LEGO Fairground Collection Haunted House (10273) Review

The LEGO Fairground Collection Haunted House (10273) was released a short while ago and it was one of the more highly anticipated sets in recent months. It didn’t take long for it to get to backorder status and eventually temporarily out of stock as of this post. The set has 3,231 and retails for $249.99.

---

Box

You may have already noticed that LEGO has dropped the Creator Expert name and has replaced it with the new black boxes that are designed to reflect the more advanced nature of the creative process. These new boxes are labeled 18+ and has the sleek, minimalistic design to highlight the set.

---

Instructions

The front of the instructions gives a brief description of Manor von Barron and a statement from Carl Merriam. Also spread throughout the pages are some of the artifacts and items that are inside the Haunted House.

---

Minifigures

There are nine minifigures that are included with the Haunted House. There are two ride operators that are dressed in a black vest with blue trim with top hats.

There’s a rider that comes with a wheelchair. He has on a knitted tan sweater with blue pants. He has a double-sided head with a smile on one side and a scared expression on the other. His accessory is a printed 1×2 ticket tile.

Another rider has on a black jacket and gray pants. She wears glasses and also has a double-sided head with a smile on one side and a scared expression on the other.

The next female rider has on a lavender colored jacket and blue pants. Like the others, she has a double-sided head with the same expressions. Her hairstyle is the short bob style in blonde.

The next male rider has on a turquoise jacket with a purple shirt and blue pants. He has a worried expression and the head also shows some of the long sideburns that matches his hair.

The last female minifigure has on a Newbury High basketball jacket which is the same one as in the Newbury Haunted High School (70425). This also makes the LEGO Hidden Side theme crossover to another theme which is somewhat rare for LEGO to do.

The last two minifigures in the set are a couple of ghosts that are dressed in completely white. They do have a double-sided head with a smile on one side and a sad face on the other.

---

Build

The first bag lets you build one of the opening sides of the house. The front of the house has a small graveyard that is complete with a printed shield for a gravestone. I’m not sure if this counts as an illegal technique since it is wedged between studs. The back side of the house has a box for some digging tools.

The second bag is used to build the beginnings of the main part of the Haunted House. It connects to the other part with some hinge bricks. The back side of the house has the start of the gear system for the free-fall ride.

Next up, we have the main back part of the house where there is more of the gear mechanism for the ride. This also includes a locking feature to stop the ride.

For bag four, we build the other front side of the house which is the entrance. Like with the other side, this whole section connects to the main house using hinge bricks. On the interior, there’s a ticket counter complete with a cash register. I will say that building the outer wall gets pretty repetitive as there will be a lot more similar techniques later on.

Onwards to bag five, we finally start building up and this bag mainly focuses on the back of the house. Here we see two large wheels in the back and some smaller ones on the front. I’m not too technical with gears but I assume these are used to help alleviate the momentum of the elevator when it goes back down and slows down the gears behind it. Also on the shelf on the opposite side is the Idol of Everest which is just a skeleton head with some arms that is used as a coat rack.

Next up, we get to do some of the detailing for the inside of the Haunted House. You have a nice looking doorway area for the elevator which uses a variety of lattice pieces for the design. On the left is the Obelisk of Evil which is a printed brick. It has some hieroglyphics which is a reference to the LEGO Adventurers Sphinx Secret Surprise (5978). We also build the Organ of Catarino which sits in the area opposite of the graveyard. The keys are printed tiles and the finished product looks really good. The organ could be a reference to former LEGO Designer Tiago Catarino because the description of it says it was built in Portugal which is where Tiago is from.

As an eBay Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

For bag seven, we add more detailing to the entrance area which includes another level to the outer wall. There’s also the front doors which connect to the chandelier right above it. There is a gear that allows you to turn it and the doors open and the chandelier swings.

After that, we move back to the graveyard/organ side and build those walls up. Again, we have the same building style as with the other parts of the house. Hanging on the wall above the organ are some Heads of Anubis. These heads are in reference to Anubis from the LEGO Adventurers Oasis Ambush (5938).

We’re now halfway in to the build and for bag nine, we add more to the main part of the house, more specifically, the area around the elevator. In the front, there is the Face of Sphinx which again makes reference to the Sphinx Secret Surprise set.

There isn’t too much going on in bag ten. There is more wall building but we finally get to a roof section of the house for the back right side. Underneath it are some more artifacts which include the Orb of OGEL and the Golden Dingus. The Orb of OGEL is referencing LEGO Alpha Team Ogel Control Center (6776) while the Golden Dingus is from LEGO Adventurers Yeti’s Hideout (7412). Bewteen them is a Box of Junk.

Bag eleven is pretty boring as you build up the walls around the elevator. There is a clear window above the Face of Sphinx where you can see the elevator going up or down.

For bag twelve, there are parts for the roof section above the entrance. Behind it is the Altar of Alhazred along with the Forbidden Skeleton. The description mentions that it could be Sam Sinister, aka Samuel von Barron, or a third twin butler. This is still a mystery.

Bag thirteen lets you build another roof section along with the stained glass windows above the graveyard. Nothing too special here since it is just stacking trans-blue and orange 1×1 bricks. Behind it, is the Portrait of Samuel von Barron along with a light-up brick. When you press on the Manor von Barron tile on the outside, it lights up the portrait which also shows the Mummy’s curse. Also, the printed shield on the outside has Roman numerals VMVII is a reference to the LEGO Castle Fright Knights Bat Lord (6007).

Following that, we have the Resonator behind one of the roofs which has the Re-Gou Ruby that was used to summon the two ghosts. The rest of the parts are used to build more of the elevator wall. This is the same with bag fifteen as well. These two bags, in my opinion, are the most boring and repetitive parts of the build.

For bag sixteen, we build the last part of the elevator walls and there is also a large gear along with the chain to lift the elevator. Be warned as there are 148 individual chain piece to connect to each other which took me a good 15 minutes to put together. There is also a door that opens up once the elevator reaches the top.

For bag seventeen, there’s not much going on as you’re just mostly building the roof for the tower and some detailing on the sides of the house.

Finally for the last bag, we have the gear mechanic to lift the elevator up that goes on the backside of the house. It uses an intricate system that connects to the middle gear in the middle with the chain. The elevator itself has some belt wheels on the sides allow it to easily go up and down.

The elevator ride is able to operated automatically using the new Powered Up app. For it to work, you’ll also need the Hub (88009) and two Medium Motor (88008). The parts will be able to connect to the back of the Haunted House at the designated spots as shown on the instructions.

You’ll also need to update the Powered Up app to the latest version which shows the Haunted House as the first set. The app itself has the controls for the visuals and sound effects to further your play experience but I didn’t see an option to raise the elevator. I pretty much pressed every button but I get no controls for it. I switched over to the Batmobile option and that works fine but it’s disappointing that the actual Haunted House option didn’t have the controls.

---

Results

We rarely get haunted houses as LEGO sets so having this new LEGO Fairground Collection Haunted House (10273) is a good fill-in. If you’ve been collecting the previous Fairground sets, it’ll fit in nicely with the rest of the sets.

The main play feature actually works very well but the chain on mine sometimes does clip on to the gear so it’ll take a few turns before it goes up. One thing I don’t really like about it is the repetitiveness of some of the corners and walls. The amount of references to previous LEGO sets is somewhat unexpected but a welcome addition because the story connects to the older Adventurers sets.

---

Thank you to LEGO for sending in this set for me to review. The content above represents my own opinion and not the company. Review sets sent in does not guarantee a positive review.