Ad disclosure: we were invited along to the preview event for the purpose of this blog post.
Yesterday evening we headed into the city centre to check out the brand new LEGO store in the Bullring shopping centre. We had been invited to a special preview event, and all of us really enjoyed getting a sneak peek at the brand new store and, of course, building some lego.
The new LEGO store, situated on the Upper West side of the shopping centre (next to the entrance by the Bull), opened to the public this morning, and will be having a Grand Opening event next month to celebrate, when visitors to the store will be able to grab some great freebies with their purchases.
Taking place between 12th – 15th December, the first 500 people in store every day will receive a free “I LOVE LEGO Store Birmingham” tile. Those spending over £100 will receive a mini LEGO Gingerbread House set, and with purchases over £125, customers will receive an exclusive LEGO Store set that is only available during store opening events.
As well as the in store promotions, the LEGO Hidden Side bus will be in Birmingham during the grand opening event, and visitors will be able to catch some ghosts aboard the ghost-hunting school bus. Participants will walk away with a certificate and ghost mask.
The girls really enjoyed exploring the store and seeing all of their favourite ranges of LEGO on display. We all got stuck in building Christmas decorations for the Build to Give campaign, investigating the bricks on offer in the Pick & Build wall, where you can buy pick & mix LEGO by the tub full, and creating some weird and wonderful custom minifigs.
Part of an ongoing expansion, this is LEGO’s 16th store in the UK, and the first to feature state of the art dynamic lighting to enhance the visitor experience. Outside the store, a LEGO minifigure hand scanner will let customers discover which minifigures they are before they head in, and there are plenty of fun in-store play experiences to enjoy once you’re inside.
Unlike the LEGO gift shop at the Legoland Discovery Centre, which is run by Merlin, this store will allow shoppers to enjoy all of the LEGO VIP exclusives and in store only events that you can only find at official LEGO stores. This means there will be free monthly events where children can come along and build a LEGO model to take home with them.
We got a sneak peek at how these Make & Take Mini Build events work, building a very special & exclusive Birmingham Bull to take home with us. Keep an eye on the Store Calendar which you can download from the LEGO stores webpage each month to find out what is going on in store.
They also have an official LEGO passport stamp – the girls were over the moon to get the first stamps of the store in their passports! If you have LEGO mad kids like ours, LEGO passports are a great freebie that you pick up in store, and then get stamped whenever you visit new stores or take part in an in store event. Our girls have various stamps in their passports including the LEGO House, Copenhagen, Paris, and now finally their home town Birmingham.
Brick Specialists are on hand in the store to help you choose the perfect set for you or someone you are buying for, and the store even has a fancy Digital Box screen which can scan any set and show you a 3D model of the completed build, allowing you to preview before you buy.
It’s definitely worth checking out the new store while you’re in town, and mark down the Grand Opening event in your calendar now! I know we’ll be back… probably more often than is healthy for our bank balance, judging by how many sets the girls were exclaiming over yesterday.
