This weekend, LEGO Live will come to NYC for the very first time. Kids eager to explore a LEGO world will surely be overwhelmed at the multitude of activities crowded into the expansive Pier 36. Walking through the space, you’ll see multiple life-size LEGO sculptures of everything from a light-up Corvette to Luke Skywalker, created by LEGO Master Builder Chris Steininger.
“Asking me to pick my favorite piece is like asking me to pick my favorite child,” Steininger says. He and the five other LEGO Master Builders (there are only six people known as such in the entire world!) build around 25 to 50 large scale models every year. “I’ve worked on everything, from life scale models of the city of Rio for the Olympics a couple years back, to Luke [Skywalker] here, to Delta [the dinosaur from Jurassic Park], and obviously Cinderella’s shoe,” Steininger says.
All the pieces he mentioned will be on display: Cinderella’s shoe is made of around 15,000 LEGOs, and Luke Skywalker took around 250 hours to build. The show will also include classic building challenges for kids, opportunities for them to program a multifunctional model using coding and robotics, and a chance to meet master builder Steininger on the main stage. He’ll share building tips, watch competitions, and participate in Q&A sessions.
Steininger knows that to a degree that he’s an adult with a kid’s job, and loves that he gets to play for work. He also has some advice for kids who might want to grow up and be LEGO Master Builders themselves one day (although there isn’t just one path to the job).
“Normally adults that have this job have art backgrounds,” Steininger says. “Everything we do, we design on a computer first and then bring it into our software that actually turns it into a LEGO model.” Any kid who wants to be a LEGO Master Builder, he says, should study art of some sort or discipline—he himself did woodworking previously.
LEGO Live offers collaborative, interactive experiences, from a LEGO pit where kids can play to a shared cityscape building zone that challenges problem-solving skills and relies upon cooperation.
LEGO Live will be in NYC from February 16-18. To learn more, visit liveevent.lego.com!
