LEGO Inside Tour 2013 part 2

Last time I wrote (click here for details), Day 1 of the LEGO Inside Tour was over and I was on my way to bed. Day 2 started with a rushed breakfast as I raced to get to the hotel lobby for our 08.50 rendez-vous.

Billund was bathed in glorious sunshine, and we all declined the offer of a coach transfer so we could take a short walk in the sun to our first destination of the day, Factory Astvej, the deceptively unassuming building (above) where loose elements become LEGO sets and minifigures are assembled. The reception area at Astvej featured the fantastic 3+ meter high rendition of the LEGO logo below; a closer look revealed that this is made of minifigures, and if the receptionist is to be believed, there's one minifigure for every LEGO employee. Also on display in the reception area were number of Summer 2013 releases spanning various different themes including Friends, Galaxy Squad and Creator.

Our guides for the morning were Aksel and Jan. They split us into two groups and kitted us out with high visibility vests and wireless earpieces so that they could be heard above the noise of the factory. The area beyond the reception was strictly "no photographs", and just to ensure that nobody would be tempted to grab a few cheeky snaps, all cameras and camera phones were collected with the promise that they'd be put straight on eBay as soon as we were out of sight....

The two groups started their tours at different points along the proscribed route. My group, expertly hosted by Aksel, started out with a demonstration of how designs are printed onto LEGO elements, using an old hand-operated printing press to illustrate the process. During the demonstration my eyes were drawn to a nearby display of pristine old sets dating back to the 1970's and 1980's. We were then taken to the automated production lines where we followed the progress of loose LEGO elements from bulk crates to finished sets. Elements are carried along conveyer belts and are counted, sorted and dropped into bags; the bags are then sealed and dropped into boxes which have themselves just been formed from printed sheets of cardboard which are mechanically folded into shape and glued. Once the correct bags have been dropped into their corresponding boxes, a sensor checks that the bags are lying sufficiently flat prior to gluing the boxes shut; this is just one of a number of checks that are conducted before the finished sets are finally packed away in their shipping boxes - they're also weighed to a high level of accuracy during the process to ensure that all elements are present and correct, and pictures of individual sealed sets are taken from multiple angles, the pictures being electronically compared with pictures of a 'perfect' box. Any sigificant deviation from what's expected results in the set being rejected and later inspected by an actual person rather than a machine. Finally, shipping boxes full of pristine sets are stacked on pallets and then shrink-wrapped by a truly fearsome-looking machine which flails around the pallets at high speed wrapping the stacks of boxes in the LEGO equivalent of cling film.

Next we were taken to the minifigure assembly area. Again, minifigure assembly is an entirely automated process - minifigure torsos travel along a conveyer belt, arms are snapped on and designs are then printed on to the torsos in what is often a multi-stage process of layering one part of the design on top of another. Before any of this happens, however, a black rectangle is printed on to the front of the peg at the top of the torso where the head will eventually attach; this printed mark is detected by a sensor and acts as a double check that the torso is facing in the right direction prior to assembly and printing. The precision and speed of the operation was highly impressive, churning out huge numbers of perfect, identical minifigure torsos in the short time we were there.

LEGO branded bicycles - the next bestseller ?

Our tour of Astvej concluded, we headed back to the reception area where a waiting coach whisked us off to our next destination, Kornmarken. It's here that tonnes of ABS granulate arrive every day and are turned into the LEGO elements that we know and love. The Kornmarken facility is absolutely huge, stretching for half a kilometer from end to end. We started out with a look at the storage area; thousands of crates containing literally billions of LEGO elements are stacked to a height of up to 20 meters in astonishing LEGO cathedrals. These are serviced by fully automated robots which can apparently locate and fetch a specified crate within 2 minutes. The scale is literally staggering, and the only shame was that the system was being serviced on the day we visited so we didn't get to see it in action. We then walked a couple of hundred meters along the main corridor to a concrete-fortified bunker in the heart of the building which houses the most precious items in the building - the element moulds. These cost anything from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars each to buy depending on the complexity of the element that they produce, which explains why they're stored in a room which would likely survive the apocalypse....

Souvenirs from Kornmarken

A further short walk along the main corridor took us to a long hall full of injection moulding machines. Above our heads we could hear a swishing sound. This was coming from pipes suspended below the ceiling, and was the sound of ABS granulate being piped from the storage silos to the moulding machines. There was something really special about walking past rows and rows of these machines while they were giving birth to brand spanking new LEGO bricks and plates. Not only that, but these elements would still have been warm to the touch had we been allowed to get our eager hands on them.... Bright light yellow 1 x 2 x 5 bricks, black 2 x 6 plates, tan 2 x 4 bricks, every machine we passed was pumping out a different element in a different colour, and the temptation to plunge my arms into the crates full of brand new elements right up to my elbows was almost irresistable; for the sake of my continued participation on the Tour I'm glad I didn't succumb to the urge, however. Too soon we were back at the front entrance of the factory, boarding the coach, and on to our next destination - LEGO's Havremarken facility. Here we were once again split into two groups, with my group initially whisked off to the warehouse where parts orders placed via LEGO Customer Service are fulfilled by an efficient team of parts pickers. Bins of elements were lined up row after row; interestingly, these bins are arranged at random, with like elements and like colours kept apart from each other to reduce the chances of errors in the picking process. My group were then taken to a conference room where we were met by Mark and Jeanette from LEGO's Community and Moderation team. Over coffee and nibbles we heard about their efforts to keep the LEGO forums safe for kids, and then we participated in an exercise to see if we would make suitable moderators ourselves.

A buffet lunch followed, after which we were whisked off to LEGO's Employee Store at Klovermarken and let loose. I have to say that the 50 minutes that followed were arguably the shortest 50 minutes that I have ever experienced... The store is huge, selling an impressive variety of branded LEGO clothing and other merchandise in addition to most currently available sets, and all items are available at a considerable discount from the Danish RRP. Even though LEGO products are generally more expensive in Denmark than the UK, the available discounts were such that prices still worked out cheaper than UK prices, and cheaper still when compared with prices in Australia, to the delight of fellow attendee Kristel who was visiting from Down Under. The clearance section, which included a number of sets from retiring themes such as Alien Conquest, Cars and Harry Potter, featured particularly tempting prices.... The store was predictably plundered by the Inside Tourists who stacked up an impressive haul of items; amongst other things, I couldn't resist grabbing a bunch of Galaxy Squad sets, which up to that point had yet to appear in the UK. We'd been told prior to our shopping spree that LEGO would ship up to two large boxes of purchased sets back to our homes anywhere in the world free of charge; it's exactly that sort of thing which illiustrates just how much care and thought the organisers had put in to making the Inside Tour experience really special for attendees.

Galaxy Squad - part of my Employee Store haul....

From the Employee Store we were taken by coach to the LEGO's Innovation House where many of the LEGO designers are based. Truth be told it was a little frustrating to be marched straight into one of the meeting rooms and not to have the opportunity of taking a look around and getting a sneak peek at what the designers were working on, although given LEGO's ever-present concerns about confidentiality it wasn't exactly surprising. What was surprising was the mention of some of the Inside Tour attendees in the presentation that followed. Yun Mi from LEGO's Community Events and Engagement (CEE) Team gave a talk on the subject of AFOLs, during which she put up slides highlighting some of the activities of Huw, Tim and myself within the AFOL community; it was most unexpected to see my real name and online username up on the screen together with photographs I'd taken and posted on this very blog. It certainly left me in no doubt that the LEGO company is well aware of what the AFOL community is up to and the contributions that AFOLs make in promoting the LEGO brand worldwide.

We returned by coach to the hotel late afternoon for a couple of hours of rest and relaxation prior to reconvening for dinner at 6.30 pm in a Western-themed restaurant on the LEGOLAND site. We were once again joined for dinner by a large group of designers, after which we all walked back to a conference room at the LEGOLAND hotel for the results of the previous day's design challenge, which was judged by the designers. You won't be surprised to learn that my entry (see previous post for details) didn't win. Still, what do the judges know - they're only LEGO designers...(!) We ended up chatting to some of the designers for ages; given that designing LEGO models is their day job, they could have been forgiven for wanting to shut up shop and forget all about it at the end of the working day, but not a bit of it - their enthusiasm shone through, and some of them hung around to chat late into the early hours.

The slightly later start on Friday morning was extremely welcome after Thursday's packed itinerary and late night. We once again convened in a conference room in the LEGOLAND Hotel where were were met by Claus, events manager for LEGOLAND Billund. Claus gave us a brief history lesson on the subject of the LEGOLAND parks, including the sale of the parks to the current owners, Merlin Entertainments, and their plans for the 'Billund Resort'. We were then treated to a backstage tour of LEGOLAND Billund, the highlight of which was a visit to the model shop. It's here that Miniland models are built and maintained, and also where LEGO exhibits destined for other LEGOLAND parks and Discovery Centers around the globe are constructed by a team of model makers. Tim and I immediately dived into the drawers of elements used by the model makers, jealously coveting the rare elements in colours not available to us lesser mortals. I'd have taken some pictures, were it not for the fact that our cameras and camera phones were once again sequestered prior to entering the building. Other backstage areas we got to see included the maintenance facility where the LEGOLAND rides are serviced, and the walkways above the secret caves which form part of the Pirate Boat ride.

The youngsters then departed for the Toyota Traffic School, leaving the rest of us to enjoy an hour or two wandering around LEGOLAND. Having already spent time in the park on both the previous days I assumed I'd seen most of it; turns out that it's quite a lot bigger than I realised, and I kept discovering areas I'd not previously stumbled upon, notably Polar Land featuring the 65 km/h Polar X-plorer rollercoaster and real live penguins (I have a thing about penguins so this was a real thrill for me !). Lunch was a delicious hot buffet eaten in the castle which forms the focal point of the Knight's Kingdom area of the park, after which we made our way back to the LEGOLAND hotel for the official farewell and the end of the Inside Tour.

LEGO Senior Vice President Jesper Vilstrup wrapped things up, thanking us for coming on the tour and wishing us well. Prior to sending us on our way he had one last treat for us, however - a numbered copy of the 2013 LEGO Inside Tour set. Every year LEGO produces a set exclusively for Inside Tour attendees so we knew it was coming; most however didn't know the identity of the set as LEGO try to keep it a surprise, although a few of us had seen pictures because the instructions for the set had been accidentally leaked into the public domain a month or two back. I won't reveal what the set is as there are still two Inside Tours to go this year and I don't want to ruin the surprise for attendees; suffice to say it's very nice, and Henrik, the designer of the set, was on hand to sign the front of the box with his silver pen. After that we all said our goodbyes and it was off to the airport for the flight back to the UK. Incredibly, the experience still wasn't quite over even then as there's a LEGO store in the airport terminal to tempt folks while they're waiting for flights back home. For once I was restrained, however, and kept my wallet firmly in my pocket.....

So what's the verdict, then ? Well, there's absolutely no doubt that the LEGO Inside Tour is a wonderful experience for AFOLs and I can wholeheartedly recommended it. While the younger attendees also clearly enjoyed it, some of the childen struggled to stay engaged during the talks and presentations, and I wonder whether the lower age limit of 7 might be a little too low. People will I suppose inevitably focus on the DKK 13.000 (approx. £1,500 GBP or $2,300 USD) cost per person, and it certainly seems expensive for a 3-day trip, particularly when you need to add flights on top of that. Thing is, the cost of living is high in Denmark, and I'd wager that an appreciable proportion of the cost is eaten up by 3 nights in the LEGOLAND hotel plus meals etc.. It's also fair to say that no expense was spared by LEGO in making the Inside Tour an unforgettable experience for attendees. All things considered, therefore, the cost is high but it's justified I think.

To finish off, I'd like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere thanks to Sanne, Lene and Camilla for their superb organisation of the event and to Sanne and Lene for looking after us so well during our time in Billund. Thanks also to the LEGO employees, particularly the designers, who gave their time, energy and enthusiasm to make the Inside Tour experience so special. And finally, I wanted to say what a pleasure it was to meet, get to know and spend time with my 24 fellow Inside Tour attendees - you guys were great !


< -- Inside Tour report, part 1