5th annual ORTCo. awards

Looks like Star Wars is off to a strong start! Personally, I think Ninjago was exceptionally good this year, but sometimes you just can't beat Star Wars. . . :)

Odd voting structure having the top rated product from the top 8 rated themes competing with 2 wildcard products. Why don't they just compete against each other for the product of the year?

Oh man, I have to choose between Ninjago, Bionicle, and Elves? Tricky! Elves is easily the best new theme in my book, but Ninjago has had a strong showing, with some of the best individual products of the year in my book. And the Bionicle reboot has also really done a great job bringing together the best features of the classic sets with a brand-new look. I ended up selecting Ninjago for the overall win, but I might very easily regret that decision later. If it were just a choice between NEW themes it might be so much easier!

I'd rather have voting restricted to a team of "experts". I imagine that this is more likely to choose the most popular property rather than the best or most innovative one.

I chose Bionicle.

Also, I took a look at the Product of the Year... I think there are some people just clicking the last choice of every category, and the Pirates category was missing the best set from there: 40158 Chess Set. But this is still a fun thing to do. Can't wait to see what comes out on top...

(Temple of Airjitzu, Double-Decker Couch, Ideas Doctor Who, and Detective's Office all have really strong leads.)

Looking back, it was a pretty strong year for LEGO! The good products just keep coming...

Lot of good contenders for best/favorite product and best theme.

While Ninjago, Friends and Star Wars did very well, I think Ultra Agents wins the round by a bit with strong, interesting, characteristic and consistent builds with nice features, pieces and minifigs. Their flagship for each wave (Ultracopter and ultraboat) seemed to have very good feedback, and I think they deserve it! It got even better than their 2014 waves.

Best set? Temple of Airjitzu. While expensive, it's just so beautiful and original

Star Wars all the way for me,biased as I may be, it's the most POPULAR licenced lego theme to date but if I wasn't a MASSIVE Star Wars fan I'd go with creator due to it's amazing interpretations of real life landmarks in lego form and I'd go for ninjago for the most innovative theme around.

I am biased toward Star Wars, Architecture and Creator. However, Wall-E and The Doctor 'forced' me to choose Ideas this year ! So many wonderful themes, it will be interesting to see the winner !

@Bricklunch for the first 3 years the top product from each category went to the final product voting round. This resulted in a bloated final round of around 25 products which would seriously ask someone to consider a DUPLO or single Mixel release vs. top shelf or D2C lines.

This best of the best style was trialed last year with some success. It's not perfect, but it's a little more realistic.

City set had some great sets this year. City Square with the tram, the snowplow with salt spread is just too much fun.

Ninjago has maintained a great plot and amazing sets throughout all its seasons and still does so

I CHOOSE NINJAGO

I looked at the winners of last years and saw that only exclusive sets have won. they schould do a separate list for best playset. and mabey split star wars up in different catogories. there are so much good sets to choose from.

Would be interesting to have sets compete in price tier categories. Then you have a best D2C/Expert level set category, and also have small and mid-size set categories. That way a quality set like the Elves Treetop Hideaway or the Ninjago Sensei Wu Dragon could get recognized as well.