LEGO Store Utrecht opening day report
Posted by Huw,
LEGO is opening a number of stores in Europe in the run-up to Christmas and yesterday one in Utrecht opened its doors for the first time. Here's a brief report by Ryan Welles:
It has been a long lasting dream for LEGO fans of the lowlands, but the day has finally arrived that the first official brand store was opened in the city of Utrecht. Even though the official opening is planned for the beginning of November, store doors opened already this morning at 10 am CET. It is a small sized store stuffed with a wide range of products. Many of its employees have been flown over temporarily from the UK and I have been told by the staff the store is currently run by the manager from the London Leicester Square branch.
I was impressed by the more than decent amount of stock, including sets that are on backorder at LEGO.com. The window display showed the newest exclusive sets including a glued version of the Super Star Destroyer, Disney Train and the Ides Tree House. Especially the Winter Village Ginger Bread House proved to be popular.
The store was somewhat hot inside, probably due to the number of people in it. In front of a decent pick-a-brick wall there are three cash counters available. The only gift with purchase available today was a white 2x4 tile with special ‘I heart Lego Store Utrecht' printing. More special treats were promised at the official November opening.
This won’t be it for the Netherlands: a flagship store the size of the one at Leicester Square is due to open in Amsterdam at the end of November.
The next store due to open will be my local one, in Southampton. It opens on the 17th and its grand opening weekend will commence on 26th October.
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26 comments on this article
I'm really happy more and more official Lego shops grows <3
Great to see LEGO stores in new, previously unserved territories.
Interesting to see that, from the pictures, the store looks almost like an exact clone of the one here in Frankfurt. I know they are all similar, but here it's really striking. I remember last year in Liverpool, that store was very different in size, shape and interior layout.
Awesome! Gonna go there tomorrow, I live in the same city :)
It’s a nice store, bin there yesterday, looks little bit the same as the store in Oberhausen (Germany). Waiting for the Flagship store in Amsterdam:).
I was there yesterday as well, with my son. He's only three, but he loved both the journey by train from Leiden to Utrecht (and back) and he loved going to the store. It was indeed very busy, and very hot as well, but we had a good time. I allowed him to choose a set, and he made some interesting minifigs which we bought as well (lots of Halloween themed parts) and I got myself the advent calender. The 2x4 printed Utrect Store tile was a nice bonus as well.
To be honest, the Lego official Dutch RRP are pretty high compared to Amazon pricing, and that puts me off buying larger sets directly from Lego, but it's great to have an official Lego store in the Netherlands, and I'll definitely be visiting the Amsterdam store as well, once it opens.
I will be there on the official opening so I can pick up some sets I want and the free exclusive sets.
A dream come true. I will be there on sunday. Hopefully they still hand out the tiles.
Really happy that we finally have an official shop. I hope they spread to other parts of the Netherlands as well, this is a 2+ hour journey for me.
The store is right next to our office, so I've no officially included it in our lunch walk ;). Most of the personnel was English and very eager, which is always nice. A lot of models can be seen in the flesh, which is always nice. The Star Destroyer is absolutely huge and the Disney Train is positively lovely.
Set prices are much steeper than other shops in the Netherlands like PlayToday in Gouda and A-Tembo in Delft. Still, it's nice to finally have a brand store!
Unusual that the display models were glued. Usually the displays are just regularly assembled sets and only the large sculptures are glued. Huh.
I know it is not really on the topic, but today i encountered a WTH moment...
Just take a look for yourself: https://imgur.com/a/5x9EmEo
It's not the ads, but the trailer which makes me a little bit angry. It looks for a first person shooter or something. Please this is also a kids side. My son loves to look at the pictures. But this makes me worrying more... My son is only 4...
So if any admin is reading this: Please make it your personal adventure to make the ads more kid friendly.
Thanks for reading :)
Hey Lego put one in finland
So with Amsterdam coming our way all I need is Bruxelles and as I travel on Eurostar and move between London, Paris, Bruxelles and soon Amsterdam, I’ll be able to do my shopping practically anywhere. Quite happy about it. Wallet not so much, girlfriend even less lol
Does anyone know when the Birmingham (UK) store is due to open?
And they are closing (mono brand) stores here in Lithuania. Just one is operating now out of three we had recently.
@HerrKolber the Birmingham store is set to open mid November I believe but I cannot confirm that.
I don't see any children in the shop. :D
I'll pop by on Wednesday. I'm in Utrecht now, but unfortunately the store isn't open during my night shifts. :-P
@dasmurphy Interesting for two reasons.
1. those ads are based on your own searches, for me before I created an account all my ads were lego based as that was all I was searching for on my computer (mine isn't linked to other devices as yours might be)
2. to comment on this article you obviously have an account, which at the time of the screenshots you weren't logged in with. Maybe you could create an account for your child or a family one if you don't want them messing with settings ect.
Anyway hope you get things sorted out.
@Mr__Thrawn:
Usually the displays are built by the store staff, but with a Grand Opening they're usually being installed while the store manager is in the midst of hiring everyone. In this case, it sounds like the store has no actual employees at all, which makes it even tougher. I don't know how things work now, but when our lone Michigan store opened in 2010, they based their decisions on where to open new stores, in part, on whether or not there was an active LUG in the area. Part of the reason they did this is that they shipped all the Brand Ribbon models and display sets to one of our club members to distribute to our membership, which then built every model that was on display when the store first opened (when I was dropping off the models I'd built, I was actually the third person to stand inside our local store, after the Store Manager, and the guy who had a couple pallets of this stuff left in his driveway without much warning). So, as far as I know, _almost_ every model they've ever had on display was built locally. The one exception that I can remember is the new UCS MF, which I believe were all shipped to the stores pre-built. If they changed things up and started shipping all the display models pre-built instead of having a local LUG build them, it's no surprise that they're gluing them first, as that would prevent pieces from falling off in transit.
@Ryan_Welles , Thank you for the review. Most interesting!
I think you mean ‘Ideas Tree House’, not ‘Ides Tree House’.
If the staff came from the UK, presumably they could not speak Dutch. I realise that English is widely spoken in the Netherlands and to a very high standard, but does it not rankle local shoppers that sales assistants cannot speak the national language? I can see that being a problem especially for younger kids who haven’t started learning English yet.
General info for Australian Lego fans: New Lego store opened at Robina Shopping Centre, Robina in NSW.
This is along with the Dreamworld Lego store. The robina store has all the usual favourites of lego store eg. pick a brick wall minifig building station etc. they are yet to connect with the lego shop @ home VIP service however this will be done however, surprisingly, they are completely separate from the dreamworld store with rewards etc.
Current 'buy this much get this free' sets are battle of endor? (not a SW fan so dont know exact name) and the most recent lego shop (the one with George the dragon built into the shop)
I visited the store this morning, it wasn't actually that hot, but actually rather cold. So I guess they turned on the ac for today. Looking at the displays, there was no evidence that they were glued together, so I'm not sure if they actually are or not. The only downside was that the exclusive brick was apparently only available on Thursday (or until they ran out, they didn't say), which was a bit of a disappointment.
Is the utrecht plate still available?
@charles_TV: from 7 till 10 November the tile will be available again. That is what I’ve been told.
@sanderkoenen thank you for the answer, I'm lucky,my sister lives there ??