The Lego® Expo attracts crowds to Saint-Privat-des-Vieux, a neighboring town of Alès, and brings together real enthusiasts until the evening of Sunday January 12. Meetings.
Gilles Roux, the president of Artofbrick, the association which organizes the 11th Lego® Expo, this weekend, at the Saint-Privat-des-Vieux sports hall, is smiling. This Saturday, January 11, at the beginning of the afternoon, the crowd flocked to the aisles of the show and told him that “It’s off to a great start. And this year’s theme, dinosaurs, is a hit. Especially with children. They’re crazy about bricks!”
It is clear that the youngest have a hard time tearing themselves away from the dioramas and other paintings that the approximately 50 exhibitors present reveal. Ionis Sigalas, a 45-year-old from Var, is one of the handful of new enthusiasts of this edition to deliver his creations. Alongside a scene taking place in space, he presents his universe taken from “Ninjago”, “quite popular with children because the animated series has been running for a long time”. Among the official structures of the brand, “modified to enhance them”he created “a temple” and, using a thousand pieces, “a torii inspired by a traditional gate that actually exists in Japan”. His work, attacked in 2018, is constantly evolving; it evolves to the rhythm of the seasons of “Ninjago”. As for knowing the number of pieces used to achieve what he revealed there, at the foot of the Cévennes, over two days, that’s enough to make the forty-year-old think. “Between 40,000 and 50,000”he whispers. “It’s going up very quickly!”
“I played there too when I was little,” says the father of an exhibitor
Ionis Sigalas is one of those people who played Lego® as a child, before returning to it as an adult. First to recover those from the “Espace” series that he had not had in his childhood, then, when it turned out to be complete, because he was “seduced by the quality” new productions from the brand. A few meters from him, Axel Mezade, aged 25 and originally from Montpellier, is a regular at this exhibition and has never stopped fiddling with small colored bricks. “I played there too when I was little”smiles his father, while his son, a follower for 3 or 4 years, puts back the tree that someone has just accidentally uprooted with his coat.
-The crowd of a mini-concert to discover
In a few minutes his creation becomes complete again. “I imagined it all!”declares Axel Mezade, presenting his concert: an animated stage with a giant screen broadcasting real videos, stands, a multitude of characters, etc. He has already presented this work at Saint-Privat-des-Vieux, but it was “remade from A to Z by enlarging it, adding lights, the backstage and a lot of crowd”.
The Héraultais has been working on this concert since 2012. The idea of building it came to him, “small, doing concerts with (son) uncle who is a DJ”. On the other hand, there is no point in asking him which group is performing on this miniature stage. “He doesn’t have a name!”s’amuse Axel Mezade. “Everyone imagines what they want…” Like the other exhibitors, they have imagined many decorations, worn by “Star Wars”, Ferrari cars, “Ghostbusters”, etc.
