Bricktastic, February 2025

Hi, my name is Daniel, and I am an AFOL. For the non-Lego nerds, that’s an Adult Fan of Lego. So, naturally I have no money as its all spent on theme park trips or little multicoloured plastic bricks to bolster my ever-growing Lego collection. So, when we spotted tickets were on sale for Bricktastic 2025 we just had to book.

FYI, it’s not just me that’s Lego mad in this house, the kids are too, and Jo is a bit of a reluctant Lego fan.

Bricktastic is a Lego lovers convention, where the biggest and best Lego builders gather to show off their custom builds and creations to the general public. It is an annual event, held every February at Manchester Central Convention Complex, with proceeds going to Fairy Bricks, a Lego based charity that aims to provide Lego gifts to children in hospitals around the world.

It’s a 2-day event, taking place on a Saturday and Sunday, with tickets priced from £15 per person and under 4s free (you still need to get a ticket though). Children also get a free gift on entry (which isn’t fair, because I paid!) of a small polybag set. This time it was a choice between Animal Crossing and Sonic the Hedgehog. There may have been others available, but that’s what the kids picked.

Entry to Bricktastic is done in time slots, which start from 9am, which is also ‘quiet time’ for that first hour, and it did get very busy on the Saturday we were there.

As the event is smack-bang in the middle of Manchester city centre, you’re paying a premium for parking too, so worth shopping around for the best option if you don’t mind walking to the venue. We parked in the arena car park and were at the event all day, so parking cost us £34!!! Yes, that is not a typo, thirty four pounds to park the car. Shocked was an understatement.

Queue up, scan ticket, pick up your free gift and head on into the first area at the foyer. Some giant character models, some great mosaics and art builds, a massive beachfront city layout, a massive train station set up, an array of various novelty castle builds, and a Lego play pit for the kids. And we weren’t even in the main room!

Wow. If you ‘ve ever been to Manchester Central before you’ll know just how massive it is inside and it was pretty much end-to-end Lego. Table upon table of exhibitors showing their creations, some enormous MOC builds, play areas, some stalls, a fantastic sale shop, competition areas, giant mosaics and a small cafeteria area.

There were so many amazing and different builds to see that I couldn’t possibly list every one of them. Loads of nature and wildlife builds, zoos, fantastic city scenes, crazy robots, artwork, builds from popular TV and movie franchises like the Big Bang Theory, Godzilla, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, 80s cartoons like MASK and Transformers, Lego IP’s like the vintage space sets, Ninjago, castles, pirates and much, much more.

Some of the great builds were…

Fairground – This epic fairground setup was so impressive. A packed fairground of people, stalls and rides, with lots of moving parts, spinning rides, swings and it was all illuminated. Brilliant.

Castle – This castle build was massive. A giant white castle with surrounding walls and grounds, complete with attaching and defending soldiers and an amazingly detailed inner forte.

Cyber City – A monster futuristic cyber city like something out of Blade Runner. Lots of lights, moving parts and screens really made it immersive.

Ninjago – A massive Ninjago city build upon a mountainside with temples, boats and characters from the show.

Concordes – There were fantastic. A Row of different builds all based around the Concorde plane, including a guitar, pizza slice, an Airfix kit, roadrunner and more.

Space – There were loads of space themed builds, but there was one large ‘vintage’ space moon base setup with monorails and vehicles galore!

Trains – One of the more standout builds was a gigantic train layout, with several trains stations and countryside builds all linked together by an impressive suspension bridge.

Star Wars – Where to even begin. So many great Star Wars builds, large and small. Battle scenes, vehicles, a brilliant setup of scenes from the Lego Star Wars game including player details, a massive Mos Espa Podrace scene with Anakin and Sebulba racing around it, a giant Star Wars inspired spaceport with some fun easter eggs, a busy Mos Eisley spaceport with so much detail, a very touching Clone Wars scene, and our favourite: a phenomenal Endor scene with some brilliant forest scenery, AT-ATs, X-Wings and more.

Rows and rows of tables, all full of fantastically detailed and fun builds. We were there all day, and I still don’t think I saw everything.

To get involved in the day, you could find several play areas and build zones. In one corner there was a play pit full of green blocks that Elliott had fun building a tower in. Next to that were some tables sponsored by Bricks McGee for you to build and display your creations, and for your hard work, you got a certificate and a sticker, well, Elliott did. Across the room was another build and display area, with several tables of bricks and pieces next to a giant ‘scene’ table for you to add your builds to and make one giant, fun-filled scene. Evan built a great multicoloured Titanic.

In the centre of the room they had a Lego Fortnite play zone, with a screen demoing the game. They also had a make & take area where you could build a small game controller and a supply llama that you could take home.

They had a giant group build mosaic, which you could select a pattern, complete it and have it added to the build. Not sure how it looked on Sunday as it was only half way done when we left on Saturday afternoon. It was huge!

For £3 per go, you could take part in a tombola where you could either win a minifigure, a poly bag or a larger set. The tombola was in aid of the event’s charity Fairy Bricks. We had a few turns and came away with a few minifigs and I managed to get an R2-D2 polybag.

There were a few stalls around the back of the show, selling new, rare and vintage sets, minifigs, custom tiles and such, but the best shop was at the far end. As well as racks of new Lego sets, the had pallets full of some of the larger sets – US AT-AT and Millennium Falcon, Mighty Bowser, the Batwing, Home Alone house and many more, all at heavily discounted prices, and some of the sets were retired! The queue was wrapped around the event. It was insane.

They even had the Titanic set (rrp £580) for only £420! Evan has been saving his money for that set, but ya snooze ya lose, they were all gone in minutes. I hear the owner only runs this store at this event, so if you want to save your pennies and grab a bargain, get down to Bricktastic 2026 nice and early on the Saturday to do some shopping, there were some great deals to be had.

You were free to go in and out of the event, so for dining, the entire of Manchester is at your disposal. We’d brought some snacks, but they ran out quickly. Luckily, inside the venue were several kiosks selling pizza, hot dogs, drinks and snacks, located at the back of the show. They also had plenty of tables and chairs for you to sit at.

We loved Bricktastic 2025. We’re big Lego fans, but this was our first time at the event… and it wont be the last. We thought we’d only be there for half the day, so we’d planned to visit Manchester Museum on Oxford Road in the afternoon, but there was so much to see and enjoy that we were at Bricktastic for the entire day and could easily have come back on the Sunday and still see something we’d missed. Its definitely on our event calendar now!

…and speaking of future events, tickets for Bricktastic 2026 are already on sale from £15 per person, so if interested, book now as the price increases in October. The event is due to take place in Manchester Central on 21st-22nd February 2026. Visit the official Bricktastic website for details.