All About LEGO Trophies: The Award Goes To...

“And the award goes to...” The audience collectively holds its breath. The nominees bristle with anticipation. The announcer searches for his reading glasses…

I still vividly remember my first award. It was also my very first LEGO convention, and for better or worse, I got the taste of that thrill of the chase. So let's go a bit deeper into LEGO conventions and these awards. I'm going to use some of my elementary school education and give you the 5 W's: Who, What, Where, When and Why of LEGO trophies.

(I apologize in advance for mainly focusing on just a few conventions, but those are the ones I know best and can comment on from firsthand experience. Yes, I know it's a bad data set from a statistical point of view.)

WHERE

Let's start with WHERE. Actually, LEGO trophies are not everywhere. Awards and trophies tend to be omnipresent at North American fan conventions, but their distribution ranges drastically in Europe and other parts of the world with many conventions not giving away awards at all.

All the photos in this article were provided by BrickNerd contributors.

This may be more of a cultural difference since not all fan conventions give away awards. Sometimes the best award is showing your MOC to the public. The rest of this article will focus on trophies and awards given at LEGO conventions and not the many standard and custom awards and trophies given away for building competitions. That’s a story for another day.

WHY

So WHY are these awards given out? Well, it all depends on which conventions you go to, but official awards given out per convention range from a lot (50+ this year at BrickCon!) to a handful to none at all. But they're almost always given to MOCs and game-winners that fall within a certain category.

Each of these MOC categories changes between different conventions, but generally, they seem to fall under a generic pattern of major LEGO themes: Sci-Fi/Spaceship, Castle/Medieval, Town/Buildings, Art/Sculpture, and various types of transportation: planes, sometimes trains, and automobiles, oh my! Occasionally boats and airships are in there, too. Each convention also can have special trophies for theme usage, technical achievements, judges awards or overarching categories

But even that breakdown is somewhat subjective. Some conventions are extremely strict on their categories. For example, for you to be eligible for the 'Mecha' Award at Brickworld, your Mecha must be piloted by something—no robots! Compared to BrickCon and BrickFair, it might be something that more or less kinda fits the category, or essentially: “It's one of the best builds here, and this is the closest category we have."

I learned this the fun way at my first BrickCon where I was bestowed the Large Spaceship award, despite bringing a hangar and clearly not a Spaceship. But it was one of the larger 'spacecrafty' builds. This incidentally is why SHIPtember is hosted in the month directly preceding BrickCon as a part of me wanted to see more SHIPs at BrickCon! So after a no-show of SHIPs the year I won, the first year of SHIPtember we had 13 SHIPs… nine of which were built the month before. That said, I have brought three SHIPs since to BrickCon and haven't won it since.

So wait, you might be asking, “You mentioned 'official' awards… does that imply there are unofficial ones?” Absolutely, there is definitely a cottage industry of unofficial awards that have popped up. This can be something as simple as a small build or token of a fan's appreciation to some more organized efforts. This can take the form of LUGs choosing one or many builds they have thought were particularly great. Or in the GayFOLs case, present trophies for Visibility or Inspiration, taking into consideration not just the build quality, but the person and the build's message.

Then there's the "White Brick" being the most established (and mysterious) unofficial award that I'm aware of—and you can read more about it from our past coverage.

And finally, BrickNerd has also started our own special award called a “Nerd of Note” given by our contributors to people for a variety of reasons:

Significant contributions to the LEGO community.

Going above and beyond to showcase LEGO nerdiness.

Recognizing a deserving builder or MOC that might be neglected.

Keep an eye for some of these shiny trophies at your local convention. You never know when they might turn up!

WHAT

So I guess the next obvious point is WHAT type of trophies are there? We covered what they're for, but let's go into the three basic types of trophies that are awarded: Standard, Yearly Standard, and Custom.

Depending on the convention, there can be a single design that is used year after year after year—Brickworld and BrickFair are examples of conventions that have a standard trophy that is always the same. It’s also fun to note that the Brickworld awards are designed of 1x1 or 1x2 or 2x4 supersized bricks, which means you could technically build a MOC out of trophies... I’m still waiting for someone to do that! :D

Then there are standard trophies per year. BrickSlopes’ award has a common top of three slopes per year, but the bottom base can change yearly. BrickCan also follows this model.

Yet some of the best trophies are the Custom ones, where each trophy is a MOC in and of themselves and represent a one-off build specific to category. The amount of work that goes into creating mini-MOCs for each category is staggering, and that doesn’t even include the amount of brick that ends up donated in each creation. BrickCon, Bricks Cascade and BrickLA all feature custom trophies.

BrickCon is a great example of how there is quite the competition for not just snagging one of these unique MOC-trophies, but there's actually a trophy for Best Trophy design! Amusingly enough, the trophy for Best Trophy isn't the most exciting trophy, for if it were, it would create some sort of Trophy-ception that would take a three-hour movie to explore.

But this also means that builders who win trophies can have MOCs built by their peers as part of their collection. (Or maybe they part them out for pieces, who knows!?)

WHEN

WHEN do these awards happen? At conventions—duh!! But this brings up an interesting side bar. Despite most non-LEGO friends and acquaintances not knowing anything about conventions and the award systems out there, I do get routinely asked when I come back if I won any awards. Again, maybe this is more of a North American thing, but it just seems a pretty common question. But more seriously, when do all these award things happen?

It's always dependent on the particular convention, but a lot tend to tie in with potential prizes that go along with the award. Some conventions have an award ceremony where, like the Oscars, you're called up and are presented with the trophy and a prize (thankfully no speeches!). BrickCon and Bricks Cascade are great examples of having sweet loot that go with your trophies.

Other conventions like Brickworld and BrickFair work on the 'Christmas morning' model, where you have to wait until the next morning, and wake up extra early and see who won! You don't know if you've won (or nominated) ‘till you walk into the hall, and look to see the Trophy/Nomination sitting beside (on, or sometimes in) your build.

Whether accepting an award in front of a crowd or seeing something you built be recognized over night, there is a thrill for being recognized by your peers.

WHO

So ... WHO decides who gets the awards? You guessed it, it depends on each convention. But there are generally three approaches: Vote, Judged, or a combination of Judged Nomination and Voting.

Some conventions will have an open voting platform where all attendees can vote for any build. This usually occurs at conventions where there are very few awards or only one category like Best in Show. Other conventions will have a judging system, where one or more people are in charge of single-handedly rendering judgment on which builds get which awards. The last version is a combination of the two, where there is a judge/panel that will nominate a smaller number of builds which are then open to voting by attendees.

All the above methods work well (or don't work as well). Much like in Game of Thrones, who's on the throne matters a lot in these cases. A good monarch would have excellent results. A bad monarch or even bad public would result in bad results. Which leads us to a bonus section…

HOW

So HOW do trophies and awards ultimately impact builders? Honestly, it happens in both good and bad ways. I've had the privilege of winning several awards at different conventions, judging at several conventions, helping to try to revamp judging at a convention, and knowing the bitter jealousy of not making the cut.

Awards can be the most incredible validation of one’s talent and skill. They can be an amazing carrot to try to build your best. They can inspire you to build more. But awards can also be the most incredible source of drama when builds are shockingly snubbed (New Hashima), when a MOC goes unnoticed, or if a group potentially games the voting systems to win.

LEGO trophies are not easy to win at conventions. There are a vast number of talented builders out there, and these conventions can attract a significant amount of them. And while it might seem like it could be a popularity contest, for the most part, it really isn’t.

Really good builders tend to be popular based on past performance, but newcomers can do, and have done, very well at conventions. Case in point, this year's Brickworld—the first since the pandemic—had quite a few attendees who were LEGO Masters US contestants. There were some who brought things that were nominated and some were not. Some won awards and others did not.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter who you are, what you build, or even if it wins a trophy. It matters that you are there participating in the community… whether that is simply attending a convention or just building and showing off what you love.

(But much like politics, I always say that you really can't complain if you didn't vote. So much like elections, at your next LEGO convention if you can, go vote!)

What do you think about trophies and awards at LEGO conventions? Let us know in the comments below.

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