I was going to write this post in a different tone, coming from a place of anger and disappointment. But an event occurred in which I cannot in good faith cast LEGO in a bad light as was my intention. So I write this as objectively as possible and you can be the judge and come to your own conclusions. Plus, since so much time has passed by since Comic Con, I’ve calmed just a tad.
The pin distribution seemed like it was going fairly smooth. Each day there was a pin to be had: if I remember correctly the order was Thursday Star Wars, Friday Captain America, Saturday Sonic, and Sunday was supposed to be the Brickbuster pin. The instructions for the first few days were the same: take a picture with the LEGO statue, post it to social media, and then get a pin. Depending on who you talked to, sometimes you can just show the picture without having to post it anywhere. There were plenty of pins to go around the first three days. In fact, there was enough to pass out the Star Wars and Captain America pins on the later days if you weren’t able to get them first go around.
Sunday’s pin, however, seemed to be in extreme short supply. There was no such post-a-photo-to-social-media opportunity. When asked, I was slyly given a pin and was told there wasn’t enough. I don’t know how true that is. I find it a little hard to believe that given the amount of time and planning that goes into the booth experience, that LEGO would be short supply of one day’s particular pin.
Shit happens though and it could be that their supplier really did have a mishap when it came to fulfilling the pin order. Or there was some alternative way to get the pin that they were not divulging to booth regulars such as myself.
It could be that the lady who gave it to me recognized me from my multiple trips to the booth to acquire the pins from the previous three days and she was giving me a pin to shut me up and make me go away. Well it kinda worked but not because I got the hint, but only because this was Sunday and I had a checklist of things to do before leaving the con. I wanted to hit the road well before the close of Comic Con to try and mitigate freeway congestion as much as possible.
At the end I got my four-pin set but feel badly for anyone else expecting to get the last pin the same way but wasn’t able to. And I’m fairly certain that LEGO didn’t make any public announcement through their social media channels on how to acquire it either. So as far as I can tell, that Brickbuster pin was the hardest one to get. Again, I kind of wonder what happened behind the scenes on that one. I find it hard to believe that with all the time and planning, the Brickbuster pin ended up being a failure. Maybe they were stolen. Maybe they were reserved for kids only on Comic Con’s unoffiicial kid day, Sunday. They’ve been known to do that before. I guess at the end of the day what I’m trying to say is a little more transparency would have been nice. They don’t owe that to anyone though, especially not to me. Again, they helped me out in a jam so if anything I owe them one.
Totally unrelated, but I accidentally included this picture of a trash can in the Gaslamp dressed up as everyone’s favorite R2 unit.
P.S. As much promo as LEGO does on Instagram, I think that would be the perfect platform to post their giveaway details.
