There has been a great deal of disappointment from LEGO fans due to the increasing number of exclusives that are only available in certain regions, or from specific retailers. Some recent examples include the LEGO Bricktober Minifig Packs, The LEGO Movie 2 BrickHeadz sets, the LEGO Chinese New Year sets, and the LEGO Star Wars Darth Vader Bust. LEGO fans were quite vocal and took the time to share their opinion with LEGO via social media, LEGO’s customer service, and through the LEGO Ambassador Forum. The LEGO Group took the feedback to heart and made the following statement which you can read below.
Dear AFOL (Adult-Fan-Of-LEGO) Community,
It has become apparent to us at the LEGO Group that you are dissatisfied with the recent launches of regional exclusive products. We’ve received a lot of feedback on the LEGO festival products to mark the Chinese New Year (sets #80101 LEGO Chinese New Year’s Eve Dinner and #80102 LEGO Chinese New Year Dragon Dance), The LEGO Movie 2 BrickHeadz sets (#41634 LEGO BrickHeadz Emmet, #41635 LEGO BrickHeadz Wyldstyle, #41636 LEGO BrickHeadz Benny, and #41637 LEGO BrickHeadz Sweet Mayhem) in the US, as well as the #75227 LEGO Star Wars 20th Anniversary Darth Vader Bust. Because of this feedback and concerns from you, our dedicated and most loyal fans, we have decided that regional exclusives launched after May 1, 2019 will become widely available via LEGO brand retail stores and the Online LEGO Shop after a limited period of time (3-6 months) of the initial launch. In the following areas, we will still be launching products, which will have a certain limitation to availability and production runs:
- Pilot projects, such as LEGO FORMA, to check out markets and opportunities without being able to make them widely available.
- Gift with purchase campaigns through the Online LEGO Shop and LEGO brand retail.
- Products only sold in certain experiences (for example LEGOLAND, the LEGO House, and LEGO brand retail stores).
- Special event sets (Comic Cons, LEGO Inside Tour).
This is certainly excellent news for LEGO fans and greatly appreciated by the community. It will greatly reduce the anxiety for LEGO fans and collectors who would like to get a particular set. It will also reduce resellers taking advantage of people by selling exclusives with greatly increased prices.
Unfortunately, the May 1st date means that we are going to miss out on the third LEGO Chinese New Year set, the #80103 LEGO Chinese New Year Boat Race. While the first two sets in the series were released earlier this year, this set was scheduled for May 1st. It’s too bad as the whole collection is fantastic with unique minifigures, printed pieces, and really nice designs. But it’s understandable, as the production numbers for these sets were already finalized. The good thing is that even though missing out on these particular sets is a disappointment, with the new policy in place, we shouldn’t be running into issues like this in the future.
What do you think? How do you like the changes for the various LEGO exclusives? Were you able to get any of the recent ones we mentioned above? Feel free to share your thoughts and own experiences with LEGO exclusives in the comment section below!
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This is one thing I really do appreciate about Lego as a company is that they listen to their customers and make efforts and concessions like this. I don’t mind if a set is exclusive for a short bit of time, like Lego does when they have the VIP program, but when the set is only available at a certain store and even those who qualify can’t get the model due to a massive run… Yeah, that’s really frustrating.
Might be nice to add the bust of Darth Vader to my Star Wars Lego collection now. Many thanks to Lego for listening.
This is great news! Too bad the Chinese sets won’t be available. I was looking forward to those. But I understand they already fixed production on those.
Question. What about areas where there is no lego store, only retailers and monobrand stores? Will they carry these sets?
For those areas you’ll have to rely on LEGO’s Shop at Home website.
I think legofan is talking about places where they don’t have an online shop and official LEGO stores. Only mono-brand stores and retailers.
I saw someone asking the same question at the Ambassador Forum, but there has been no response yet. My guess is that the mono-brand stores will carry them.
Really glad to hear this. I agree with Rob that it’s great to hear that they are listening.
This is great news. So, when we see exclusives in other countries, we should expect the sets available in our country in about six months? Just want to make sure I got that right. This should cut down all those reseller charging outrageous prices on ebay.
Yes, after a few months they should be available directly from LEGO. It will probably take a while until people catch up with this. Remember that most LEGO fans are not up on the news like we maniacs are. 😀
This is all good news. I hope they will follow through with it and we will see how it looks like. Waiting a few months for regional exclusives shouldn’t be a problem, and those who don’t mind spending the money, can still get it earlier from ebay.