Animal Wonders from Bricklive at the ICC Wales, Newport, February 14-17

Thanks to ICC Wales for inviting us to review Bricklive Animal Wonders

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my, as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz would say. Except these lions and tigers and bears – not to mention a giraffe, a rhino, an orangutan, a kangaroo, killer whale, octopus and more – are all impressively made from plastic mini bricks.

Bricklive’s Animal Wonders opened at the International Convention Centre (ICC) Wales today and runs until Saturday, allowing visitors to come face to face with lifesize replicas of some of the world’s most incredible creatures from land and sea, all made from Lego.

We headed along this morning to be among the first visitors as it opened the doors, with highlights for us including an elephant made from 149,071 bricks standing at 2m tall and 3m long, and weighing an incredible 1088kg, a ferocious-looking Bengal Tiger standing on its hind legs, an orangutan scratching its head, a rhino and an African lion, both of which took around 400 hours to build, plus a killer whale, octopus and more.

Each animal is accompanied by an information panel with facts about the creature, as well as detailing how many bricks its made from, how long it took and how many builders were involved. The brown bear and its baby consists of 86,668 bricks and took 6 builders 382 hours, weighing in at 320kg, for example.

As well as the sculptures there are plenty of extra activities included in entry. My children enjoyed signing their names with Lego on the graffiti wall as well as making their own cars and racing them in the dedicated race zone.

There are several themed build zones around the room where you can create your own Lego masterpieces, including areas dedicated to Lego Ninjago, Lego Friends, Lego Minecraft, Duplo, Architecture and more.

We were there for more than two hours as we had another commitment in the afternoon, but you could easily stay for a lot longer and make the most of the build areas – if we hadn’t had other plans I think we could easily have stayed for four or five hours due to all the different build and play zones.

Entry costs £19 for adults, £13.50 children, £54 for a family, with under 2s free. An extra £5 per child will get you 20 minutes on the inflatable obstacle course. Or you can book a VIP ticket which will not only include time on the inflatables but also includes a VIP lanyard, an event guide and savager hunt, a voucher for a tub of ice cream, and a Brick Adventure water bottle, which can be filled at the water stations around the venue. There’s also a ‘return’ offer to come back another day for £12 for adults, £8 for children and £36 for a family.

In the exhibition site itself there’s a cafe serving hot dogs, pasta, jacket potatoes, hot drinks and more. Or you can book into one of the Celtic Manor’s many restaurants (Bricklive guests can save 15% on lunch dining reservations at the nearby The Grill and Rafters restaurants on selected dates – see website for details). 

Plus if you can’t make this event, Bricklive will be back at the ICC in October half term, 26-29 October with Brickosaurus Evolution, filled with brick dinosaurs .

Bricklive Animal Wonders is at ICC Wales, Coldra Woods, Newport, NP18 1HQ from Wednesday 14-Saturday 17 February, 10am-6pm. For more information, visit the website here.

Tickets cost £19 for adults, £13.50 for children, under 2s free, and a family £54, 20 minute inflatable sessions £5 per child.

There’s also a ‘return’ offer to come back another day for £12 for adults, £8 for children and £36 for a family.

VIP tickets cost £23.50 per child or £74 for a family, and includes VIP lanyard, event guide and savager hunt, voucher for a tub of ice cream, activity session on the inflatables, Brick Adventure water bottle (can be filled at water station inside room).

Book car parking in advance for £6 special rate