6.08.2016 First LEGO Store opened in Poland. Store is located in the middle of one of Warsaw’s shopping mall – Galeria-Mokotów. Opening the shop was celebrated by a huge event where kids, as well as adults are building enormous 3d map of Poland. The event was organized by LEGO Poland with cooperation with polish AFOLs, and the map was designed by Zbudujmy.to’s member – SZWW.
After opening there was huge queue, which was a few hours of waiting long. What draw so many people was probably rare opportunity to get 40145 exclusive that you can only aquire during LEGO Store openings. To get it you had to spent 600 pln (about 150 euro), but if you just bought anything you could spin a wheel of fortune and win some goodies.
Prices in the shop are exactly the same as in catalogue, or shop.lego.com, however because the shop is not owned by Lego Brick Retail, but is frenchised, we do not have VIP program here as of now. There is a pick-a-brick wall, where small cup cost 50pln (about 12 euro), and big one 90pln (about 22 euro). This is more than in the western Europe, but it really depends of the currency exchange rates. I do not know if that will be common practice, but during opening there were no problems with packing the cups really tight. We also heard that store menager is open to suggestions for new parts.
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There is also make a minifig stand. 3 minifigs cost 45pln (11 euro), pretty steppy, especially considering that the element selection was not very broad.
The staff is very nice and professional and despite huge amount of customers bothering them all the time they kept smiling and level of service was at the same high standards as in the western LBR stores.
There was wide assortment of lego sets, including exclusives and lego ideas sets, but due huge demands those were cleared from the shelves pretty early. Looking through sales perspective, opening was real success.
Opening of the shop has also made a lot of people around here really happy. Having brick wall around is something we have been waiting for. And if there was first Lego Shop open around, that means there will be more 🙂
Building map of Poland
Next to the shop there is an event spanning for 4 weekends of August, where public takes part in building 3d map of Poland. After the map will be built, it will be populated by brick creations.
The event was designed by Zbudujmy.to’s SZWW, and entire LUG was involved in making models of key landmarks of Poland so the map would not start totally empty. I will present those landmarks with more detail in another article.
Except building the map kids could just build with thousands LEGO bricks, and there was also area for smaller kids to play with Duplo
Except those attractions there were also models from Stefa Dorosłych Fanów LEGO (adult LEGO fans zone) including my Palace of Culture and Science. It was really nice to look at people getting amazed by the build. Surprisingly what was getting the most attention were the microscale cars parked around the building.
There were 2 other models presented, Warsaw’s King’s Castle by Nexus7 and Biskupin by BHs. Gdansk’s Port Crane got broken during transport and it was not rebuilt on time. There is a chance it will be rebuilt soon and will join the event next week.
We will be watching the building process of the map and will post another article with more details and photos, once the map will get finished, so stay tuned, and better yet subscribe!
