If you fancy taking part in one of the four sessions of the upcoming LEGO Inside Tour 2016, don't waste time and start preparing now for:

• Frantically press the F5 key on your keyboard on November 9 at around 10:00 a.m., the time at which registrations will be open. You will then only have a few minutes to try to win a place. Be aware that it is possible that you find yourself on a "waiting list" after your registration. All is not lost at this stage: You may be lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the withdrawal of one of the other participants.
• Spend the sum of 14.500 DKK (approximately 1950 euros) excluding plane tickets to be able to validate your registration (Payment is not claimed immediately, LEGO will contact you in a few months to ask you to pay the requested amount). By the way, you will get 1450 VIPs which will be credited directly to your usual LEGO VIP account.
• Provide an additional budget for your plane tickets, meals that are not provided, your purchases on site, etc ...

For the rest, you will find all the useful information on the official website at this address.

Continuation and end of my report on Lego inside tour 2015.

We are therefore Friday, the last day of the trip, and after a presentation PowerPoint to the glory of the group Merlin Entertainments who has been managing LEGOland parks since 2005, our guides invite us to participate in a promising "Backstage tour"from Billund Park.

It is ultimately the least interesting activity of the Tour : There is not much to see Backstage. We walk among the maintenance and cleaning shops where a few employees are busy before entering through a back door into the dark scenes of a attraction similar to the one based on the franchise. Pirates of the Caribbean of Disneyland Paris.

In a few minutes, we come out without really having seen much. Then, we take the direction of the workshop in which the elements of the Miniland of the park. We see the designers gluing the parts of the characters and vehicles, we ask a few questions and return to the park for a group visit of the Miniland in question.

This area of ​​the park dedicated to mini-constructions is rather pleasant to visit but one should not be too demanding on the maintenance and the freshness of certain sets, especially those which have been present for many years. The weather is doing their job and the varnish which should in principle limit breakage does not seem very effective ... The space dedicated to the Star Wars universe, installed in 2011, is in fair condition.

Return to the hotel in the early afternoon for the closing ceremony of the Tour. We are warmly thanked for coming, we are presented with the exclusive set edited for the occasion and the designer Steen Sig Andersen, a very friendly and approachable character, patiently signs the box for each participant.

End of Tour.

As for the memories that each participant can bring back from Billund, the booty is rather meager: A few minifigs which serve as visiting cards for the various interlocutors met, a few bricks distributed at the exit of the factory and a pair of goodies offered by designers during their presentation. The designers of the Bionicle range for their part had planned a rather nice limited edition souvenir (which is not in the photo below).

So, should we spend 2000 € plus costs for this Lego inside tour ? The answer depends on what you hope to find there: If you're an AFOL who regularly keeps up to date with LEGO news, you can keep your money. As currently organized, this Tour is aimed more at the consumer who loves the brand and who wants to have fun than a die-hard fan who already knows everything about LEGO and who will have the impression that all the content already existing and available on the web is brought out to him .

The current program is too focused on the history and functioning of the company and not enough on the design and manufacture of the products. The only really interesting moment was meeting the designers. The rest is almost only marketing in the service of the prestige of the brand.
Make a Selfie in the entrance hall of the brand's headquarters will be enough to satiate some, I need a little more to find my account.

What LEGO does not seem to have understood is that the people who pay to come are already committed to the cause and that it is not worth trying to convince them that LEGO is a company that wants the good of the people. children, who respect the environment, who do good all over the world, etc ...

I know that many participants will be much more indulgent than I when it comes to the interest of the content of the Tour, but everything I'm telling you here, I also mentioned it on the spot as well as in the satisfaction questionnaire that we were given at the end of this Inside Tour, just to be consistent with myself. This feedback should in principle be used to adapt the content of the Tour to best meet the expectations of participants. But the diversity of the profiles of the participants present necessarily makes this exercise difficult, it is impossible to satisfy everyone.

I remain convinced that the main interest of this type of Tour for an AFOL, it is the possibility of meeting "in real life" and without intermediary all those who are at the origin of the products that we buy and love. This is already partially the case, but these very interesting meetings are too short and are interspersed between laborious presentations and visits of little interest. I am also really disappointed not to have been able to discover the process of manufacturing and printing minifigs when the schedule largely permitted.

The only viable solution, in my opinion, would be to offer two types ofInside Tours : One for AFOLs, really focused on the design and manufacture of products and a second more general aimed at customers who want to know more about the brand and who have the means to afford this type of trip.

This is what I could tell you about my participation in this Lego inside tour 2015. I come back both happy to have been able to meet those who imagine the products that I like (or that I like less) and disappointed with some of the content offered. It was almost "Awesome", but not totally.

Once again, thanks to Kim for EEC Team for giving us time, and to Camila, Abdallah, Regina and Astrid, our chaperones, for their welcome, their friendliness, their attentive ear to our criticisms and their patience.

 Do not hesitate to ask your questions in the comments.

Let's pick up where we left off. Arrival on Tuesday at noon at Billund airport after a few hours by plane, I mark the brick wall of the hotel with my passage before a very pleasant and very constructive lunch in the company of Kim, one of the members of the EEC Team (The team in charge of relations between LEGO and AFOLs). This meeting was not foreseen in the program, we had organized it in parallel and it was an excellent moment of exchange and feedback face to face. It's always better than email and it avoids misunderstandings and misunderstandings.

Important note: If you are not proficient in English, save your money. Some speakers sometimes have a strong accent and to follow, it is better to have revised its basics.

On Wednesday morning, after a somewhat laborious introduction to the LEGO company which was only useful to members of the group who only follow the brand's news with one eye, head to the Lego idea house. The place is not open to the public, LEGO uses it as a reminder for new employees who will discover the history of the LEGO group and the evolution of products from wooden toys to the most popular ranges. most recent. I took the opportunity to explore the office of the brand's founder, Ole Kirk Christiansen, to sit in his place in his "historic" office.

In the same building, a quick tour of the "Vault", the place where LEGO treasures a copy of (almost) all the sets released. Obviously, I tried to take a look on the shelves decked out with the 2015 label to try to see a few unpublished sets, but this section was closed for the occasion.

Upstairs, in the museum which presents the brand's first wooden toys and some machines used to mold the first ABS plastic parts, a very interesting meeting with two representatives of the brand's legal department who came to talk about the counterfeiting of the LEGO products. Contrary to popular belief, LEGO seems to be rather actively fighting against the counterfeits that are currently flooding the market, even if it is a long-term job that will take time to bear fruit.

Back to the hotel for a moment that I was impatiently awaiting, the meeting with the designers. Really very pleasant moment, after a short presentation of the novelties of the moment (nothing new), the designers are available and willingly talk about their work. Special mention to Olav Krøigaard, designer in particular of sets 75059 UCS Sandcrawler, 75095 UCS Tie Fighter or even the oldest 8038 The Battle of Endor who really took the time to discuss his work with us. I was like a kid in front of a star, it feels good.

All the designers present play the game and answer, when they can, the questions of the members of the group. Then comes the moment of the animation of the day: It is for the members of the group to build something by respecting the rules of the briefing provided. I must admit that I did not really give the best of myself on this challenge, preferring to discuss again and again with the designers present. Some members of the group got caught up in the game and stayed there very late at night to finalize their creation.

Flash in the afternoon from the CEO of the brand, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, who apologizes for not being able to stay longer, answers two questions from the audience and slips away and to whom I had planned to give a Hoth Bricks minifigure. Left in a gust of wind, he won't get it, too bad for him ;-).

Thursday was the busiest and most "timed" day: A quick tour of the "Kornmarken" factory where the parts are molded, a quick visit to the brand's headquarters which, moreover, will not have passed the entrance. . We were then gathered in a room for a presentation of a vague video game project under development.

Passage through the place where LEGO manages its "Customer Service", the one who sends you the missing or broken parts of your boxes, presentation on the design of the assembly instructions which would have benefited from being longer and very" corporate "presentation of the LEGO Foundation with a highlight of its actions in Africa from South.

Then, visit dedicated to the LEGO House project, the large complex that LEGO is building in the heart of Billund and which will open its doors in 2017. Presentation around the model that you see in the first part of the report and quick visit of the site where there is nothing to see except two cranes. Useless moment, I do not see the point of wasting time admiring a few construction huts from a raised platform. You can also learn more about this project without leaving your home. at this address.

Later, visit to the store reserved for employees of the brand where the prices are much more interesting than in the shops of the LEGOland park (10% higher than in France at the current exchange rate). Without going into details, the store reserved for employees displays really very very (very) competitive prices ...

Big regret, we have not seen anything "in real life" concerning the manufacture, assembly and printing of minifigs ... It's a shame, I was also here ...

The same evening, a very pleasant dinner in one of the restaurants of the park in the company of the designers before a prize-giving ceremony rewarding the best creations of the challenge mentioned above. Another opportunity to discuss with the designers, I enjoyed this moment of informal exchange. Obviously, I didn't win, but I still got a small gift (an Elves set) that I gave to the only little girl in the group.

In the third part, I will tell you about the last day, the stuff I bring back from there and I will finally give you my opinion on this "experience".

Do not hesitate to ask your questions in the comments.

to be continued...

Before any entry into the matter, I would like to point out that this report on the progress of the LEGO Inside Tour 2015 is only my opinion and it is only my opinion on my experience. Each participant will probably have a different opinion on the subject and that's fine.

That being said, it is important to set the context for this "pilgrimage to the land of LEGO": This is not an invitation, those who wish to participate in the Lego inside tour pay their share and finance the costs out of their own pockets. And that changes everything. By paying the price requested by LEGO to have the right to participate in this "unique experience that allows us to discover the LEGO company from the inside", the participant becomes a client who pays for a service. And when I am a client, I am demanding above all that to have the right to participate in this Inside Tour, I had to organize myself to be in front of my computer on the day of the opening of registrations and hysterically reload the page to access the form before the Tour "Sold Out", which happened in less than five minutes this year.

Le Lego inside tour in figures, it looks like this: 14500 DKK (Around 2000 €) to be paid in order to be able to participate, 1450 VIP points credited to your account, 4 sessions are organized in 2015, 35 people per session, around 250 € in plane tickets, 2 and a half days of activities, presentation and various and varied visits and 4 very friendly permanent guides around the group.

You might as well tell you right away, if you have internet you have already been able to discover on Youtube most of the "secrets of LEGO" that we are promised to reveal to us: Visit of the factory (to see in video at this address), visit of the LEGO Idea House (see video at this address), Video on the birth of the brand (see video at this address).

In the € 2000 package, you pay for 3 hotel nights with breakfast included. The rooms at the LEGOland Hotel are nothing fancy but they are spacious and clean, and you have a direct view of the adjoining amusement park (Photo below). If you book in this season, these "Kids House Rooms"are billed at DKK 1510 (€ 202) per night.

As for meals, for the entire stay, dinner on the day of arrival and lunch the next day are not included. It's mean, but we make do with it. Regarding the quality of the food offered during the stay, it is correct and you have the choice (It is buffet at all meals). Concretely, you pay for 4 meals.

In the starter package you also buy an SSeason Pass for the LEGOland park worth 629 DKK (85 €). It is valid during the current year and even gives you the right to many advantages in addition to access to the park (see at this address).

During your stay, you have a few hours of freedom during which you can enjoy the park. This is not Disneyland, the attractions are mainly intended for very young children and the maintenance of Miniland, the space gathering the LEGO models, leaves something to be desired: The models are faded, some animations are broken down and the frequent bad weather does not exist. do not help matters.

In my group, the profiles were very different: Families with their children, adults who came alone or as a couple, a few AFOLs, sellers on Bricklink from Asia or tourists who had integrated this Inside Tour in their vacation program in Europe.

Useful precision, the program of Lego inside tour is based on a very precise schedule that must be followed to the letter. As in an organized tourist trip, the group travels by bus, supervised by its guides who speed up the pace if necessary, who confiscate your phones and cameras as soon as you enter a "sensitive" place, and who ask you to finish your lunch quickly because yet another presentation awaits you. As with FRAM, except that here you sign an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) which forbids you to talk about anything you have seen or heard. A bit useless, I did not see much that is not known to all ...

Speaking of presentations, you spend a lot of time sitting in a room watching videos and slides Powerpoint, listening to a guy in marketing talk to you about the success of LEGO, or another guy telling you about all the good LEGO is doing in Africa, etc ... The rare question-and-answer sessions are often interrupted because it must take the bus to go elsewhere.

I will come back in the second part to the different stages of the stay, explaining why they were, from my point of view, interesting, boring or superfluous. But I can already confirm that during the entire stay, the only real "unique" moment is meeting a dozen designers who take the time to discuss with you and who even if they obviously cannot answer all your questions for the reasons you imagine, are sufficiently available for the exchange to be interesting. These designers are not AFOLs, they are people with a wide variety of professional backgrounds who work at LEGO and design products for a large toy manufacturer. The nuance is important.

The frame is set, and theInside Tour can start. We are even promised to be able to meet Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, the CEO of the group ...

to be continued...

To tell you the truth, I am currently in Billund as part of the LEGO Inside Tour 2015. I will wait until I have completed the entire program to give you a report and give you a (very personal) opinion on this. journey to the land of LEGO.

So far, so good, as the other would say.

The program is busy, the visits, presentations and meetings follow one another at a steady pace and I must already go back ...