A Guide to LEGO® KidsFest 2014
We just returned from a 4+ hour session at LEGO® KidsFest in Richmond, Virginia on Oct 3, 2014. It was pretty fantastic. My review could stop right here and you would know your ticket money was well spent but keep reading because below are a few things you might want to know!
First, the sessions can be long for small children, so if you find you just need to leave briefly, just get your hand stamped at the exit for easy re-entry. There is food available for purchase at this event. They have all your typical kid food: corn dogs, pizza, chicken fingers and healthier choices of wrap sandwiches and fruit. There are large round tables so you can sit family style if your kids cannot make it the full four hours without eating (as mine could not).
For families with all age groups; they have you covered. Starting with the Mommy Area (complete with nursing stations) and Dad Area, both located in the DUPLO® section where there is a huge pile of DUPLO bricks on the floor for kids. The rest of the event is really for all kids and kids at heart. 
They have a LEGO Friends® section – which had so many great mini-figures, ladybugs, teeny tiny hair excessories…if you are familiar with LEGO Friends you know what I am referring to…they had ALL the good pieces and PLENTY of them. As we left this section a staff member opened up a box full of bags of Disney Princess LEGO sets and started passing them out to the kids!
In the Challenge Zone, our family had two minutes to build whatever theme the MC chose. He picked “sports”, we built a football stadium. Everyone was a winner because all the kids got a Star Wars Lego TIE Fighter set as they left this section.
There is a huge outline map of the USA on the floor. It is called “Creation Nation”. Each child grabs a green square baseplate to build whatever they want to build. There are bins of LEGO bricks to use to create anything they can imagine. When they are done your child gives her creation to a Staff Member and they put it in the State your child choses. By the time we left the map (which should be full by Sunday evening) had all shorts of buildings, towers, boats, castles, houses and unexplainable objects filling its boarders. You can visit their Facebook page or www.LEGOkidsfest.com next week to see the finished map. Also, they gave each child a LEGO LEGENDS OF CHIMA Accessory Pack. Again the children were thrilled.
Our kids walked out of the event with three new LEGO packs – I am not sure if they do the same packs at the same sections but keep your eyes out for giveaways! It is a big treat for the kids!
There are many other sections, all were worth stopping by and experiencing. LEGO is introducing new products at LEGO KidsFest so it is a good opportunity to play before you pay. LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 is a robotic LEGO system where you can build a robot dog, for example and then control it from your smart device.
LEGO Fusion Town is another new product where kids build a town one building at a time on LEGO Fusion baseplates then scan their buildings into smartphones or tablets. Once scanned, kids can play in their virtual town with their building they just built in the Fusion virtual game. This section is pretty cool.
The event was complete with larger than life statues of Lord Business, Vader, Darth Maul, Spiderman, Batman, C3PO, R2D2 and two costumed
characters from “The LEGO Movie”: Wyldstyle and Emmett. Kids were getting their pictures taken with these characters. Lightning McQueen is huge and amazing. And the Big Brick Pile that kids could run on top of, sit in, swim in and play on was not to be missed.
If you have a child age 7 & up, sign up for the workshop with a LEGO Master Builder. During this session, actual LEGO Master Builders give building tips and answer kids’ questions ranging from how they made the LEGO Movie to how do you get a job as a Master Builder. *Insider tip – they told us that they look for college degrees in engineering, product design, or architecture. And they like to see students have taken lots of art classes – in case you have a future Master Builder in your family.
LEGO KidsFest was a hit; my kids left excited and exhausted but begging to go back to go back!
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WilliamsburgFamilies.com was provided tickets to giveaway for this event and to review this event by LEGOKidsFest.
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