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Bricklink's AFOL Designer Program 2021


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A Report by and on the site "Brick Fanatics" Talks of launching failed Ideas sets through BrickLink or an ADP second wave. Sounds like a survey going.  Didn't yet read too much into it. Sounds interesting to me for sure though.

I’m sure we’ve all had Ideas sets that we’d like to see, but they haven’t been selected.

It’s an interesting idea, but I’d guess if they did that they’d have to limit it to non-licensed products.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Round 2 will apparently happen in some fashion, that'll be fun to see and will drive a lot of discussion.  My wife still has her city bike stand from the first round but I sold my castle for about $400.  I need to go see what prices have been doing. 

https://www.stonewars.de/news/bricklink-afol-designer-program-neuauflage/

Edited by MusiKyle
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  • 2 weeks later...

Time to revive this thread or start a new one? AFOL Designer Program 2021

https://ideas.lego.com/blogs/a4ae09b6-0d4c-4307-9da8-3ee9f3d368d6/post/2061fe50-2b3b-41f4-ba7d-3f382a6c5bd3

Realizing more LEGO Ideas designs together with the BrickLink Designer Program

Dear LEGO Ideas members,

As you know, LEGO Ideas has historically produced 4-5 new LEGO sets each year based on creative fan concepts that have reached the 10,000-supporter milestone. We love the fact that we are able to offer this opportunity to passionate LEGO fans around the world. However, we must acknowledge that many fan creators and the supporters of these projects have been left hoping their favourite contenders would be available to purchase.

Today we are excited to announce a pilot project in collaboration with BrickLink Designer Program, through which we aim to realize more of these fan projects that have reached 10,000 supporters.


BrickLink Designer Program

Back in 2018, BrickLink launched a pilot program with the LEGO Group to celebrate 60 years of the LEGO® brick and help realize unique fan designs with original themes. Thirteen fan designs were successfully crowdfunded through the pilot, and we have received many questions about its potential its return since then. Would there be a second iteration? If so, when? You will not have to wait much longer because we can happily reveal that the Designer Program will make its return in 2021.


Why a collaboration with BrickLink?

For a long time, we have read feedback and experienced the disappointment from both fan creators and their project’s supporters. While we can only produce so many official LEGO Ideas, we longed to find an alternative way see more of these amazing fan designs come to life.

BrickLink’s successful AFOL Designer Program pilot indicated that there was an interest among fans to help bring fan creations to life in a different way; making them the perfect partner to test the desire for this among LEGO Ideas 10K Club creations and their supporters.

A recent survey of the BrickLink community also indicated their strong approval in seeing these 10K Club creations come to life through the Designer Program.

native

Above: Percentage of approval or disapproval of realizing LEGO Ideas projects not produced

 

Who will be invited?
Select designers whose project(s) acquired 10,000 votes on LEGO Ideas, but were not approved for production, will be invited to participate in this Designer Program. That’s right, we’ll be digging into the LEGO Ideas archives for this pilot. Unfortunately, IP-based designs will not be eligible for the Designer Program, in addition to a few other projects that we know we unfortunately can’t realize. The LEGO Ideas team will first contact the designers from January, and then the BrickLink team will proceed with the onboarding process for participating designers.


What will happen to the original AFOL Designer Program?
The BrickLink team understands that there are some AFOL designers and fans who anticipated a new intake of original projects. The team’s intention is to host annual Designer Programs that best reflect voices of the AFOL communities. Depending on preferences, BrickLink may return to the original format of the open contest in 2022. But rest assured, that no matter how designs are submitted to the program, the goal is to continue to celebrate fan creativity by realizing your dream sets through crowdfunding.


When can I get more information?
The official program title and detailed timeline have yet to be confirmed, but you can expect to get more information in early 2021. At the same time, we will also unveil all participating designers and their projects.

 

We’re greatly looking forward to going on this (long-awaited) journey with you all. Stay tuned for more info.

  • bricklink
  • bricklink designer program
 

 
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As tl;dr:

  • The 2019 version of the program won't be back this year; maybe in 2022
  • LEGO Ideas submissions that were not selected for production is the aim of the 2021 program
  • Ideas submissions that are tied to a licensed IP will NOT be eligible
  • Select other Ideas submissions will not be eligible
  • LEGO will begin reaching out to those qualified Ideas submitters at the start of the year

Personal notes:

I think LEGO has seen the Chinese knock offs produce these sets, and see there's money to be made.
Someone will probably go through the old submissions, and start getting some ideas (no pun intended) about what potential submissions might get made through this program.

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  • 3 months later...

https://www.bricklink.com/r3/designer-program/introducing.page

Screen Shot 2021-03-17 at 9.02.12 PM.png

Three phases:

  1. Preproduction (Today until May 31)
  2. Crowd Funding (Jun 1 to August 10)
  3. Production (Sept to TBD)

 

  • 31 selected Ideas projects that made 10,000 supporters, but did not get selected to become an Ideas set.
  • This program will realize up to the first 13 projects that are successfully crowdfunded by the fans. Each designer set is a limited edition, and the quantity produced will be up to 5,000.
  • A minimum of 3,000 pre-orders need to be received during the crowdfunding period in order to realize a project
  • We aim to ship the first batch in November
  • Only 30 countries will be shipped to (so at least some limited availability)
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This is gonna be expensive for me considering that are quite a few sets that I like.

Given the limited quantities it might be a good investment as well, the countries are limited to places where there is Lego SAH so there will be further demand from the rest of the world. I'm still holding on to two sets of the Lowenstein Castle, lowest price on bricklink is 728 now. I think that's the only set which is a multi-bagger.

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So many great ones.

I did notice in the FAQ's that there will be no printed instructions, which is not good. They went all out on the previous sets (I couldn't see how they even made a profit last time). It will be unfortunate if they skimp out on the high quality collectability aspects for the sets.

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12 minutes ago, House Schubert said:

With the weight of Lego behind the marketing this time, it is hard to imagine that all of the good ones don’t sell out in the preorder... question is, what will be the buy limit. 

Is there evidence that the sets will be that limited? My impression is they might be made to order since they describe them as being "crowdfunded." 

I'm definitely in for the Lego modular, Bionicle and a maybe on the train station and Mediterranean. If the pricing is decent, I will definitely buy more. 

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Hard to get to excited about the chosen submissions since lego designers have yet to get their mitts on them yet.  But these all look great.

The lego store modular has potential for best investment purposes.  What Modular collector wouldn't want a Lego store in their town?

Will be interesting to see if the Fishing Store will see another uptick in price with the inclusion of dive shop, boathouse diner and boat repair.  Might be time to actually sell my last copy. 

The Castle, chalet and ruined house are my personal favs. 

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3 minutes ago, raindroplet said:

Is there evidence that the sets will be that limited? My impression is they might be made to order since they describe them as being "crowdfunded." 

I'm definitely in for the Lego modular, Bionicle and a maybe on the train station and Mediterranean. If the pricing is decent, I will definitely buy more. 

Think it says only 5000. 

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Quote

No, the building instructions will be available in a digital form and only the set owners will have access to those digital building instructions. BrickLink and LEGO team are working hard to deliver the most enjoyable and interactive building experience on your mobile devices.

How they lock this down will really effect resaleability. Will they lock the instruction manual access to your Bricklink account? Could it be locked to a phone app?

It's just a lot of random blocks if you can't provide a manual to your buyer.

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31 minutes ago, KShine said:

So many great ones.

I did notice in the FAQ's that there will be no printed instructions, which is not good. They went all out on the previous sets (I couldn't see how they even made a profit last time). It will be unfortunate if they skimp out on the high quality collectability aspects for the sets.

That's the part I don't like the most, digital instructions have gotten better but I prefer the paper copy. The color can be really crappy on the digital versions.

13 minutes ago, raindroplet said:

You're right, just checked the faq. This is going to be an utter bloodbath then. 

It would have been better if they restricted it to 3 (or a slightly larger number) like the previous time, that will slow down those buying big quantities. 

4 minutes ago, brickvoyeur said:

 

How they lock this down will really effect resaleability. Will they lock the instruction manual access to your Bricklink account? Could it be locked to a phone app?

It's just a lot of random blocks if you can't provide a manual to your buyer.

I cant imagine them building an app and you have to sign in just for this but we'll see. Although it would be pretty dumb if they simply allow the owner to download the pdf.

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5 minutes ago, KShine said:

The unlimited quantities per buyer isn't good at all (don't see why they would see that plan through).

So many of these could/would be sold out quick (to very few buyers) - which isn't the intention.

Apparently the digital instructions would be made available to the buyer, it is not clear if only the buyer can use it and not if it's sold to someone else. Someone could create lots of dummy accounts for resale I guess but it's a lot of work.

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18 minutes ago, coelian said:

Lego does not touch them, the designers are given certain parameters to work with to stay within spec like 5000pcs and only parts in production.

Did you read this somewhere from the announcement? It sounds like the verbiage used from the last AFOL designer program. Those ideas all followed the guidelines to begin with.

All of these images were models submitted to the ideas platform before the conception of this program.    I have a feeling these will get some alters one way or another.  If not, I will be pleasantly surprised.

 

The instruction part maybe driven by sustainability practices??

Edited by BricksBrotha
typo
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15 minutes ago, KShine said:

The unlimited quantities per buyer isn't good at all (don't see why they would see that plan through).

So many of these could/would be sold out quick (to very few buyers) - which isn't the intention.

I'm guessing they don't want to send out an email to sellers with the subject line "AFOL Designer Program Wholesale Opportunity" this time.

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