LEGO Shows Kuwait 2023: The Grand Middle Eastern Fan Event

One of the greatest parts of being a LEGO fan is all of the wonderful events hosted around the world—events for like-minded fans to display their models and socialize with each other. This is something I am especially interested in as I really enjoy traveling and have been looking into all the different conventions worldwide that I can attend. When I heard about the offer to attend LEGO Shows Kuwait, though, my interest was really piqued because I had never heard about it before, either online or from anyone in person. You may also have the same questions I had: what is LEGO Shows? What happens there? And where in the world is Kuwait?

Well, to get the easy question out of the way, Kuwait is a small country bordering Saudi Arabia and Iraq with a coastline on the Persian Gulf. LEGO Shows is not like your standard LEGO fan event like BrickFair Virginia or Brickworld Chicago. It is primarily a 7-day media event run by ATW Events geared towards showing off everything LEGO in the Middle East, running from Oct 1st – Oct 7th, 10 am to 10 pm. The show is mostly organized by themes with each area full of fun and engaging activities for kids and parents alike. This includes brick pits for playing, augmented reality games, inflatable obstacle courses, pedal cars, a live performance, a MOC display area, and much much more.

A Tour of the Show

With all that out of the way, let me take you around the event as if we are all there now, and I’ll show you everything there was to see. Entering the show, we are met by an exotic safari of large animal models. As we pass that, we are greeted with three different areas.

To the left is a minifigure building area, which was very popular with kids and adults being able to create a figure just like you and place it on the display shelf.

Past that on the left was the Souk (an Arab marketplace) full of brick-built food and wears on display and of course, you can't forget the camel. Outside the Souk was a “sand” pit full of bricks for kids to play in.

As we move to the right, we find the first of many collaborative activities for the public to participate in. Everyone is given a sheet of instructions, a 32x32 baseplate, and access to deep containers of 2x2 bricks in every color. Once their section is made, it is added to the giant floor mosaic which was completed on the last day of the show.

Technic is where we find ourselves next, and what better to build in Technic than cars to race down a track! On top of that was a large LED screen where you could digitally design your own Technic car. And the main attraction was the pedal car track, a large inflatable race track for kids to drive around on. Had it not been for the weight restrictions on the cars I would have tried it myself because it looked like a ton of fun.

Keeping the car theme going is the second collaborative build for the public to work on. A giant model police car based on a smaller model which itself is an enlarged version of a LEGO City police car design. Everyone can build larger bricks out of 2x4 bricks, and former Legoland model designer Faren would build the car with his mighty rubber mallet! Faren is one of the many people I got to know pretty well during the show. Sadly the car was not finished in time for the end of the show. But we were very close!

faren’s normal sized Car Model

Faren Watching over his Car Model

Faren Building his Car Model

Next is a Duplo brick pit which turned into a chaos zone on multiple occasions, giant towers and large walls were some of the very communal builds that took place, and of course the craziness came from the destruction of these builds.

Let’s Get Physical

Adjacent to that is the comic zone, with a small superhero build zone and some iconic comic book covers. The main attraction here was a forced-perspective portrait of the side of a skyscraper, a tiny city street far below, and an overhead camera projected onto an LED screen. Kids could pose like their favorite hero flying through the city or just watch themselves dance on screen.

Next to both of those is City, which takes up a large footprint due to it having a small zip line for the kids to ride. Additionally, there is an actual sand pit for kids to dig in and an air cannon fire fighting game.

Moving on from there is the free build zone. It isn't really themed but was a large area for building anything and everything. It proved quite popular as all the shelves to display kids’ builds were filled entirely by the end of the show. The AFOL zone is next to this but we'll circle back to that in a little bit.

Ninjago may have been the most popular area of them all. Why? The main attraction had a giant inflatable obstacle course. Every morning, school groups would attend the show and consistently the kids would go straight to the Ninjago section. It also included a build area and inflatable dojo area to practice their Spinjitsu!

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Moving around to the left is Friends, which was another large zone depicting the Friends characters and their bedrooms. Building areas, soccer (football), a brick pit, and video games were available in just this area, each themed around a different character and their interests.

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Continuing on is Star Wars which was kind of tucked away in the back corner but still had plenty to do. A rock climbing wall, build zones, and a TIE-fighter shooting game all immersed you in a mini Star Wars world.

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Catching a Live Show

If the time is right, this is where we can see the live performance take place, called LEGO Shows Live. It is a story written by one of the event’s organizers about a thief stealing from the Brick Stars, and your favorite LEGO characters showing up just in time to help save the day. It’s a show full of music, dancing, and crowd engagement.

The Brick Stars are all in the colored overalls and are joined by Benny Bricks, the well-dressed announcer who helps tie the whole story together for those who may just be learning about LEGO for the first time. Then you have the LEGO Friends Liann, Leo, Nova, and Paisley who make their appearance with fantastic singing and lively dance routines.

After them is Jay and Nya from Ninjago who have a dance routine filled with daring stunts and poses. Master Wu makes a cameo appearance near the end and Lloyd turns out to be the thief (sorry for the spoiler), but he had good intentions. He was using the bricks he stole to build a heart for the audience. Finally, Emmet from The LEGO Movie takes the stage, the stolen bricks are returned, and the show ends with a unique and exciting dance routine to Everything Is Awesome that changes with every show.

Maybe it's because I'm a kid at heart but I really enjoyed watching the show, it was performed three times a day for the whole week—and every day I tried to see it at least once, if not more. It did an excellent job getting the children in the audience involved, and it was clearly captivating for them to watch, even if they had seen it before. Photographing the show was an enjoyable challenge. Me and Will (one of the other AFOLs) spent some time together trying to snap that perfect shot (which in my opinion, I think we got).

Games and Gear

As we pass the live show stage, we reach the game zone, which is precisely what you think, five gaming systems for kids to play LEGO video games.

just Jee being Jee

As we work our way towards the exit you find Disney on your right. Of course there are more building tables, but also face painting which was very popular with kids, adults, and many of the workers as well. Inside the inflatable igloo, we meet Jee who also used to be a model designer working on the third collaborative build. It was a large Olaf model built out of upscaled 2x4 bricks made by the public. Because this model was much smaller than the car, it was finished very quickly.

Jee working on Olaf inside the Igloo

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Across from Disney was Shadow Runner, which is an augmented-reality game where you get to race a Minifigure in real-time. It was quite a cool game to watch and was actually created by one of the show’s organizers.

In the corner was a large food court area with the last zone next to it. Build a City was a locally inspired area to build a city around large models of the Kuwait Towers. By the end of the show, the city had grown so big it expanded off the base of Kuwait Towers and sprawled across the floor.

Finally, as we exit, we must walk through a certified pop-up LEGO Store because what better way to finish attending LEGO Shows than buying your own LEGO to take home. Throughout the week, multiple shipments of new sets came in to restock the shelves as items continually sold out.

Enter the AFOL Zone

Now it's time to circle back to explore the AFOL zone and meet the incredible builders I got to spend all week with. The first person I met when I arrived was Will Galbraith, who's from Japan and had a large display of Mad Max-inspired vehicles. Shortly after meeting him, I met Gui Constantino, who's from Brazil, and he had his Technic and Mindstorms builds set up. Lastly, I met Alysa Kirkpatrick and her partner Marco, who are from Chicago, and Alysa had her large Elves model on display.

I could not have asked for a better group to spend seven days of non-stop LEGO with. The knowledge we all shared with each other from our own parts of the worldwide community was so fun to learn about. Despite the 12 hours a day at the show, we were never really bored, and if we didn't have some LEGO to build, we always found something new to talk about.

Will Galbraith setting up his models
Will Galbraith’s full display
Gui Constantino setting up his models
Gui Constantino’s full display
Marco (left) and Alysa (left) building Alysa’s model
Left side of Alysa’s model
Right side of Alysa’s model

During our time at the show, we were tasked with a few different things, primarily making sure our area was monitored for kids trying to touch and play with our models. This meant we always needed some people in the area, so to keep us occupied while sitting behind the tables, we were given four large Technic sets to build together which ended up taking us two days of off-and-on building to complete.

The Liebherr crane was quite a fun project—it ended up being much larger than expected and the rigging was only a little bit confusing. And no, this is not an advertisement for the set, but it really is a ton of fun to drive and use. We ended up building a wrecking ball to use on it which added another level of enjoyment, so instead of hooking onto stuff and lifting it, we were knocking things down.

After all the sets were complete, though, we needed more LEGO to build, so we began working on the upscaled 2x4s for the large police car model Faren was working on. We ended up going through about four large boxes of bricks before the end of the show, which greatly helped the build move along.

Our time spent behind the tables also included plenty of interactions with the public, as with any convention you attend. The most asked question by far was how much? Or is it for sale? Or even better, where can I buy? I was specifically warned that this would get asked a lot, but I was still shocked at how often I heard it. I did not mind these questions because in a way they are compliments, but they did grow quite repetitive after seven days of hearing them.

As with any convention or trip, there are not enough words to describe all the wonderful stories and events that took place, even though I wish I could share everything. I could not be more grateful to the organizers for inviting me and to the amazing LEGO fans I now get to call friends.

This show was something completely out of my comfort zone and was a very unique experience compared to fan events in the United States that I have attended. Despite being so different than other events with all the different themed areas, a live performance, and the small AFOL area, I think it achieved exactly what it intended—engaging kids and parents alike in the wonderful world of LEGO and all the creative possibilities it brings with it.

Would you attend an event similar to LEGO Shows Kuwait? Let us know in the comments!

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