Everything was Awesome at #LegoKidsFest

We received free tickets in exchange for our review. All opinions are my own.

Charlie was so excited about going to LEGO KidsFest! For us, Richmond is about a 3 hour drive (or it should be). Because of traffic and some construction, it took us about 4 hours to get there last night. Lucky for us, Charlie finally fell asleep and got in a nap!

After parking the car and walking to the convention center, we arrived at the event about 5PM.

It started at 4PM and we felt that we would still have plenty of time to see and do everything. I mean, how many hours can you spend looking at and playing with LEGO bricks?

The answer: unknown, but we were completely entertained for the 3.5 hours we were there.

When we walked in, there were a ton of large scale LEGO models and they were awesome! I totally nerded out and wanted to look at all of them. Charlie was less than impressed with the large scale models. But… then we saw Spiderman and he was pretty impressed with that. Spiderman was actually a photo prop that we hopped in on (there was no line!) and they printed out our photo for us before we even had Owen back in the stroller! Oh, the most awesome part? It was free. There was no one trying to sell us extra prints or anything like that.

The first station we did was the Brick Pile! What kid wouldn’t love this?

I’m pretty sure we could have left Charlie here in the brick pile and returned several hours to find him still building away. We dig drag him away and went to play one of the brick challenges. The round that was playing for our turn was a pizza building challenge. Charlie almost had a meltdown waiting in line for this, but once it was our turn, he was good to go!

The kids thought this was great and it allowed them to get some running in! And… everyone was a winner! Charlie walked away with a LEGO prize and was thrilled! When I asked Charlie this morning what his favorite part of the day was, he said “the pizza cooking thing”. Relay races are always fun: add some LEGO bricks, pizza, TMNT, and a LEGO prize? WINNER!

One thing I noticed as a parent was that there was hand sanitizer everywhere! Not only was it available, but the staff running things would be sure to mention it too. At the end of the day, we heard staff talking about how all of the LEGO bricks were to be gathered up and sanitized before the next session today. I am really impressed that they take this extra step. I can’t imagine the germs that were being passed around yesterday, but offering hand sanitizer is something we LOVED!

Charlie created a spaceship and it was placed in a cabinet with his name, age, and his creation! He thought this was pretty cool. Of course, the older kids (and adults) were making some pretty impressive creations, but the staff was so nice and talked to Charlie about his just the same!

In case you think of LEGO as just those super tiny little bricks, don’t forget they have LEGO Duplo! There was a section in the front that offered a giant brick pile of LEGO Duplo bricks! This was the perfect place to let Owen run around and play without worrying about him choking.

Also in the LEGO Duplo area was a changing station for Daddy and a nursing/changing station for Mommy! I LOVE that this is offered. I mean, sure, there are bathrooms there, but I’m not one to feed Owen in a bathroom. It was just a simple little station that included tables, a couple folding chairs, wipes, and a trashcan. Nothing fancy, but very appreciated.

Before we left, Owen and I visited Emmet and WyldStyle. Charlie wasn’t interested (he has a thing with costumes), but Charlie was completely taken away! And Emmet was playing peek-a-boo with Owen! How cute is that?

Overall, would we go again? Absolutely. Next year Owen will be bigger and playing with even more! Charlie might be able to do some of the more complex things, too.

Even though the show was all but sold out, we did not feel crowded at all. Charlie only had to wait a few minutes to do some of the challenges, but that is completely expected. At the stations, there was never any shortage of space for him to play. Like us, many people had strollers, but they were never in the way.

As a parent, I can say that the location of the retail store was great! It was all the way in the back and wasn’t a distraction while we were playing throughout the evening. It was the perfect spot to end our trip. Both boys got a fire truck set. Owen got a Duplo set and Charlie got a Juniors set. The line looked super intimidating inside of the store, but they had plenty of cashiers that kept it going- we waited maybe 5 minutes.

If you’re interested in attending LegoKidsFest in Richmond, right now there are still tickets for Sunday’s Session 2. Or… if you’re near Indianapolis, Indiana: November 7–9.

Connect with LegoKidsFest on Twitter and Facebook.