LEGO San Diego Comic Con 2013 Day 1 Recap

Day 1 at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con is finally over and I haven’t been this tired in a very long time. Let me do a recap on all things LEGO related today at the Con. The biggest news there was probably the failure of the exclusive Spider-Woman minifigure giveaway. As you may have seen in my earlier post, the LEGO floor staff had to shut down the whole thing 15-20 minutes into the giveaway due to overcrowding. If you’ve been to SDCC before, once there’s any sort of overcrowding, they would be forced to shut down things like this. As a result, there are still some left over raffle tickets left over for Spider-Woman and will be given out tomorrow morning at 11:30 but this time it’s at the West Terrace. At that time, LEGO will also be giving out tickets for the Amazing Spider-Man minifigure as well. At 3:30pm, check if you have a winning ticket on LEGOraffle.com and if you do, head back to the LEGO booth to pick up your precious.

Another thing that I noticed that was a little out of control was the line for the LEGO The Hobbit Micro Scale Bag End and the LEGO Star Wars JEK-14 Mini Stealth Starfighter exclusive sets. People were lining up for the minifigure giveaway when the line was for tickets to get the two sets. This confusion led to a line that snaked a couple of times around the whole booth. There were only a limited amount of each set sold today and if you weren’t in line by the time the end of the line is at the Iron Man statue, you’re probably out of luck. I was at the Iron Man statue when I lined up and I got the very last Mini Starfighter they had tickets for and there were about 3 or 4 Bag End tickets left. The sets were $40 each and you could buy a combination of one of each or two of the same set. The LEGO CUUSOO Back to the Future DeLorean Time Machine (21103) was also available for sale but flew off shelves very quickly.

If you weren’t there to just scoop up the exclusive sets, there were plenty of other things going on at the LEGO floor. For one, there are lots of LEGO statues created by Master Builders that you can take pictures with. We already knew about the Iron Man and Superman but there were plenty of others from different themes also on the floor including the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Yoda, Laval, and two from The LEGO Movie, Emmett and Wyldstyle. There were also stations where you or the little ones can build a small 16×16 set to add to the rotating art gallery on each side of the floor area. On the walls outside the LEGO booth store are spaces where you can build anything you wish using the available blocks below.

LEGO was heavily promoting The LEGO Movie with statues of the characters, videos on the big screen, and also a hands-on demo of the game. The version that was available for you to play was on the Xbox 360. The game plays similar to other LEGO video games such as solving puzzles and breaking things to collect coins. There is also a simple mini-game that you have to match the missing piece. It’s seems to be good memory exercise for kids for their brain development. For us older people, it’s way too easy to complete.

LEGO also had both of the new LEGO Minecraft sets available for people to see, The Village (21105) and The Nether (21106). They both look interesting and will most likely be a hit for people who have bought the original Minecraft set. In the middle of the sets is a larger brick-built version of the Micromobs in the sets.

Finally, there was the reveal of the newest LEGO Star Wars set, the AT-AP or an All Terrain Attack Pod. It was listed for a January 2014 release but there have been reports that it will be a March 2014 release. We’ll have to clarify later. It will contain 717 pieces and will retail for $69.99. There are 5 minifigures included in the set: 2 Battle Droids, a Super Battle Droid, a Wookie, and what looks to be Commander Gree riding the AT-AP.

With all the madness and troubles that LEGO had today, there was also something special that happened. I was able to pick up the LEGO DeLorean Time Machine but that’s not all. I was able to get a signature of the lovely Claudia Wells, aka Jennifer Parker from the first Back to the Future movie on the set. But that wasn’t all. I was able to meet Team BTTF member and the creator of the DeLorean Time Machine on LEGO CUUSOO, Masashi Togami. We had a nice friendly chat and he was kind enough to sign my set as well. You can see the in the pictures below.

Overall, the first day of SDCC was pretty crazy and a little tiring. Things could’ve gone way better for the giveaway and for the line to purchase the exclusive sets. Let’s see what LEGO will do to alleviate the headaches for the next couple of days. I will be at Comic Con again tomorrow and will be again be updating you guys through my Twitter and Instagram accounts.