LEGO Festival: Family fun in the sun
Posted by benbacardi,
As we wrote about previously, play is on the main stage at the LEGO Festival this month, with an exciting array of events and activities taking place at seven LEGOLAND resorts across the world.
My family and I were invited to visit LEGOLAND Windsor this past Sunday, and take in all that the Festival has to offer. Five play zones have been set up around the park, in addition to all the usual attractions, and we got there bright and early ready for a day filled with creativity and fun.
On entrance to the park, a booth is set up with staff members handing out LEGO Festival lanyards, each holding a sheaf of cards containing information about the Festival, each different zone, and a stamp chart to fill in as you visit them. This is where your adventure starts as you agree to make the "play pact", a special promise to keep the spirit of play alive long after you leave LEGOLAND.
From there, it's on into the park to find the first zone! The only thing missing from the Official Guide attached to the lanyard was a map of where the zones are within the park. One is available from LEGOLAND's website, but nothing was handed out on site.
The Creative Zone
On a grassy area just beyond Miniland we spotted the first zone—Creative.
Large colourful signage adorned the entrance to the zone, hung up around a scaffolding frame. Inside, it was quite quiet as the park hadn't been open long, but there were a number of building tables full of LEGO bricks, a stage set up in front of some picnic tables advertising a "Master Model Builder", and a sparse white city.
Signs at each building table directed children to create something colourful and fantastical to turn the city into one imagined by children.
The bricks were mostly pastel coloured 2x4s, with some eyes and other more organic shapes. because we were one of the first people to arrive, the city was very sparse as we added our own creations, but returning later in the day showed a better vision of the children's imagination!
At specified times throughout the day, Alec the Master Model Builder ran sessions helping you build various creative models from a selection of bricks, showing tips and tricks for better tapping into your imagination. We didn't sit for an entire session, but watched a little, as there were many other things to see and do!
The Creative Zone also included a stall selling plain minifigure head shortbread cookies with a tube of black icing for decorating with an expression of your choice.
This zone earned the children a balloon dog stamp in their Play Pact pass.
The Dance Zone
Adjacent to the Creative Zone was the Dance Zone.
Here, a larger stage was set up with large speakers and a DJ station, this time with a large space in front, and a handful of more picnic tables. The building activity here was to contribute to the large mosaic on one wall—children were given a white 6x6 plate, and a sheet of paper with a specific pattern to follow, in the style of paint-by-numbers. Numbered drawers contained 1x1 bricks of the required colours, and once complete, you could attach your finished 6x6 piece to the wall in its numbered location.
The children loved following the pattern and slotting it into place once complete! I'm not sure what that has to do with dance, but it certainly a fun activity to take part in, and returning to the area later in the day to see the mosaic more and more complete was very satisfying.
At scheduled times throughout the day, a dance party was hosted on the stage by DJ GoodVibes, a life-size minifigure! Along with their dancers, they did a great job getting the kids (and adults) up on their feet and joining in on the grass in front of the stage.
My daughter said on the way home that this was her favourite zone—both for the mosaic and the dancing. Their Play Pact passes were stamped with a star.
The Music Zone
The Music Zone was the largest, taking over the area around the lake in Heartlake City where the usual pirate show is performed. Instead, the stage on the lake has been repurposed for the Battle of the Bands, where Thunder Brickz and Beatz in Harmony battled it out for the chance to be the headline act in the show!
The show was put on couple of times throughout the day, with four large minifigure characters performing alongside backing dancers and other cast. It was a lot of fun—but I won't spoil the ending for you! You'll have to visit yourself to find out which band comes out on top.
Around the corner, children could earn their stamp at another couple of building tables, filled this time with colourful 1x1 bricks. They were each handed an 8x8 plate to design their own "backstage pass". My son spelt the word "LEGO" on his, and my daughter her own initial.
There was also a place to meet the band members, and get autograph cards signed by all four. An electric guitar stamp was added to their Play Pact pass by any of the staff members here.
The Gaming Zone
The fourth play zone was the Gaming Zone. Here, comfy bean bags were arranged around a large screen, playing a variety of content from LEGO promotions to video streamers playing LEGO Fortnite. This area was called the Odyssey Lounge, and scheduled activities took place throughout the day, with a staff member leading people through games, occasionally joined by LEGO Fortnite characters such as Adventure Peely.
There were two different build areas here. At the Sushi Brick Bar, parts filled a large table shaped like a sushi restaurant's conveyor belt, and children were encouraged to build small sushi-like creations with the available bricks. Two other tables held yellow, green, and brown parts, and many many bananas—here, you were asked to build something epic to add to the model of Nana Village.
Once the models had been built, the staff stamped the Play Pact pass with a games controller, and we headed on.
The Chillout Zone
This final zone was my personal favourite. As we walked through an archway of foliage (real, not LEOG), we were greeted by a couple of a tables full of pieces for building your own flowers, from stems to petals, and other parts often used by the LEGO Botanicals range.
The four of us each built a flower here, and they all ended up very different. There was a surprising amount of variety amongst the creations already on display on the wall! Behind the tables, a large lattice wall was covered in plastic foliage, with the visitors' flowers placed within it. The overall effect was very impressive.
Around the back of the wall was a small stage area set up for "Playtime with Hopsy", who is the bunny in the Duplo logo. Comfy beanbags surrounded the stage, as well as tubs of Duplo for the children to play with. A few times throughout the day, Hopsy came out to read a story, and interact with the audience. It was in a shady, secluded area surrounded by hedges, and was a lovely space for younger children to take some time out from a very busy day.
After building our flowers, a staff member stamped a flower onto the children's Play Pact passes, and we had visited every zone!
The Play Pact
At the end of the day, we headed back up to the entrance where we first collected the Play Pact passes, and showed the completed stamps to another staff member who gave the children a "I made a play pact!" sticker each, and directed them to press a large red button beneath a screen. The screen lit up with some LEGO animations and a large number showing how many people had completed it today—I think, at the time we got there, it was somewhere above 500.
The five zones were excellent. Each added something different to the others, and it was great to get more opportunities to build and play with LEGO around the park, which can sometimes feel no different to a regular theme park. While I missed the water part of the normal pirate show performed at Heartlake City, where performers would jump from the top of the lighthouse into the lake, the Battle of the Bands was a fun alternative, and all the children were very into it.
Of course, all other attractions were open as usual—the Festival zones are merely additive to the experience, not replacing anything that would usually be there (except the show). In fact, the Festival didn't really affect the rest of the park, beyond the boundaries of the play zones. We had an excellent time on all the rides we wanted to go on—there are some fantastic new ones since we last went, such as the Minifigure Speedway and Flight of the Sky Lion. The park didn't feel any busier than I would expect, despite the Festival, and in fact some lines may even be shorter if people are occupied in the Festival zones rather than heading for the rides.
The children—well, all of us, really!—had a blast. If a trip to one of the LEGOLAND resorts near you is something you'd thought about doing soon, why not book one of the weekends coming up, take your Play Pact, and take part in 2025's LEGO Festival? It really is a lot of fun!
This is a paid promotion in collaboration with LEGO and LEGOLAND.
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9 comments on this article
I was today years old when I learned that the Duplo rabbit was named Hopsy
No LEOG foliage? I'm glad. Sounds like a rubbish clone brand.
@WolfpackBricksStudios said:
"I was today years old when I learned that the Duplo rabbit was named Hopsy"
Like, some sort of scammy Flopsy or Mopsy?
What next, Forgottentail?
Sounds like a delightful time! Makes me wish there was a LEGOland near me!
@WolfpackBricksStudios said:
"I was today years old when I learned that the Duplo rabbit was named Hopsy"
I only learned it earlier this month when 10450 was revealed.
@Lyichir said:
" @WolfpackBricksStudios said:
"I was today years old when I learned that the Duplo rabbit was named Hopsy"
I only learned it earlier this month when 10450 was revealed."
I didn't even know Duplo animals had names at all. Then again, my kids have long left Duplo age (even Friends age), so I'm not that knowledgeable about the subject anymore.
Anyway, sounds like you had a great time with your family outing.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Chillout zone wasn't there on Saturday, unless I just couldn't find it
@Pavell said:
"Chillout zone wasn't there on Saturday, unless I just couldn't find it"
I'd be very surprised if it wasn't! It is behind some of the buildings in Heartlake City, opposite the Music Zone's build area and the photo opportunity with the band members. It's a shame you missed it!
What a wonderful review, it really captured the fun atmosphere and details of the event and zones! Definitely should be on the Legoland tourism board! Unfortunately Legoland Japan didn't partake which I'm totally gutted about, since that's the closest to me atm :'(
@benbacardi said:
" @Pavell said:
"Chillout zone wasn't there on Saturday, unless I just couldn't find it"
I'd be very surprised if it wasn't! It is behind some of the buildings in Heartlake City, opposite the Music Zone's build area and the photo opportunity with the band members. It's a shame you missed it!"
Blast it. Oh well, write that one off as bad luck