Toy Fair in New York City in mid-February is usually the first time each year when LEGO unveils its planned sets for the summer and fall. However, Toy Fair NYC is preceded by industry events in London and Nuremburg, where often LEGO puts small signs banning photography next to some of its new sets while showcasing them at a public event. This tactic is apparently proving particularly ineffective this year, as numerous photographs continue to emerge from both shows, such as the LEGO Technic 42056 Porsche test car set revealed earlier this week (in that video, the LEGO rep is clearly pointing things out to the camera, so they’re obviously ok with some photography).
TBB and other LEGO news sites like FBTB will have full, professional coverage of New York Toy Fair in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, here are a few highlights from London and Nuremburg, given LEGO’s apparent change in policy and public unveiling schedule.
Brickset has just posted box photos (photos of boxes, not the official high-res box art) for a number of summer 2016 LEGO sets. Making the rounds of news outlets this week is 60134 Fun at the Park, a LEGO City minifig-oriented set that features a minifig in a brand new LEGO wheelchair, a new LEGO baby, and the hotdog bun first noticed in the forthcoming LEGO Angry Birds sets — plus a whole bunch of useful new minifigs.
A user on imgur has posted a group photo (in which you can clearly see the “No Photography” signs, calling into question why LEGO bothers…) of the summer 2016 LEGO Star Wars sets, including 75148 Encounter on Jakku with an Unkar Plutt minifig and a luggabeast. Another interesting addition to The Force Awakens lineup is 75149 Resistance X-wing Fighter with Poe Dameron (again) and presumably San Tekka (if you agree that that’s probably the minifig with the white hair). The photo also reveals a range of sets with non-movie vehicles and minifigs, most likely from Star Wars Rebels.
A couple of new, larger LEGO Architecture sets have also been revealed, including 21030 United States Capital Building and 21029 Buckingham Palace.
Another interesting LEGO City sub-theme due out this summer is Volcano Explorers, with at least five sets at various price points.
It’s frankly more than a little disappointing for us that LEGO’s inability to manage their information security has meant that TBB can’t bring you the professional coverage of these new sets that we normally bring you when the information is fresh, but the quality of the information — even though somewhat partial — is reliable enough that waiting two weeks for our onsite coverage didn’t make sense. Regular readers certainly won’t miss our Toy Fair NYC coverage on February 12th, but if you’re seeing this having arrived from a search engine or social media, don’t forget to check back!
Just to clarify, photography IS allowed from Nuremberg Toy Fair. As far as I know only the Star Wars theme had “no photography” signs — for all the other themes photography was fair game.
To be honest, I’m kind of disappointed that people would flagrantly disobey the “no photography” rule on the Star Wars sets. People get mad at LEGO for being heavy-handed with embargoes and no-photo rules, but frankly they’d probably be more cooperative if they didn’t expect us AFOLs to undermine what rules they had in place. Just as an example, it’s probably a lot easier for LEGO to prohibit photos entirely like they do in London than to only prohibit photos in SOME parts of their booth and then have AFOLs with cameras trying to sneak photos of things they’ve been instructed not to share. LEGO has no choice but to be heavy-handed when they feel like we as a community will take advantage of their leniency.
When I went to New York Toy Fair back in 2012 I was told not to take photos of a few things, such as a calendar showing the LEGO Group’s ad campaign schedule, and I didn’t have any problem complying. Yet it feels like some people don’t have the same journalistic integrity and think they can win points with the community by being sneaky.
Personally, I don’t think The Brothers Brick should be sharing pictures that were taken against the LEGO Group’s specific instructions either. It just makes you guys look bad and isn’t much better than sharing retailer’s catalog photos, IMO. There are plenty of legitimate pictures from Nuremberg Toy Fair by Promobricks and Zusammengebaut you could share with those sites’ permission. No need to stoop to sharing photos from less reputable sources.
There are no “AFOLs” at these events — they’re industry-only events, as I understand it.
TBB has and will continue to publish photos sourced elsewhere that are relevant and reliable — note the link to Brickset, who published the box photos.
@Andrew: Excuse me, what? That’s baloney. Toy industry professionals and toy industry press can be AFOLs themselves, and members of AFOL news sites Promobricks and Zusammengebaut attended as members of the press. Your “understanding” is fundamentally flawed and hearing you try to explain it I start to understand how you managed to botch this blog post so badly.
The box photos from Brickset are “relevant and reliable” because they were directly given to Brickset by Zusammengebaut, who took them with the LEGO Group’s permission. There is no issue with those photos. You’re the only one who has questioned their legitimacy by wrongly assuming any kind of LEGO photography at Nuremberg Toy Fair was prohibited.
The Star Wars photo from Imgur is the one that’s an issue here. It was taken in express violation of a plainly marked sign and if you have even a smidgen of integrity you should be able to understand the difference between that and the photos Brickset, Promobricks, and Zusammengebaut have posted. If you can’t, then I won’t lie, I will have lost a lot of respect for The Brothers Brick. I have always believed the Brothers Brick to be one of the most professional and reputable LEGO blogs out there. Don’t make me believe that isn’t true.
Well… I for one am plenty happy to see those “illegal” star wars spy photos, thanks Brothers Brick for sharing the news we want to see!
I’m loving Rex’s junkified AT-TE from Rebels. The AT-TE is a favorite of mine, might have to get this one.
I couldn’t care less about the Turbo Tank, it is quite possibly the worst Star Wars vehicle… It has wheels for crying out loud! I can’t think of any other vehicles in the Star Wars Universe (canon) that has wheels.
The Tie Advanced and A wing are nice. I’m not sure why the Luggabeast is blue, so unless it has BB-8, I’m not interested. I don’t recognize that black ship, I don’t believe it’s from Rebels though.
I like the color scheme for this X-Wing better, I wonder if it’s an identical model.
@Aainchir: We apologize if our coverage of this has caused you concern. We value our readers and our accuracy. It is still our understanding that all photography at the London Toy Fair was prohibited. We have updated the post to better reflect our understanding.
However, we are not a branch of the LEGO company’s public relations department. Regarding our publishing of the image in question; we have long covered newsworthy items when high quality information is available, regardless of its provenance. We will never be the source of a “leak” but ultimately, it is not our role to guard LEGO’s information security. Once images are already out in the wild and being widely shared (as the above Star Wars image was before we published it), it behooves us to bring our readers the information we have, if we deem it newsworthy and of passable quality. Some may disagree with this position, and that is OK.
Also, we know that toy industry professionals can also be adult fans of LEGO. We simply mean that LEGO does not generally invite fans as such; any fans attending are there in some other capacity; either as industry professionals or as journalists.
If you have any further concerns regarding our policies and news coverage, we welcome you to address them to us by using the “contact us” link on our homepage.
Photography at London Toy Fair WAS prohibited, that much is correct. These photos are all from Nuremberg Toy Fair. Brickset’s photos were not ones they took themselves in London, but ones that reporters from Zusammengebaut.com sent them from Germany to use in their own reporting. As far as I know, no LEGO photos whatsoever emerged from London Toy Fair except photos of the brick-built display sculptures outside the LEGO Group’s booth.
I don’t think you owe it to the LEGO Group to protect their secrets, but at the same time, promoting images that were taken against the LEGO Group’s wishes just makes relations between AFOLs and LEGO that much more complicated. I don’t want LEGO to think that to prevent AFOLs from spreading photos of things that aren’t supposed to be photographed they have to completely prohibit all photography in their Nuremberg booth like they do in London. That wouldn’t be good for any of us. People accuse LEGO of being “secretive” and “heavy-handed”, but how are they expected to react when every time they give fans an inch we take a mile?
I understand your decision to keep the Star Wars photos here, but I don’t agree with it, and I am still disgusted with whatever scumbag it was who was trusted with the wonderful opportunity to see and photograph almost all of the LEGO Group’s upcoming products for the year, and chose to take advantage of it by publishing a photo of the one thing they were prohibited from photographing. Whoever that was, they’re a disgrace to AFOLs everywhere and I hate that the community praises that kind of behavior.
@Aanchir: We want to be clear: we are NOT condoning fans going against LEGO’s wishes and taking photos in prohibited areas. Please do not mistake our publishing of these images as approval of the photographer. Reporting on the misdeed is not the same thing as applauding it. Had we been present at this toy fair, we would have strenuously adhered to LEGO’s stated wishes. However, as a news organization, it our job to provide updates to our readers on reliable, high quality information. If the images are already in circulation, we would be remiss if we left our readers in the dark or—more likely—drove our readership to seek the information from the other sources where it is freely available.
Like you, we wish—probably more than you realize—that photos like this wouldn’t leak out and that we could only provide our readers with finished product shots. It would make our jobs a lot easier, and as you say, would likely improve fan relations with the LEGO company.
It seems that all Star Wars sets related to Rebels have the “Star Wars Rebels” logo on the box (like the Tie Fighter/A-Wing set), so I would suspect that the other non-Force Awakens sets are not related to Rebels.
To clarify, I’m talking about the middle and left boxes on the top row. Obviously the AT-TE is from Rebels.
Ugh – should have said middle and right, not middle and left. Need sleep.
Phew….a lot a angst here…glad we are all talking about a box of plastic bricks and nothing that is life or death ;-)