There was no mortar needed to bind the thousands of bricks at the Wagga Brick show held this weekend, but the little plastic pieces did more than enough to bond local Lego lovers of all ages who turned out to see the wild and colourful displays.
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The Brick show brought to life crazy creations from Star Wars models, to a huge detailed cityscape and even a massive portrait of Harry Potter at the Wagga RSL, the second time the event has been held in Wagga, the first since the pandemic.
Local Lego aficionados Dwayne Sibraa and his nephew Cruiz Hale spent their Saturday inspecting and discussing the various displays before buying some vintage Star Wars Lego sets.
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Lego has been a life-long passion for Mr Sibraa, 29, one he has now passed on to his young nephew.
"Mum got me my first set when I was four," he said. "I've still got the figurine at home in my display case. It came with an Native Indian-American man, and a teepee set with a horse and cute little trees."
"Then she got me Harry Potter stuff as I was growing up and then I got into Star Wars as my nephews came along, now we're all into it."
Cruiz, 11, has been into Lego since he was seven years old, he said, and he's big into building Star Wars sets.
He said that he loves the building aspect of Lego and has 15 displays setup at home, his favourite is Thanos' gauntlet from the marvel Avengers movies.
The colourful building blocks are a key part of many a childhood, but Lego hasn't always remained popular.
Between 1932 and 1998, Lego had never posted a loss, but by 2003 sales were down 30 per cent year-on-year and the company was $800m in debt, as reported by The Guardian.
Recent animated Lego franchise movies and numerous brick building reality TV shows have helped lead its resurgence and now Lego is well and truly back and appealing to a new generation.
By 2015, sales topped $1bn for the first time and in 2016 alone they sold 75bn bricks.
But another reason for LEGO's resurgent popularity is its ability to link multiple generations of brick builders.
Brick Show event organiser Graham Draper said everyone has an association with Lego.
"Dad's will bring their kids along and say 'oh I had that as a kid'. It relates to everybody and it's a connection to your childhood. And you have that relationship with your own kid," he said.
Mr Draper had kits as a kid, but as time passed he fell out of love with the hobby, until seven years ago his wife bought him some Lego and he never looked back. He now shares the Lego building bug with his young lad.
"I really love being able to have that connection with my son ... we've got dedicated Lego rooms at home," he said.
For Dwayne, Lego has been a mainstay throughout his life, he loves the creativity that comes with building creations from a mere "bag of plastic".
And the added bonus is he now shares his favourite hobby with his nephew.
"It brings everyone together. Me and Cruiz today have spent ages looking at things in all of these builds and pointing them out to each other, it brings bonding too," he said.
"There's a lot of things I love about Lego."
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