A team of young builders named Tommy Collens, James Collens and Phoebe Dunkle stacked bricks into a bridge sturdy enough to hold 160 pounds of weight before it gave way under a barbell placed beyond its load limit, winning the bridge-build contest at BrickFair Baltimore 2026. The trio, ages 14, 11 and 12 respectively, competed against other young engineers inside the Baltimore Convention Center over the weekend as part of one of the region's largest gatherings of LEGO fans.
According to photos and reporting from the Baltimore Sun, the bridge-building contest was hosted by Michael “Lego Mike” Larimer, and a rival group called Team Kham — carried by builders Leon Scott and Sam Perryman — tested a separate bridge design with a load capacity of 90 pounds. The event drew families from well beyond Baltimore, with the winning team traveling from Clifton, Virginia, and other young participants coming from as far as Fulton and Upper Marlboro, Maryland, and even Toronto, Canada.
Thousands of Fans Pack the Convention Center
BrickFair Baltimore 2026 ran from August 12 through August 16, with the public viewing days held on August 15 and 16 across Halls F and G and the Swing space in the Pratt Lobby West section of the venue, according to the Baltimore Convention Center. Tickets ranged from $9 for Sunday afternoon advance online passes up to $25 for walk-up single-day admission, with free entry for children ages 3 and under, per Charm City LUG's Facebook page. The municipal convention center itself, located at 1 West Pratt Street, offers 300,000 square feet of contiguous exhibition space across seven halls and typically hosts roughly 500,000 attendees a year across more than 125 events.
BrickFair traces its roots back to 2008, when founder Todd Webb launched it as a four-day LEGO fan convention in Northern Virginia after BrickFest ended, according to Brickipedia's historical account. It has since grown into one of the largest LEGO conventions in the country, with regional events drawing roughly 1,000 adult exhibitors and more than 15,000 public attendees. Inside the halls, the community relies on its own shorthand — AFOL for Adult Fan of LEGO and MOC for My Own Creation, referring to original fan-designed builds rather than official retail sets, according to BrickFair's own FAQ.
A Downtown Baltimore Skyline, Brick by Brick
Among the standout displays was a downtown Baltimore parade scene developed by the Charm City LEGO User Group, which included recreations of the Bromo Arts Tower and the World Trade Center. The Baltimore-based club, known as Charm City LUG, was established in 2013 as an officially recognized LEGO User Group and now counts more than 50 adult members who take part in monthly build challenges and regional displays, according to the LEGO Ambassador Network.
The group has a track record of civic-minded projects beyond the convention floor. Earlier in 2026, Charm City LUG partnered with the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore between January and April to build a multi-layered LEGO birthday cake marking the zoo's 150th anniversary, a display that reportedly reached an estimated 3 million viewers through local news broadcasts.
Butterflies, Bridges and a Ball-Sorting Machine
Elsewhere on the show floor, artist Andrew A. Schmidt assembled a three-dimensional butterfly sculpture called Unidos Pieza a Pieza, built entirely from LEGO elements and displayed as part of the expo. Younger attendees found their own ways to engage with the bricks: 5-year-old Connor Wu of Fulton, Maryland tested out a jet assembled from LEGO parts, while 2-year-old Zamire Hall of Upper Marlboro watched LEGO trains ride past. Nearby, 11-year-old Sophia Lang of Columbia, Maryland helped build a tower to 100 levels as 8.5-year-old Anita Luo of Toronto paused to watch, with her mother, Vivian Zhou, looking on.
Another highlight came from the Great Ball Contraption, a kinetic machine built from interlocking builder modules that operate under a standardized community engineering framework created in 2004. Under that framework, individual modules must pass LEGO soccer balls or basketballs at a rate of one per second into hoppers with a 30-ball capacity, according to BrickNerd. Gavin Tweddle, a 7.5-year-old from Falls Church, Virginia, contributed several modules to the contraption over the winter and stopped by the show floor to view one of the design modules in person.
Part of a Booming LEGO Moment
The Baltimore expo lands amid a broader commercial surge for the brick-building hobby. The LEGO Group reported record global revenue of 83.5 billion Danish kroner, or roughly $13 billion, in 2025 — a 12 percent annual increase driven by strong demand from both young builders and adult hobbyists, according to the LEGO Group. Consumer sales rose 16 percent in 2025, outperforming the broader global toy market.
BrickFair enforces a few practical rules to keep the show floor navigable, including a ban on strollers inside the exhibition halls due to aisle congestion. Beyond the bridge contest, the weekend's interactive programming included derby races and LEGO bingo. Similar community-driven LEGO showcases have popped up elsewhere this month, including a 25th-anniversary robot battle convention in Bellevue and a massive brick dinosaur sculpture that debuted at the Cincinnati Museum Center.
