Today marks the first anniversary of the flagship LEGO® Store in London’s Leicester Square. When the store opened to the public on November 17th 2016 it became the world’s largest LEGO Brand Store and over the last year it’s played hosted to a number of key LEGO events, including the launch of some pretty high profile LEGO set launches. Before the opening in late November, excitement surrounding the new Leicester Square LEGO Store was at fever pitch. Commuters in the capital were treated to a fleet of special taxis and buses branded with the store’s mascot Lester.
As the big day drew closer the store was shrouded in a huge yellow curtain to keep the stores inside hidden. This in itself caused much excitement, with crowds gathering around the store in the hope of getting a peek inside. We were lucky enough to be invited to a special pre-opening event where we got to see the store before anyone else.
The two floor store is filled with amazing LEGO builds all with a London twist, including a almost life-sized London Underground Tube carriage and a working LEGO replica of Big Ben. This new destination store design has since been rolled out to other stores, giving selected stores a unique identity to the area they are located.
Not only was the LEGO Store London, the biggest LEGO store in the world, it was also home to a brand new concept which was only available there. The LEGO Mosaic Maker is a very special ‘photo booth’ which transforms you photo into a one of a kind LEGO mosaic. The concept has recently been included in The LEGO House retail store.
But the store biggest achievement has been to play host to a number of LEGO set launches, the first of which was available exclusively at the store during the first few weeks of opening. The new LEGO Architecture Skyline range kicked off with a London themed set. This was only available to purchase at the store and was launched by its LEGO Designers, who were on hand to sign boxes and meet fans. A special promotion was also held for fans to win a very special version of the stores mascot Lester. Those visiting the store got a scratchcard and a lucky few won themselves a Lester minifigure, who soon became a much sought after item. A new version of Lester has since become available to purchase from the store.
Earlier this year the London Store and Leicester Square helped to launch the new LEGO Creator Expert London Bus. The launch took place on an actual Routemaster Bus, which was parked up in Leicester Square. This very exclusive event saw us along with Brickset and Brick Fanatics take part in the Facebook Live launch and interview the sets designer Morten Graff-Wang and Creator Design manager Jamie Berard. We also managed to pick up the set early and publish one of the first reviews.
Since then the store has taken part in the European launch your of the LEGO Ideas Old Fishing Store and became the first place in the world were you could purchase a LEGO Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon, with fans queuing up first thing in the morning of September 13th for the midnight launch of this most anticipated set. By 4pm that day, the queue had already exceeded the amount of available sets. Then at 00.01 LEGO Master host Melvin Odoom officially opened the store and fans got to bag themselves one the biggest LEGO set ever made.
With the store now reaching its first major milestone it still remains one of the most unique LEGO Brand Stores in the world, and a must visit location for LEGO fans and tourist who find themselves in London. This Christmas the store will be taking part in the new LEGO Christmas campaign #BuildToGive where visitors to the store can build a Christmas decorations and for everyone built, The LEGO Group will donate a LEGO set to sick kids in hospital with the help of Fairy Bricks, learn more about this amazing campaign here.
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