LEGO / Retail Experiential / Star Wars Celebration

How do you grab Star Wars fans attention at the Star Wars Celebration during the busy Easter Bank Holiday weekend at the Excel Centre London when every other brand there is trying to do exactly the same thing?

With a stand full of one-off, bespoke photo opportunities, amazing LEGO model displays, exclusive access to talks by LEGO designers about newly released Star Wars sets, a retail store featuring exclusive releases, an amazing Platinum R2D2 prize giveaway and much, much more,

Visibility

In order to let everyone at the packed Excel centre know that LEGO was at Star Wars Celebration this year, we had a giant 2.5m LEGO brick suspended directly above the stand that was visible from almost anywhere in the giant hall.

The Emperor’s Throne Room

The LEGO Star Wars sets being launched over the weekend were diaromas of The Emperor’s Throne Room and Endor Speeder Chase to help celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the release of Return Of The Jedi. So, we created a huge, bespoke photo opportunity featuring a 4ft high, LEGO minifigure, Emperor replica sat on his throne with the Death Star window recreated behind him. Visitors were given a red and blue lightsaber and tasked with recreating the famous showdown between Luke Skywalker and his father Darth Vader under the watchful eyes of the evil Emperor.

Darth Vader Big Brick Build

We also had a lifesize brick build of Darth Vader himself, seen here with, erm… Darth Vader! FUN FACT: For this we had to retouch the actual Darth Vader out of a scene from The Empire Strikes Back to create the background for our brick build Darth Vader to be able to take his place.

Display Wall

We created a large display wall with perspex cases on plinths anlong it and in front of it to showcase the huge range of LEGO Star Wars sets, from the original trilogy all the way up to new Disney+ shows such as The Mandalorian and Ahsoka. The star of the show was a theatrical display of the new Ultimate Collector Series X Wing model surrounded by screens that placed it in different environments, such as lightspeed and the ice planet of Hoth.

Display Plinths

We also had plinths displaying models around the rest of the space including LEGO models of the newly released Return Of The Jedi 40th Anniversary dioramas, beloved characters such as Grogu and iconic spaceships such as the Milllenium Falcon.

The Stage

We created a stage area based on the interior of the Millenium Falcon with a presentation area and huge digital screen where we hosted meet and greets and Q&As with LEGO designers, speed build challenges and more across all four days of the event.

Retail Store

Of course, we also had the LEGO Star Wars retail store that utilised the Death Star light pannelling motif as die cut holes for fans to be able to see through into the space. Over the four days of the event the store sold out of stock completely, meaning that it sold the equivalent of a combined weeks trade from 4 LEGO stores!

Graffiti Wall

We also had a graffiti walls where guests could contribute to two giant murals built over the duration of the event by hundreds of participants. Those looking to get involved were given an 8x8 base plate and a section of the mural to replicate using LEGO DOTS.

Build Table

In addition to all of this we included a build table full of LEGO Star Wars pieces for kids and adults alike to let their imaginations run rife with.

Digital Content

Finally, for the screens around the space we created a looping video made up of promotional content for the sets interspersed with stage times for the day in question on each day and highlighting the various competitions and offers available from the retail store.

Role: Creative Director

Agency: The Producers

Producers: Robbie Mathieson and Natasha Jaworski

Lead Designer: Alex Walden

Additional Designer and Artworker: Mark Thornicroft