Badge Bricks

When you show up at a LEGO convention, you go to registration and pick up your badge (paper/cardstock badge with a clear plastic holder and lanyard), and your swag bag.  The badge is large enough to be easily read by those guarding doors, looking to keep the non-attendee riff-raff out. 

You also get a brick.  (At least one brick.)  A brick with the convention’s name/logo engraved thereupon.  Depending on the convention, you might also get a couple of other bricks engraved with whatever text you requested when you first registered.  

I’m told that in the Olde Timey Days of Yore (long before I started attending these events), the engraved brick WAS your only badge.  The official convention brick was your badge brick, your other engraved bricks were also considered badge bricks (although you couldn’t get into con activities without the main convention brick), and putting them all together formed your actual brick badge. 

Sometimes, one of the bricks would have a magnet on it, with corresponding metal strip you ‘wore’ inside your shirt.  Other times you’d use a Technic brick and thread a cord or something through the holes to hand around your neck. 

You’d go to your second convention, and get a new convention brick, and maybe a couple of new engraved bricks.  And while I’m sure that there were people that would use those new bricks and JUST those new bricks as that year’s badge, most people ended up adding the new bricks to the old bricks.  And thus did badge bricks become a whole thing. 

Look Out, I Use the ‘W’-Word In This Section

My brother has always been big into video games.  And among his favorite games are those that have specific achievements.  It was through my brother that I first heard the term ‘achievement whore’.  He plays the game for the storyline, for the fun, and to simply play the game – but he also plays with the intention of earning each and every achievement possible. 

True achievement whores play the game to rack up achievements first and foremost, and if they have fun and enjoy the storyline, well, that’s just a nice bonus.  My brother’s not that bad.  But he does like his achievements. 

Based on his use of achievement whore, I’ve started thinking of myself as a brick badge whore. 

I want badge bricks!  I want my brick badge to grow like Pinochio’s nose when he’s running for public office! 

BrickCon 2013

I really wish that I’d known more about the whole brick badge phenomenon prior to attending my first event.  When I registered for BrickCon 2013, the website said that I’d get the convention brick, and two bricks of my choosing.  I decided that one of them should be my nom du brick (LEGO name), so I filled out BattleGorilla in the blank.  But what to get on the second brick?  No ideas came to me, so I typed in BattleGorilla a second time.  I figured I could find a use for it. 

 

There was no magnet backing on any of these bricks, and with only two unique bricks, they ended up staying back in my hotel room for the con.  But walking around, I got to see lots of peoples’ brick badges – some of them nearly 20 bricks long – and become instantly hooked on the concept. 

Bricks Cascade 2014

By the time registration opened for Bricks Cascade 2014, I’d given a lot of thought to my brick badge.  This time, in addition to the convention brick, we were allowed to purchase up to three engraved bricks.  Two of them were allocated to my real name, and my town of residence.  The third?  Well, I’d decided that the bottom of my brick badge was going to be my LEGO Convention ‘passport’, a simple history of convention bricks.  And what better way to end that section than with a brick reading “…More to Come”? 

 

In between BrickCon and Bricks Cascade, I’d also gotten a pair of promotional badge bricks by ordering specific amounts of BrickArms merchandise at specific times. 

I’d also taken a Technic brick, three half-pins, and three letter tiles (from the LEGO business card holder set) and made myself an “AKA” brick to sit between my “Mike Snethen” and “BattleGorilla” bricks. 

Also, by virtue of having contributed MOCs to three specific themes, and also participating in a large space battle sequence, I earned myself four Kelly ‘Service Ribbon’ Bricks (which I’d show you a photo of, but they’re apparently in a box I can’t get to at the moment). 

BrickCon 2014

When I registered for this past BrickCon it was with the assumption that I’d be back to LEGO blogging long before the convention happened.  (Whoops.)  So in addition to the standard convention brick, my two optional bricks read “Vic Viper Vednesday” and “Figbarf Friday”. 

 

Not having started the blog by time the con came around, I didn’t wear them on the badge, as the blog memes they were promoting didn’t really exist yet.  I did get a “Bricks of Character” badge brick for contributing to the theme of the same name.  Which I wore at that con, but won’t be wearing at Bricks Cascade 2015, where that’s not an available category. 

 

Also just prior to the con (while getting some custom printing done at Bricks andMinifigs for one of my MOCs), I had two badge bricks printed for myself.  One was a replacement for my BattleGorilla brick (which itself will be replaced soon, once my PhotoShop guy has time to put together a better logo for me), and the other was a “ChickArms” brick, which served as a promotional tie-in to my Chickens & Guns “At the Gun Show” MOC.  (There’ll be a forthcoming post on the whole Chickens & Guns thing.)

BrickCon 2015

This year, it’s apparently JUST going to be the convention brick getting added to my brick badge.  No additional engraved bricks this time around.  Sigh.  There go my “Seeking an AFOL Girlfriend” and “My Precious…” badge bricks. 

But this is what my badge looks like currently. 

 

Hopefully there will be some surprise additions to my brick badge once I get there. 

Future Conventions

I had been hoping to add a third convention into my schedule this year, but right now that looks incredibly iffy.  So the next con will probably be October’s BrickCon.  What will my brick badge look like in October?  Your guess is as good as mine.