LEGO® Minifigures Walk Out Of Trafford Centre

[John]

3000 LEGO PIECES MISSING IN MANCHESTER

2000 missing LEGO MINIFIGURES

500 LEGO car wheels disappeared

23 pieces from the Selfridges Bullring gone

One entire Blackpool tram snaffled

Since opening almost two months ago, the LEGOLAND® Discovery Centre at the Trafford Centre in Manchester has lost almost 3000 significant pieces of LEGO.

This is not counting the thousands of standard bricks that have been lost or taken home by mistake.

Keen to reclaim these essential pieces, the attraction has launched an amnesty scheme to appeal to the people of Manchester to check their pockets for any items that may have mistakenly made their way back to visitor’s homes following an afternoon at the Centre.

The MINIFIGURES that have gone missing from MINILAND include a specially created Stig lookalike and a Wayne Rooney.

It is mainly MINILAND that has suffered with an entire tram from Blackpool going missing, but there have also been over 500 wheels replaced in the Build and Test area since the attraction opened.

Neil Crittenden, General Manager of LEGOLAND Discovery Centre said:

“We’ve enjoyed an incredibly successful launch period, and have to date welcomed thousands of keen LEGO fans! However, it seems some of our visitors have enjoyed their visit so much that they have chosen to take a piece of the attraction home – perhaps to continue practicing their building skills.

“Our Master Model Builder Alex has been constantly replenishing the attraction with MINIFIGURES, bricks and wheels to ensure guests have plenty to play with, but is wasn’t until this weekend’s audit that we realised the full extent of the missing stock. We purposely wanted to ensure visitors could get as close as possible to the features of the Centre, but are now having to draw up plans to protect the buildings following guests getting a little too hands-on with the exhibits. We’re now appealing for the safe return of our missing items, rewarding those honest Mancunians with a voucher for discounted entry”.

The LEGO amnesty box, which will of course be made of LEGO, will be placed in the attraction’s shop so that items can discreetly be posted back and re-homed back in the Centre.

Tickets for the LEGOLAND Discovery Centre cost from £9.30 when booked online at The LEGOLAND Discovery Centre, Manchester .

The Centre is open from 10am seven days a week. Closing times vary from 5pm – see website for details.

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[Guest]

You know, it makes me wonder about people sometimes.

[Guest]

You know, it makes me wonder about people sometimes.

I agree and if you where to look into it you will find out that many of them are adults with more or supposed to have more sence

[Guest]

If it ain't glued down it will go, that's the society we live in.

One of my clients owns a restaurant franchise which has X Box consoles fitted in cabinets for children to play while their parents dine. The actual game consoles are safe and the monitors are behind joinery casings, the handsets are superglued to the consoles and the cables come out of a grommeted hole. They have gone through 13 handsets in 6 months due to the wires being cut and then stolen!!!!

Totally pointless but that's the climate we live in!

[stona]

If it ain't glued down it will go, that's the society we live in.. They have gone through 13 handsets in 6 months due to the wires being cut and then stolen!!!!

Totally pointless but that's the climate we live in!

And I bet that the now useless handsets end up in a skip. It beggars belief really. A company I work for once had an automated light worth several thousand pounds stolen. To control the light you would need it's own Mac based control system NOT the industry standard DMX 512 system. In other words it was about as much use as a boat anchor in Birmingham. That probably ended up in a skip as well!

Steve

Steve

[Gern]

John,

I reckon you're lucky your shop is online and not bricks and mortar. You wouldn't believe how many people will rob and steal you blind. They come in three basic sorts - customers, suppliers and, worst of all, staff! Ask me how I know!

Gern

[Guest]

Round here where i work if you fall asleep they'll steal the false teeth from your head and just because they can.

scott

[Guest]

Very sad to hear all these comments about the country i so miss. People stealing lego bricks and for what? What the hell would they get out of it? It's just the buzz of having broken the rules which to many seems so cool these days. And that means that life for many must be really monotonous. One of the things that has always frustrated me with Blighty is how (generally) talent is frowned upon and supidity and childishness incite a few laughs. I remember that when i was teaching at a secondary school seeing how the kids who had drive were beaten into the ground as well as people who were mocked in the pub for raising something mildly intelligent. Very sad.

Even the Russsians would be shocked by something like that!

Right, that's my ranting over with for now ))) I'm off to continue on my project - got an O Gauge wagon from my dad which i'm going to make a diorama with and practice some weathering

Paul

[Gern]

Paul,

I just quit the teaching profession for reasons very similar to those you mention - among others.

It would be nice to be allowed to teach though. It's just that the education system in this country has targets and 'tick boxes' to be dealt with that are hugely more important than any actual teaching.

That's MY rant over! Sorry about your thread John.

Gern

[Guest]

TAKE MY WORK FOR IT , IT WAS ALL SCREWED DOWN !- we have had vehicles with 2 x m4 bolts thorough them stolen...... kids are going equipped !

for us its a compliment really, they love what we did so muchthey all want a souvenir !

when the concepts were drawn up the idea was for a 'fully immersive' experience for the model billage area, the flooring is themed, so you have cobble patterns on the floor in the historic chester area, brick pattens in the more industrial areas, the idea is guests feel like gulliver looking down over and visually exploring the minature wonderland....

so the model village area and to have no fencing or screens between the guests and the dispalys, the sculpted podium bases were built with the idea that the bases would create boundaries and that the models would be set into these sculpted bases- the shape of the bases means there is a defined edge and the only way to get to the majority of models is to climb onto the sculpted hillsides ......

we warned the operations team at the trafford centre that no fences between the models and visitors is a risky approach... but they chose that option....

the centre has been so busy since opening, its full most days with families/ schools groups and visitors to the area, - but having been there for several visits since we handed it over the visitors are just wild- they happily climb on and over displays, - not content with pushing buttons and controlling all the moving models we had a child climb the 3m tall model of the black pool tower, we have also had children paddling in the model of the lake district...

but the idea is kids get involved !!! - just not too involved !

the blackpool tram that has been taken is quite applaing its set 5 feet back, and is behind a 3 foot tall themed sea wal/ break water structure....

this is just out and out theft................

anyway, we expected the little lego figures to go, these are in many ways 'sacrificial' and are only ' clipped' down t othe base, but vehicles, bs shelters, and similar are all fixed using bolts or screws, and the visitors still take the items, they damage the fixings until the bolts or studs snap off.... but having observed whats going on alot of it is down to poor parental control and also unruly kids who are out to steal anything they can- its also clear the area needs to be staffed and at present its not !

sadly fencing/ barriers will now be installed and after the press release ( great PR too ) the models that have been removed will in due course be replaced... but only after the fences are in !!!

[Guest]

we are due back in manchester sometime in the next 2 weeks to replace all the missing items !