing up to build a display for the annual Brickspo show at the Western Development Museum in July, but the indefinite postponement of the event has left them with some free time for personal builds instead.
The SLUG and organizers from the WDM made the disappointing decision to postpone the fan-favourite exhibition until a possible fall date, due to concerns about the large crowd it attracts every year that would make it tough to properly follow the current social distancing rules.
“It's unfortunate, but it's the way things are right now,“ said SLUG member Adam Dodge. “We’re kind of half-hopeful [and] in the back of our minds, we’re thinking maybe it’ll happen [later this year].”
Lego builders attend Brickspo from all over Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, and even British Columbia each year, which means the show serves a dual purpose for the local club.
“As much fun as it is to take the things that we build and to be able to show them to the public and let them enjoy it, it's a bigger thing for us to just be able to get together as a group,” said Dodge. “It’s the community of builders that I think, personally, I am going to miss this summer.”
In better circumstances, the ongoing isolation would have been a perfect situation for Brickspo participants to put in some serious hours on their exhibition projects. But as it stands, members are instead using the time at home to work on their own projects — or maybe not, in some cases.
For Dodge, working from home during the pandemic has cracked open his “builder’s block,” sparking new interest the hobby.
“I was going through a bit of what we call a dark age [where he was taking some time away from building] because I didn’t have an inspiration or anything,” said Dodge. ”But being at home and being around the stuff all day. . . I've actually been building a whole lot more than I have for the past six months.”
For other members of SLUG, having more spare time is drying up the well of inspiration.
“I also know for some people the opposite is actually true, like this whole experience of having to stay at home in isolation has been a bit of a detriment and they haven’t been inspired or spent too much time building,” said Dodge.
For the most part, Dodge finds that the isolation is really just testing his creativity. Lego builders like him have usually built up an extensive collection of pieces that they use for all of their projects, which means each build comes straight from the mind of the builder — no instructions included.
Tracking down specialty pieces for those invented projects has become a bit trickier, with a number of retail dealers currently not shipping due to the pandemic, but Dodge doesn’t think the issue has slowed SLUG members down too much.
“There's a little bit more difficulty in getting things, but on the whole, I think a lot of us have a fair bit of what we need, so we're able to do at least a little bit of what we want to be,” said Dodge.
In fact, a large part of what makes Lego building fun is actually the challenge of having limited pieces, shared Dodge.
“It can be more interesting sometimes working within limitations because the bricks can only do so much,” said Dodge. “It makes you push your imagination as to where it is you could go, or what else you could use.”
Keeping in touch has also been tough for SLUG, said Dodge, as the group had to indefinitely cancel its usual monthly meetings with members. Meetings were a place to bounce ideas off each other and talk shop, and now members have to find other ways to discuss their shared interest.
An ongoing group chat is helping to bridge the gap, as is the SLUG Facebook page where they have been sharing some quarantine building challenges for people to try.
April’s challenge was recreating iconic movie posters and earlier in May, Lego enthusiasts were tasked with creating a vignette showing how they’ve spent their time in quarantine or what they will remember most about the pandemic.
For now, Dodge and the rest of SLUG are trying to stay positive that a fall version of Brickspo will be possible.
Between SLUG and the WDM, many ideas have been floating around to make sure the annual show happens in some capacity — including hosting a smaller version, or limiting the number of visitors at a time, among others.
“Of course we would like to hold it as best we can,” said Dodge. “If we have to do some sort of alternative thing where we at least get to show what we do in some sort of limited way, we'd be open to that, but it’s all going to come down to what things look like in the fall.”
For more information about the Saskatchewan Lego Users Group and its members, check out their website and follow the SLUG Facebook page for updates about ongoing build challenges.
To take a look at Moose Jaw Today's gallery of last year's Brickspo, click here.
