The SteinCHenwelt 2019 took place in Arbon on the first October weekend, for the first time as an independent exhibition. For me this year’s SteinCHenwelt had a threefold meaning:
- For the first time I am exhibiting at the largest Swiss Lego exhibition, before I only took part in two small exhibitions, the Klötzchenwelt and the Chilbi Wiesendangen.
- My daughter Rebecca is also exhibiting together with other children, a Lego Friends facility.
- I had agreed to help behind the scenes and helped organize the ticketing / POS system.
At this point and because it is the ClassicSpace page, it is about point 1, the other stories I tell somewhere else.
The ComicCon 2019 in Stuttgart was something like a test run for the SteinCHenwelt exhibition and therefore the step was not too big. But I wanted to adapt something. The first thing I wanted to do was to give the system a little more fire, i.e. I wanted to have “fire” from the engines of flying & launching spaceships. Therefore I looked around on Bricklink and then bought some “flames”, e.g. these and these … And then I find something to experiment with to see how it looks, if it works. The result looked good and provided the flame effect was booked.
Some effects can be seen on this photo quite well:
In addition, I made some selfmade things, but rather small things to fill in some gaps, in the end I had to fill 3x3m. This also includes an X-Wing, which is quite successful.
To the set-up itself, I have adapted the layout compared to the ComicCon 2019 and tried to implement a different logic, in which e.g. the stations are more in the middle. And I tried to understand where people come from and from which side you look at the base. I’ve been through quite a few variations until the end the following construction was the final one:
In the end, the idea was to move most of the craterplates to the “back” part, i.e. to the top left of the picture so as not to obstruct the view through stations or the spaceport.
I then had an opportunity to do a test setup at home, where there were still some changes:
A few days before the exhibition, I packed everything and waited for the set-up day on 4.10. I had also devised a certain packing strategy in order to be a little faster with the assembly and dismantling, at the ComicCon it took quite a long time. The strategy consisted mainly of grouping the individual pieces according to a certain sequence and packing them into boxes. The sequence is basically as follows: you start with the empty base plates, then the stations, the spaceport and the ground vehicle supply station follow, then the larger spaceships, then the smaller ….
What turned out to be the main problem with the construction was the size of the system, it was not possible to build something in the middle of a area of 3x3m without large contortions and crawling on the table.
All in all, I finished well in the end and the plant stood quite quickly.
During the exhibition there was a lot going on (only for a short time, the exhibition was a huge success for the club), here are some pictures:
Overall, I was actually quite satisfied, but there is potential for improvement:
- Size – I think the set-up was a bit too big and lost, I would make the next one a bit smaller. Once it was difficult to build and also a bit “empty”, or there were corners where there was not much interesting to see.
- Make more interesting … People only stop for a short time, the other MOCs certainly attract more visitors. This is certainly due to the theme, as cities offer more variety, railways operating, etc. But I also have to do something …. What’s not clear, there are some spontaneous ideas, but more has to come.
So what happens next? The next exhibition planned for the beginning of May is a small exhibition at the Kreuzlingen Planetarium. Size etc. is still completely unclear, but the topic will be space travel, space etc., if it fits. And in October the SteinCHenwelt 2020, again in Arbon. It’s still open whether I’ll take part in an exhibition in the summer, ComicCon 2020 doesn’t seem to take place until October/November, so it’s no longer possible.