Showcase

Regular readers will recall a series of posts on Gimme LEGO at the end of last year describing the design and construction of my Ghostbusters MOC; anyone wanting to check out the postings can find them here, here and here, and you can see a picture of the finished models below.

During the planning phase, I made the decision to design the MOC so that it'd fit into the Showcase cabinets that LEGO brand stores make available to members of LUGs to display their creations. This necessitated a number of design compromises, not least the need to make the Ghostbusters firehouse narrower and shorter than I otherwise would have liked, but I felt that I should still be able to come up with a design that I was reasonably happy with.

Once the build was underway, I got in touch with Gary Davis (Bricks for Brains), fellow member of the Brickish Association and Showcase coordinator for my local LEGO brand retail store. He confirmed that provided the model came out OK and met LEGO's guidelines for inclusion in the Showcase, he'd be willing to add it to the queue for installation in the store. Thankfully Gary was satisfied when I showed him pictures of the finished MOC a couple of months later, and so it was that a couple of weeks ago I carefully packed everything up and took it along to the Watford LEGO brand store where we installed it in the Showcase cabinet.

The Showcase cabinets are unfortunately not very deep, so in order to squeeze the HQ building into the available space it had to be positioned almost completely sideways on. This in turn meant that there wasn't much room left to accommodate the Ghostbusters minifigures or the ECTO-1 Cadillac, particularly once the obligatory information cards had been put into position. Even so, as you can see from the pictures above and below (click to enlarge) the final arrangement turned out OK and it was reassuring to get some positive feedback from staff and a few early morning customers as we finalised the display.

Showcase MOCs are generally only on display for a month or so before they're replaced by something else, so if you want to check out my Ghostbusters display before it's rotated out then try and get along to the Watford LEGO store by the end of February.

While I'm on the subject of Ghostbusters, most readers will probably be aware that LEGO will themselves be releasing a Ghostbusters set later this year after Brent Waller's Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary design achieved 10,000 votes on Cuusoo and subsequently got the thumbs up from the LEGO review board. Details of the set have just emerged at the New York Toy Fair - Set 21108 LEGO Ghostbusters will be available for purchase in June 2014 for US $49.99; I haven't seen details on a UK price yet. The set will include ECTO-1 and the four ghostbusters, and you can see a couple of images of the upcoming set below (click to enlarge).

While it's a shame that the set won't include a Ghostbusters HQ building or Slimer, the absence of the HQ building at least is understandable on the basis of cost. I have to admit that I wasn't a huge fan of the Cuusoo Back to the Future DeLorean, but my first impressions of the Ghostbusters set are much, much more positive. Honestly, I think ECTO-1 and the minifigures look great, and even though I already have my own versions of them, the set will still be a must-buy for me. You can read more about the upcoming set on the Cuusoo Blog.

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