The entire family (minus Baby Lucy, because we’re not interested in that type of torture) headed to the Oregon Convention Center last night to check out LEGO KidsFest.
LEGO KidsFest gave me 4 tickets in exchange for promoting the event and sharing this review. We purchased 4 more tickets, paid for parking, and bought dinner at the event, so know that we had some serious money invested.
Is this event really cool or just hype? It’s really, really cool.
Is it worth the money? (Because, goodness, this thing is spendy.) This is one of those “twice or thrice in a lifetime” things. If your kids or grandkids are LEGO freaks, then yes, it’s worth it. The sessions are 4.5 hours, which is about enough time to hit most of the exhibits (not all exhibits will be interesting to everyone). And the LEGO people really do a fantastic job running the activities.
We also got a bunch of freebies, including some smaller LEGO kits (a Batman car and a Star Wars flying thing), a smartphone building app thing (I have no idea), a handful of cars that the boys built, and posters and magazines galore. I also heard of some people getting minifigures. The ticket prices are around $20, and I estimate that we each walked away with $15 in free product.
If you’re kids are not crazy about LEGOs or are little (like preschool or younger), save your money.
What ages is this event geared towards? I think kids over four will have an absolute blast. A mature three-year-old (or one with older LEGO-loving siblings) could hack it. Our almost four-year-old went, but had one adult assigned to him as he wanted to do different things than the older kids.
I would NOT bring toddlers or older babies if you can help it. They will seriously slow the fun down.
Was it a zoo? Could you really enjoy the event with all the people? The place was crowed in the middle 2-3 hours, but not enough that there were too many lines (some activities have lines — the Ninjago building challenge was packed, but the others weren’t bad at all). It was easy to find activity tables at the open building exhibits. The marketplace (LEGO store) was jammed with people. There were a few “show specials” but unless you want one of those deals, wait for an Amazon deal or a Fred Meyer coupon.
The show emptied out over the last 90 minutes (our session went until 8:30). I suggest you make sure you’re at the event early so you get in immediately, plan to stay until the joint shuts down, and hit the super popular exhibits during the slow times.
Food and drink are not allowed, but there are moderately-over-priced food options on site. Grandma paid about $50 for 8 of us to eat. You could also send someone up to Burgerville (about 2 blocks away) and eat it in the Convention Center lobby (re-entry is allowed with a hand stamp) for half the price.
Upon leaving the Convention Center, by six-year-old declared that yesterday was the best day of his life.
There are still tickets available for this weekend’s sessions. Purchase your LEGO KidsFest tickets here.
Tell us what you thought of LEGO KidsFest in the comments!
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I don’t have any kids, but my fiance and I are complete LEGO FREAKS! Is it worth it/fun for adults as well? I think we’d like the free build stuff, but would the builds be allow for adults as well?
Yes, you’d absolutely love it.
Great, I think I will order tickets tonight! Thanks!!!
We just got home from the April 2014 LegoFest in Novi, Mich. For 2 adults and 2 girls (8 and 5), it was $82.00 and that was WITH a coupon.
Very pricey for basically a big area to play with Legos and see a handful of characters built from Legos.
I cannot say it was worth it or nor would we do it again. My wife and I felt it was more of a big advertisement for Legos with no real value to our kids. After an hour at the ‘fest,’ they were asking to get to the hotel to swim in the pool. 1 star out of 5.
I thought it was great we had
2 adults a 10 yr old and 5 yr old. I calculated $45 in free product per kid (star wars and batmam baggie sets, chima speedorz set and ask george set). I was not expecting the freebies so that was nice! We stayed for 4 hrs so well worth it I thought.
Thank you so much for the review and what to expect. My hubby is taking our son tomorrow for a boy’s night out, it sounds like they are gonna have a blast!
We just got back from the afternoon of Saturday. We took our two oldest kids (ages 4 and 6). They loved it. We got there when they opened and shut the place down. Thankful we left our 2 yr old twins with Grandpa….as it would have been too much for just 2 parents. There were times when one child wanted to go and another didn’t and we could do that with a one-to-one ratio 🙂
My kids loved it so much they want to go again next year…..not sure they do it every year….so I suppose LEGOLAND will be on our list 🙂
We did eat on site. We had hot dogs and the rice bowl, but there was a sandwhich stand, coffee stand, ice cream stand…..bases covered. I can say as a mom of a Peanut Allergy child (one child whom was at home), I was thankful they were all “peanut free” and there were signs posted at each dining area that was.
There was so much to see that we couldn’t possibly see it all, and we had to pry the kids away from building to see more. Honestly, my kids would love to do 2 sessions….
We ended up with freebies too….and I felt like we got so much for the kids in toys it was worth the price to get in the door. I did like the lego store on site. We found a space set that I had never seen before. Yes, probably can get online, but the instant gratification for the kids was awesome!
It was worth it!
No, you canNOT eat at Burgerville at half the price. BV is delicious and local but it is incredibly spendy for burgers. Worth it, bit not i expensive. 🙂
I second that! Also, if you’re planning to exit and re-enter with food to eat in the lobby, why not just pack a lunch, keep it in the car, and then bring it into eat? That would be a lot less expensive, and then no one has to walk far away to get it!