Sheila Brooks was first introduced to Lego bricks as a tiny kid, when she and her sister would play with the chunky Duplo blocks, but now that she's older, she has graduated to bigger sets.
Her favorite, the Winnie the Pooh set, was gifted by her mom, but she eagerly awaits the day that her wish list brimming with Star Wars, Harry Potter and other themed Lego sets can be fulfilled.
For years, Brooks, of St. Clair Shores, wanted to visit Legoland Discovery Center Michigan at Great Lakes Crossing Outlets in Auburn Hills, but it always interfered with school. When she got the chance to visit the Legoland Discovery Center for the first time on June 28, she was one of the many adults during the Discovery Center's summer Adult Night to excitedly enter through the doors and get to digging through buckets for the perfect brick.
In the 75 years after that first plastic brick was invented, Lego has evolved with the times, expanding into different markets, areas of the world, different themes, and now, a different target age range. By catering to their adult fans with complex, detailed sets that often tap into 1980s and 1990s pop culture, Lego's new market full of fans 18 and older is growing more than ever before.
'Adults Welcome'
Lego isn't totally moving away from its younger fans, but, over the last decade or so, the beloved brick-making company has gone through several initiatives to take Adult Fans of Lego, or AFOL (and yes, that is a real term), into consideration more than ever before.
Just a couple of years ago, Lego announced its "Adults Welcome" marketing campaign, which encourages grown-ups to "unplug, unbox and unwind" with intricate Lego sets designed specifically for adults.
"(Lego) still has product lines for each age range, but they definitely are leaning more into 'the kids that had Lego when they were little are really back into it now,' " said Clint Parry, the master model builder at Legoland Discovery Center at Great Lakes Crossing Outlets. "They've got their own jobs, they've got their own houses, and they want to play with Lego again, so what is the best way for us to give them a kind of the 'step up' from when they were playing with this as an 11-year-old?"
The campaign was coupled with a rebranding of the age 18-plus Lego sets, changing the packaging into dramatically refined black boxes as opposed to the attention-grabbing, sunny yellow of children's set boxes. Additionally, because they promise a premium Lego experience, many of the sets are hundreds of dollars for the amount of detail and engineering put into them.
The new black-boxed Lego sets in the "Adults Welcome" initiative fall into one of eight sections that can appeal to a wide range of older consumers: entertainment; art, design and music; travel and history; Star Wars; science and tech; vehicles; sports and games; nature and animals.
Complex Lego architecture sets — recreating the Notre-Dame de Paris, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Taj Mahal, the Statue of Liberty, a nearly 5-foot-tall version of the Eiffel Tower and more — stunned consumers, while the Lego botanical collection — consisting of roses, succulents, wildflowers, orchids and more — even drew the eyes of shoppers who don't typically play with Lego.
In the "Adults Welcome" campaign, you can build a Lego Mona Lisa, a Lego Milky Way galaxy, a 53-inch-long Lego Titanic, a Lego Concorde plane and many more things that explore the jaw-dropping possibilities of what plastic bricks can become.
One of the most impressive pieces, a Lego "Pac-Man" arcade, isn't static like other sets; in addition to a movable joystick and a light-up coin slot, the set is complete with a small hand crank that actually moves Pac-Man and the ghosts through the maze.
"That's the kind of thing that is cool for a kid to see. ... But as an adult, you appreciate how complex all of that stuff is," said Parry. "Also, it kind of brings back that nostalgia of like, 'I remember playing like the 'Pac-Man' arcade cabinets in the '80s. And now I have something to kind of remember that by."
Play to display
Lego bricks have become more than something scattered around your kid's playroom; they've become collectable pieces of decor now, too.
"(Lego does) still focus on that 'If you were to play with us, how can you?' But they also are focusing a lot more on like, 'How will this look on a shelf?' " explained Parry.
Parry says while a child might have just as much fun playing with the Lego bricks, black box sets are more often meant to be display pieces, sometimes even coming with a small placard to state information about the model. Smaller pieces might decorate a bookshelf or office cubicle, but some AFOLs go so far as to buy glass cases to show off larger Lego sets.
"It really looks almost like a museum display piece, like you're building your own curated collection of all of your favorite things," said Parry.
Engaging with AFOLs
While Lego has created apps and worked on other things to engage with the tablet generation, they've also done more to engage with people in the AFOL community.
The company has created a blog to share adult-oriented content: tours and "behind the scenes" looks at some new or bestselling sets, tips and advice on Lego-related matters, lists rating some of its favorite themed sets, even a "green noise" ASMR playlist for each set in the insect collection to listen to while you build.
They also developed Lego Ideas for fans to submit concepts they come up with that can possibly turn into or inspire an actual Lego set.
"You can do the design work, or you build a Lego prototype out of your own loose pieces at home, and then Lego goes through a vetting process and votes to determine which sets actually get turned into real retail Lego kits," explained Parry. While Lego Ideas allows for more fan involvement, it also lets Lego see what people are building for fun and what new things they're interested in; for example, the Ghostbusters and Back to the Future sets were a result of Lego Ideas, according to Parry.
Additionally, the creations dreamed up in Lego Ideas also indicates fans' ages, and in turn, what other things fans might like to see translated from pop culture references into Lego sets.
"I think that a lot of it is targeted toward sort of late Gen X and millennials ... hitting the sweet spot of the '80s and '90s. Like, what kind of stuff did these kids grow up with?" said Parry. "Lego's first licensed sets came out in 1999 with Star Wars, so if you grew up in the '80s and '90s, we didn't have Star Wars sets. We didn't have Batman, we didn't have Ghostbusters Lego. So now they're kind of like, 'Hey, we didn't have these when you were a kid, but you probably still would like to play with some Lego Ghostbusters now.'
"It's really hitting on that nostalgia, and then it's also like making up for the stuff that they didn't have when you were a kid, so now you can get it and they'll make it bigger and premium, and it'll cost more because you can afford it," he said.
Adult Nights at Legoland Discovery Centers
Unlike the Legoland theme parks in Florida and California, North America's 15 Legoland Discovery Centers are more of Lego playgrounds focused on creative play over their couple of rides. There's just one problem for some AFOLs: adults can't visit Legoland Discovery Centers without a child 17 years old or younger.
To make up for the child requirement policy, the Discovery Centers host at least one themed Adult Night a season, using the same kid attractions but adding adult-oriented activities and competitions that can earn attendees raffle tickets for Lego sets and merchandise.
On June 28, the Legoland Discovery Center Michigan's summer Adult Night was board game-themed, so Parry built a Lego chess set, Tetris, Connect 4 and more for attendees to play with in between other activities.
Some attendees spent months or even years waiting for an adult night that lined up with their schedule after discovering the Discovery Center's typical child requirement, but despite the commonality, Lego means something different to all of them.
Jack Guevera, Arlo Robles and Raniel Pamatmat, graduate students at Michigan State University, drove out from East Lansing for a Lego experience that they'd never had. The three grew up in the Philippines, where Lego sets are more expensive and harder to get ahold of. The Adult Night was the first time the three were able to truly immerse themselves in Lego, and they loved it.
For Kourtni Miller and Nathan Miller, of Waterford, building with Lego is a form of creativity, although while painter and graphic designer Kourtni sees the bricks as just another art medium, cybersecurity major Nathan sees the constructions as 4D puzzles that require creative solutions.
For Reina Kehoe, of Detroit, building with Lego bricks is a better, more productive and now addicting way to spend her free time, instead of scrolling through social media for hours on end. Plus, the Harry Potter-themed sets are great for decorating her bookshelves.
Brooks said being able to sit down, block out the world and zone into a Lego set is therapeutic. But, she added, the sets she picks go even further as a symbol of her personality, used to represent her in the corners of her home when each set is completed and moved to its display area.
But AFOL or not, they all agree that the little bricks are plastic pieces of nostalgia, perfect for bringing their inner child back to life.
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