Legoland is opening 2012!

This is definitely 1000 times more exciting than Johor Premium Outlets… 🙂

My rudimentary and summarized understanding by garnering information from www.legoland.com.my is that LEGOLAND Malaysia in JB is going to be mostly theme park, ready 2012, really expensive (i.e. targeted at tourists), very Singapore focused (for revenue), enormous (compared to USS), and needless to say, hot and humid (just like USS). Miniland will be a center focus (especially for lazy people like me who will only go for rides when wife asks), as it promises to be a mind expansion exercise of what’s possible with LEGO. As a start, don’t expect anything fancy, service staff is probably local so expect local hospitality (they are still mass recruiting btw). Fans can pre book year long tickets at RM195 which is valid from launch till 31/12/2013, available from AirAsia (!?!? Tony is a genius).

That said, there’s much possibilities. The first random idea I got is to get into some orchestra in residence, or figure out some weekly brass quintet show, or other additional stuff they can’t possibly “import” into Malaysia. The second random idea is obviously to gather the LEGO geeks on the island and other stuff that probably a marketing manager is supposed to do. A recurring childhood emotion ran through me: like non other toys LEGO gave me a platform, where I perform for myself everyday in the room on the wooden parquet floor an engineering marvel of self-made transformers and cities.

After my mind calmed down, I recalled that logical moment I had couple of years back when I was studying Iskandar master plans and considered moving there. A teaching job was the best, failing which a clowning job in a JB theme park was quite attractive too, even though my credentials are questionable. Knowing that LEGO still only have 11 qualified professionals (where only Nick Foo is based in Asia) and not a single Ambassador here, while the LEGO clubs here are mostly adult in nature (AFOL), it seems like the timing is great to kick start this again, for fun OR for profit.

Do you think the management would want to sponsor a local outreach community to make LEGO cool again? There’s the price issue (LEGO has never been cheap), but with a combination of inheritance, network and Christmas, one can usually get enough of them to make stuff. What’s missing is the ability for children to come TOGETHER to make stuff (and stop playing that iOS device).

It would be really awesome if there’s a place in LEGOLAND that has infinite number of pieces, parents pay an entry fee of no time limit, for the kid can spend time in this wonderland for as long as it takes to craft their masterpiece. The piece can be then either bought, or photo taken and then dismantled for the next creation. I wonder if Merlin Entertainment ever thought of that.

*having a LEGO Christmas*