On April 1st, LEGO Brand Stores made a major change to the Pick-A-Brick Wall. Gone are the elements that go well with certain LEGO themes. Now we have a new Pick-A-Model section that’s been added to the wall. Each quarter, there are two different models that you can create for $4.99 per model. Each model comes with their own LEGO elements that you can get from the wall. The clamshell packaging comes with a diagram that shows all the elements you need to build the model.
There are a couple of downside of the new Pick-A-Brick Wall. One thing is that you will have 12 less elements from choose from because of the space taken up by the Pick-A-Brick cups and display as well as the Pick-A-Model clamshell holders and display.
Also, the new elements are intentded for the Pick-A-Model builds so if you’re thinking of filling a whole cup full of a certain new part, think again. I’ve heard that LEGO Store employees will be strictly enforcing this policy so you can’t get a whole cup of a certain element as you could before the changes were made. You can still add the Pick-A-Model elements to a regular Pick-A-Brick cup but just don’t overdo it.
For the second quarter, the LEGO Pick-A-Models that you can choose from are two giraffes or a biplane. The giraffes contain 36 pieces and the biplane has 24 pieces. Check out the images below to see some LEGO elements you can get this quarter.
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What a horrible waste of the PAB wall! $5 for a crappy set with a poor price-per-piece that you have to pull the parts for yourself? Of course, it’s going to be even more annoying if future models have rarer/more interesting parts, because I’ll want to put them in a cup (yellow double-cheese are slightly tempting, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do other cheeses in the future). I’m guessing this their answer to people who see the PAB wall and ask “where are the instructions that tell me what to do with these parts?”
Yep…the “idiotification” of PaB….lol Why not just have two bins of random polybags…..it’s the same thing and would take up less space.
That’s what I thought, too. Just start doing polybags exclusive to the Lego store, and leave the PAB wall alone.
The new models are way overpriced, for what you get. My boys are going to be more disappointed than I am.
This had better be a joke.
A two-day late April Fool’s joke perhaps?
This is real. All the stores have them now.
No joke….32 bins lost to this crap in my local store….. I mean, filling a PaB cup is one of the main reasons for the “random visit” to the LEGO store once or twice a week (sometimes)…….no draw now….
..This wasn’t an April Fool’s joke ?
I hope it’s not the same online
What a waste an horrible way to pit employees against fans.
“Oh sorry… you’ll have to put all those elements back ’cause we can’t have you buying too many and ruining our stock ratios for the PaB wall sets…”
Hopefully people will see there is much better value in buying a cup, snapping a photo of the builds, then just tossing the pieces in the PaB cup with others you want to buy.
What a waste and horrible way to pit employees against fans.
“Oh sorry… you’ll have to put all those elements back ’cause we can’t have you buying too many and ruining our stock ratios for the PaB wall sets…”
Hopefully people will see there is much better value in buying a cup, snapping a photo of the builds, then just tossing the pieces in the PaB cup with others you want to buy.
Good luck at my Lego store, when its busy I have seen people standing on top of each other at the wall. Twenty five people, let alone the other fifty people in the tiny store. Enjoy having people permanently stationed at the wall to explain why you cant fill your cups with what you want.
I kind of understand this lame concept and it was explained here, but what if all I wanted was some 2×4 bricks that were always stocked to begin with? Or if I wanted some 2×2 gray tiles or axles, which half of the time were there. I wonder what would happen if I were to build a cylinder out of 1×4 bricks, made the inside of it hollow and dumped a few of the Pick a Model elements in, because I wanted a zillion of the eyes?
And then what would happen if say, the elements for PAM were not in stock, because my store sucks in keeping the wall filled, such as tires for the planes?
Oh brickmaster, why you got to do this?
What a stupid idea, not to mention a horrible value, $5 for a 24 or 36 piece generic model, are you freaking kidding me!?!? Man, LEGO has been making some baaaad decisions lately.
The clamshell trays seem too bulky and awkward to carry around in front of the wall while trying to fill them.
Also, are the employees really going to confront customers if the customers try to put the model pieces in a cup? I can just look at the picture of the model and put all those pieces in a cup, plus a ton more for a much better value.
That’s gonna be a, you know, a fascinating transition.
Re-reading the article…
I have never wanted to fill a cup with any one or two pieces, so I don’t really see this as a big problem, if they still let me take a small handful of anything. It depends how stingy they’re going to be.
I went to our Local LEGO Store yesterday, and had no problem filling up my cup with handfuls of the new pieces set for these miniature sets. I honestly don’t see this idea lasting too long. Just keep the PAB wall…a PAB wall.
Went into my local store today and saw the changes. I picked up a cup and filled it with a lot of the new pieces as they are pieces I have been looking for for a while in bulk. One of the guys that works there told me afterwards that those pieces are for the “new” models, blah, blah, blah. He told me to not worry about it because I didn’t know, but for the future… I told him that they need to move those items off the wall as it is very confusing to anyone looking to get a cup. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that since they are mixed in with the “regular” parts that it could be construed as false advertising for the pick a brick wall as we can not pick bricks from the wall. They need to be moved off the wall or moved to their own portion of the wall and not mixed in where ever they have room on the wall. In the future, I am not going to hunt for which bricks I am allowed to buy. If forced to, then I will order from bricklink and forgo the Lego shops unless looking for a specific set.
on the bright side of this, as long as you dont overdo it you have pieces you wouldnt normally get AND they change often
Please tell me this is not the case in the UK!!!
I’m not sure what LEGO Stores in the UK are doing.
I’m starting to think that it’s up to the employee’s discretion on filling the cups with SPAM elements. I was at my store the other day and saw a guy with a cup of mixed elements that so called you weren’t supposed to fill for PAB. He had 1/8 cups of eyes and the yellow claw thing and the employee didn’t even say anything.
Based on the comments below, I will have to test this out and see what other employees will be saying. If they are going to enforce it for SPAM only, I’ll still be sneaking in some elements just to screw the big guy over.
This SPAM (Stupid Pick a Model) took up the entire length of the wall and about 3 bins high at my store; it’s a small wall to begin with.
to be fair, the pab wall has always lost them money. if they add in something to try to even out those losses instead of simply doing away with the wall, i will put up with the slight inconvenience. especially if said inconvenience is barely more expensive than a cup of coffee.
Yes,it is quite horrid. But keep in mind the money they are losing on the Pick A Brick wall. Honestly, I’d rather have the models on the wall rather than having no wall at all. Oh, and yes they do let you get tons of the pieces for the pick a models. I decided to get A LOT of eyes among other things. 😉
The current P-a-B models (green jeep and aligator) have some great pieces. I had been pretty bored with the selection until this week. I’ve bought 5 large cups and one small cup this week alone. Nobody limited me in any way and, in fact, brought out some door elements from the back that weren’t up on the wall. I wasn’t a fan of the giraffe/airplane (or the pieces they included), but this quarter’s models are more than making up for it.