LEGO Festival of Play: 50 years in Australia!

[Siegfried]

This year is the 50th anniversary of LEGO in Australia (we're a bit slow ) and TLG has made a site to celebrate! So far there's a few stories and a video, but it seems TLG has events planned for the rest of the year! Hurrah! Thanks TLG!

Supposedly there'll be a reveal on Wednesday with more details...

[caperberry]

That's great to see. I'm intending to move back to my native Melbourne sometime... one thing holding me back is access to Brand stores, cheaper parts, conferences - so it's great to see this! Good on TLG!

[mikka says]

love the creations made by the afols, seeing them at BV, i know who made em ;)

lego has come such a long way...im happy to be able to celebrate the half-centry of lego in Oz.. ^^

[Hewman]

Wow, the 'big announcement' today was a little underwhelming. I guess I'll have a look at the 'Lego Forest' (that doesn't appear to be made of Lego) when it comes to Adelaide but I won't be getting impatient to see it.

The other information on the site is good though.

I don't know if this is on in other cities as well, but The Art of the Brick is having an extended run in Adelaide. I get the feeling that it's replicas of the original models used, rather than the originals coming from New York. Anyway, for those interested Art of the Brick. I don't know if this is officially connected to the Festival of Play celebrations or not.

Edit: I see it's already been in some of the bigger cities.

Edited April 18, 2012 by hewman

[LEGO Historian]

Wow... very interesting... history rewritten.... ;-)

The first LEGO sets introduced into Australia in 1962 were shipped there from British LEGO Ltd. of Wrexham Wales. British LEGO Ltd. was a Courtaulds subsidiary. Courtaulds was a British Chemical/Textile maker that had purchased the LEGO license from TLG in 1960 for Britain and Ireland, and Australia in 1962. This arrangement continued until 1992, when TLG purchased the license back from Courtaulds.

This is similar to the scenario with Samsonite in the USA and Canada. TLG sold Samsonite the LEGO license for those 2 countries starting in 1961 in the USA, and 1962 in Canada. But they didn't like the way LEGO sales were going in the USA. A 4th generation Samsonite family member (Shwayder family) said that Samsonite sold LEGO like it sold suitcases... and by 1970 TLG started litigation to get the USA license back... which they did by 1973. And they got the Canadian license back in 1985 (Canada toed the TLG line better than USA).

So you would think that last year the USA would have celebrated 50 years of LEGO in the USA, and in Canada this year... well guess again... TLG doesn't count the Samsonite years for USA/Canada... but does count the Courtaulds years for Australia.... funny that!