A Brick on the Side – 1

Welcome to a new feature on the website, A Brick on the Side. All being well this will be a monthly feature covering a multitude of LEGO related topics, including set reviews, news and exhibitions features, plus much more. Many thanks to member Lisa Mather for offering to be our first columnist! So without ado it’s over to Lisa…

Rochdale Riverside Event 11th February 2023 – by Lisa Mather

Northern brickwork’s first show of the year created a storm in the town centre of Rochdale. Working in conjunction with Rochdale BID.

Roberts Rochdale Town Hall
Fiona’s Medieval Market

The 12 fantastic displays drew the crowd they had well over 1000 members of the public through the doors, with our very own Judi Kraska as a security guard and attendee counter on door greeting everyone with a smile.

After queuing for 25 minutes we enter the shop to find a great array of colours and displays from Dave’s Sonic the hedgehog with sonic on the run, Jim’s vintage space which I have to say was immaculate for its age, Ian brought the Wow factor with his 50cm Pikachu and 60cm Charmander making it a great eye-catching display,  Mark and Judi’s smaller funfair, which instantly gives you the nostalgic feeling of years gone by, to Ken’s motorized trucks and his Saturn five Rocket and crawler system, Margaret brought the moon to life with the Apollo 11 Moon Lander and an array of rockets, Thomas brought the future with his speeder dinner, Chris brought the Avengers causing mayhem in the city, Fiona brought the colour with a medieval market, Robert brought the elegance with his Rochdale Town Hall, Now You rarely see a display that is still in its work in progress stage but Rochdale had just that with Matt Fonzie’s epic medieval Valley build.

Ian’s large scale figures

This was a great little event but this needs to be bigger next year, a bigger venue for sure. After talking to some of those in the Queue after we had walked around, we found that their children were lego fanatics and wanted to come no matter how long the Queue was.
This was a free-to-enter event and Rochdale BID and Northern Brickworks brought the lego to town. 

Margeret’s Space Display
Chris’s Avengers Street
Jim’s Classic Space
Thomas’s Space Cruisers
David’s Sonic Display
Ken’s Technic Display