The LEGO Inside Tour – a Review
The LEGO Inside Tour. I first heard of this tour at LEGOLAND Billund three years ago, and it seemed too good to be true – a Golden Ticket in the Willy Wonka spirit that lets 140 people a year (four groups of 35) tour the LEGO factory, meet the LEGO designers and go behind the scenes at LEGOLAND Billund and the LEGO operation overall. Yep, literally hundreds of millions of people play with LEGO bricks every year and only 140 of them get to see LEGO from the inside. Sign us up!
Actually, we waited three years because the minimum age for the tour is seven*, and my son (and the biggest LEGO fan in the family) only turned seven last September. This was the first time he would be eligible for the LEGO Inside Tour. How did we get tickets, you’re asking? Just by going online.
In September/October every year, LEGO’s website publishes the date when its Inside Tour tickets will go on sale for the following summer. It changes every year. Last year tickets went on sale at 1pm (Denmark time) on November 3rd. That meant 4am in California. No problem – I set my alarm, opened up a web browser, and clicked refresh a dozen times until I saw the registration form. I typed as quickly as I possibly could and hit Submit. I hoped for the best.
Three days later I received the magic emails: “Congratulations!” each began. “You made it to the list of participants of LEGO Inside Tour June 9-12.”
So what did the LEGO Inside Tour consist of? Everything! In my recap below I’ll note the highlights, but I’m purposely leaving out some details. There were surprises around every corner, and I don’t want to spoil them for any of you who are so inspired by this post that you get tickets for next summer. Suffice it to say it was a brilliantly-organized three days that gave us insights into every aspect of LEGOLAND Billund and beyond. It was extremely impressive how much thought they put into the details, especially because only 140 people a year get to see those details.
Arrival Day at LEGOLAND BILLUND
After spending two days in Oslo to recover from jet lag, we took an hour-long flight on SAS to Billund and then a five-minute taxi ride to the LEGOLAND Hotel. We arrived to find large packets of information waiting for us, in addition to multiple gifts and two season passes to LEGOLAND Billund with our photos on them. Cool! There were also two bags of LEGO bricks and a building challenge – the first of many building challenges throughout the week. As there were no official activities on the arrival day, off to LEGOLAND we went.
LEGOLAND Billund
We first visited LEGOLAND Billund six years ago, when we only had two kids (1 1/2 and 3 at the time). We love it – it’s a park with some rollercoasters for older kids, but is largely aimed at younger visitors. There’s a great DUPLO section for really small kids, there are rides for all ages, and there are opportunities everywhere to build with LEGO bricks. And a Tuesday afternoon in early June when European schools are still in session is a great time to go.
There were no lines at LEGOLAND Billund, so we went on several rides over and over. We bought some mini-figures. We had lunch. It was a great few hours. One of the things that I love about LEGOLAND Billund is seeing how different it is from Disneyland. There’s a real campfire where you can bake your own bread. Glass bottles? No problem. Dogs? Welcome.
LEGO Inside Tour Day One
Our first official day of the LEGO Inside Tour started with a get-together at the hotel, where we met the other lucky participants (from 11 countries), received name badges and created mini-figures in our likenesses to attach to the badges. We then headed off to the LEGO Idea House, which is really a LEGO museum only for LEGO employees. It’s a great museum – telling the story of LEGO founder Ole Kirk Christiansen and how he transitioned from building wooden toys to creating and refining the LEGO blocks.
The museum showcased a lot of the current sets and there were plenty of opportunities to build. But the coolest thing was the basement. In a highly-secure library-type setup with moveable stacks, there’s one copy of every LEGO set ever sold. We were able to go back to the very first sets, see (and hold) the initial Star Wars and architecture sets, see the product lines that have come and gone, and drool over all of the sets that simply don’t exist anymore, even on the collector market.
From there we went back to the LEGOLAND Hotel and met with several LEGO designers who told us about how they came to work for LEGO, showed us the sets that they’ve designed, and even showed us sets that haven’t been released yet. That made us drool a little more! They then led us into a building challenge where everyone was split up into teams. Each team had to work together to create an object out of LEGO bricks to solve a specific problem (see, I’m not giving away all of the details!), and it was fun seeing how different each of the solutions was. It was a great chance to get to know others on the tour.
After dinner, there was yet another building challenge. We had access to pretty much every LEGO brick and element and could design anything we wanted. The specific challenge was to create something that would fit well into the LEGO product catalog – something that could be sold at a reasonable price point and would be fun for others to build and play with. My son and I built for a couple of hours, handed in our creations and went to bed. Some people worked on their creations well into the night.
LEGO Inside Tour Day Two
Day Two started with a trip to LEGO Headquarters. We surrendered our phones and cameras and were taken to a presentation room where we saw some of the LEGO products in development. Most interesting was a demonstration of LEGO Worlds – a new online game that allows you to build a world slightly similar to Minecraft but with a definite LEGO feel and LEGO twists throughout. We can’t wait to play it at home!
From there, we drove over to the LEGO Factory. Talk about a very, very cool experience! We saw every element of the factory and every stage of the LEGO creation and long-term storage. Highlights were:
- The huge silos holding tiny granules of plastic (technically acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS)) that become LEGO bricks and the pipes that take those granules to the molding machines;
- The incredibly heavy, incredibly expensive molds that have been precisely crafted to create every LEGO element – from the standard bricks to the unique parts of various sets (think Ninjago swords or Christmas trees);
- The machines that melt the plastic and inject it into the molds for just a few seconds before a recognizable brick is ejected into a storage box;
- The robots that roam the factory to replace the full storage boxes with empty boxes (based on weight) and transport them to a conveyor system leading to long-term storage;
- The long-term storage facility. It reminded me of the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark – an enormous facility with shelving that continued forever – both away from us and up almost as far as we could see. We watched a robot take each storage box, read its bar code, and then decide where to move it for storage. Amazing!
I wish I could post photos of the factory during our LEGO Inside Tour, but as with most of the places we visited we weren’t allowed to take pictures. Just another reason for you to sign up for next year’s LEGO Inside Tour and see it for yourself! FYI, in response to all of the emails I get, the LEGO factory in Billund is 65,000 m2 – approximately the size of 11 football fields.
The next stop on the tour was the LEGO campus and the warehouse/distribution center. We took a tour of the facility, had lunch and met with more LEGO designers to see the clay-molding process that leads to the creation of new elements and mini-figures. So much fun to see the process and meet the people who have created some of the coolest LEGO elements, including the electronic elements like light-up bricks and Mindstorms. We also had a quiz on LEGO trivia and a very fun unexpected activity that was one of my son’s highlights. I’m not going to say exactly what it was, but let’s just say that we now have a lot of new mini-figures at our house.
And our day was only half-over! Next up was a trip to the LEGO employee shop, where we were able to purchase LEGO sets and products at the employee discount. We went crazy! I think we bought 15 or so new sets that are now being shipped to our house. Many, many weeks of LEGO creation will be arriving at our door very soon.
From the employee store, we went to a small showroom dedicated to the new LEGO House. This is going to be great when it’s finished – a museum similar to the internal one that we visited the day before, but far larger and open to the public in Billund. The architecture is amazing – the building looks like it’s made of LEGO bricks, and in an incredibly creative, stacked way (see below). The LEGO House will open in the next two years and looks to be well worth a visit – or for us a return visit. Too bad our season passes will have expired by then!
After a short break, we went to dinner inside a closed LEGOLAND Park with even more LEGO designers. I can’t overstate how interesting it is being able to talk to these men and women about the design process and the stories behind the designs (like for the Chima and Ninjago sets). Then after dinner, we went back to the hotel for an awards ceremony for the creations that we made the night before. Some of the designs from our fellow participants were amazing! The cool thing was that everyone had the same bricks and elements to craft from and everyone created such different, unique things. My son won a LEGO Star Wars set for his “shooter shark ship”. I was a non-winner but received a LEGO Superhero set as a consolation prize.
LEGO Inside Tour Day Three
Day Three centered around LEGOLAND Billund. We got to go behind the scenes to see the other side of the rides and meet the designers/crafters who create the large LEGO sculptures in the parks. Very interesting to see the creative process, talk about maintenance and replacement of the sculptures, and see the integration of mechanical elements with some of the creations.
We then had lunch in the park and returned to the hotel for a speech by a LEGO recruiter. After three days of being in the LEGO world and mindset, of course, you’re thinking “wow, it would be so cool to work here.” So it was brilliant to close out the tour with a speech about, well, how we could go to work for LEGO. It’s not easy to get hired, and there are a lot of other people worldwide who want to work for LEGO, but the company is growing quickly and hiring.
Some of the employees we met had done the LEGO Inside Tour years before, so there is definitely an employment path for those who wish to pursue it. I’m a travel writer so I’m moving on, but wow, I’ll always remember these three days. It truly was an extraordinary bucket list experience, and if you think it sounds great as well, remember that I’m leaving out some of the coolest elements to maintain the surprise, including a very unique gift at the end. Start checking the Inside Tour website now! And let me know if you get in next year.
Summary Information
Kid Friendly: Very!
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Airline/Routing: United LA-Newark-Oslo and then SAS Oslo-Billund a couple of days later. We departed on a direct Billund to Amsterdam flight on KLM a couple of hours after the LEGO Inside Tour ended.
Hotel: LEGOLAND Hotel. Three nights with a park-view room (basically inside the park) are included with the Inside Tour ticket. There would be no reason to want to stay anywhere else. The hotel was great and I fully trusted my son to roam the hotel without me, playing with his new friends or heading to the lobby, screening room or gift store.
Total Trip Length: Four Days
Days of School Missed: Zero (summer break)
Cost: The Inside Tour the year we went cost roughly US$2,200 per person. It was worth it! That included three nights at the LEGOLAND Hotel, meals for three days, wine, LEGOLAND Billund season passes, a visit to the company store where we saved hundreds of dollars using the employee discount, all of the activities/events I mentioned above, and many, many unique gifts, including two truly priceless ones at the end. Plus it was the trip of a lifetime for a seven-year-old, and is way up there on my “coolest things ever” list as well.
*Important Note
2019: Unfortunately LEGO has changed the minimum age of the Inside Tour to 10. Pretty grinch-like if you ask me, since it was an absolutely perfect trip for seven-year-olds. By ten my son had switched from LEGO to football/soccer. They now have a one-day LEGO Fan Tour that includes a lot of the Inside Tour elements for a much less expensive price and that is still open to seven-year-olds.
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Hi, were you allowed to buy anything there, like sets or bulk lots of certain bricks?
Cheers
Alec
Australia
Hi Alec. At the employee store we were allowed to buy any sets that we wanted (but only two max of the same set) and up to 16 minifigures. I don’t remember seeing bulk lots or containers of bricks there.
Hi Eric,
Great review! I was lucky enough to go on the next tour (16-19 June) and had a very similar experience to yours. Definitely an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I was wondering if you’ve received your purchase from the Lego employee shop yet and, if so, how long did it take to arrive? I’m eagerly awaiting my order and am trying to get a sense of how much longer I’ll likely need to wait 🙂
Thanks!
Craig
Hi Craig – our two boxes were delivered in Colorado June 22, so 11 days after we were at the store. Not sure where you are, but by that math you should have had yours yesterday. Hopefully you get them soon! We’re already done with the Death Star and moving on to the other sets!
Eric
WHERE IS THE LINK>
In the post at the end of the Day Three section.
I have two grandchildren, the boy has gotten every set Lego makes. However, I was wondering if they would look out of place since they are now 14 & 15.
Thank you
No, they wouldn’t be out of place at all on the LEGO Inside Tour. There were only a few young kids on our tour, there were some older kids and there were a lot of adults. Everyone fit in well. As long as someone enjoys being creative with LEGO blocks, the trip is for them.
Was 7 a good age for the tour? My 7-year-old loves Legos, but I’m wondering if a special experience like this is better saved for when he is a few years older (when he might appreciate and remember it more)?
Seven was a perfect age. Kids change and move onto different passions. If you have a 7-year-old who loves LEGO, try to get onto the next tour. Even now at 8 1/2 my son is playing with LEGO bricks a lot less. Any age would have fun on the tour, but passionate fans will have the most fun.
How much did you pay for lego in employee store? how much discount you get? I hope to go there, it seemed very fun.
Magnus
We weren’t allowed to have cameras or cell phones with us so I couldn’t check prices, but when I did rough calculations later that day the discounts were anywhere between 40% and 50%.
Great article. I’m on the first tour this year. Leaving in less than 4 weeks. You must know how excited I am. I’ve been scouring the net for reviews and any information I can find. This was a great read. Thanks. Were there any other participants from the US on your tour? Just curious.
Have fun! Yes, there were a few other Americans, but otherwise it was a diverse group.
Hi,
I’m in the second tour in a few days so i’m very very excited !!!
Can we buy more sets that the box sent by LEGO and how can we do to send them at home because that’s very interesting ?
@ J : is the exclusive set great this year ? What do you think without reveal it ?
Thanks.
Julien.
Very cool – have fun! They’ll ship one full box per person to your home for free. You can also take things with you, up to their purchasing maximums – e.g. no more than x minifigures, two copies of any given set, etc… Then it’s up to you to figure out how to get the excess (plus the exclusive sets) home!
Is the application first-come,first-served basis? Thanks.
My assumption is that it is, however they reserve the right to not accept people who have gone on the tour before.
I’m saving this article for when our youngest boys are 7. Seems like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Thanks for sharing!
Tickets are available on LEGO’s website. They go on sale once a year and are gone within minutes. You’ll need to check the website after the summer to see when they will be on sale for 2017.
It used to be first come first served, not for 2016 though. There were people on the tour that signed up days/weeks after registration was open. Some casual fans were on the tour. Many people had tried for years to get on the tour. It was also just 2 nights, same price though. Registration is usually in early November.
Thanks for the update. That’s great if they’ve moved away from first come/first served. That made it too difficult to sign up with kids.
After 2 years of not getting in, we finally got into the tour next (2017) year! We are excited to participate in 2017! Any preparation tips? do you have any travel suggestions leading up to the trip? We will be travelling from Canada so we have the possibility to stop in Iceland, or spend a few days in Denmark?
Congratulations on getting in! I don’t have any preparation tips other than doing research in advance on the pricing of the sets that you want to purchase. We didn’t have access to cell phones during the visit to the company store, so I wasn’t able to easily compare prices.
For travel, it’s not necessary to spend time in Billund before or after the Inside Tour – there’s not much to do outside of LEGO – so you have all of Europe as an option. Check out the Billud Airport Wiki page. That lists all of the non-stop flights to/from Billund. That may give you some ideas.
This is a great review. I am so excited that my son received his wish and his Make A Wish trip will be this Lego tour in 2017. Thank you for the sneak peek. We have not received all of our information but the days are quite full. It shows out evening break but I wanted to see what type of other breaks they had(lunch, bathroom, snacks). I just like to be prepared. Thank you for taking the time for this review and your reply!
That’s great that you got onto a tour! I honestly don’t remember the break schedule, but everything scheduled was fairly casual – even at the museum or during building competitions, we could always duck out for the bathroom or for a snack. They take care of you. All meals were scheduled/included, and I don’t remember ever getting hungry.
Awesome, thank you so much for responding! We are truly so excited and feel so blessed. I tend to over prepare sometimes just due to some of his medical needs.
Hi,
I was very lucky to do the LEGO INSIDE TOUR last year and this year that will be my wife and daughter in law who are going to do it in the second session of May, when are you going Melissa ?
The organisation is absolutely perfect and the staff is very professionnal and guarantee you a nice journey.
So i come back this year to spend time in the LEGOLAND Park.
We are very very excited !!!
You can have a look on my last year review at this link on a french website : http://www.hothbricks.com/lego-inside-tour-2016-julien-y-etait-raconte/
You can easily translate, if you have any questions don’t hesitate !
Regards.
Julien.
Aaaaaand this is the coolest thing I’ve ever read about. Bummed that my son will only be 6.5 when we’re in Europe next year!
Thank you for the great review, we hope to get into the next tour !
Good luck!
We are anxiously anticipating our LIT in a couple weeks. I have become an avid reader of your blog and I appreciate your values as it relates to luggage and the hassle/benefit it holds.
We are travelling to Copenhagen a few days before the tour and then will be attending the LIT. If you were to do it again/over what would you take as luggage? We are travelling as a family (two adults one preteen!)
Thanks!
Have fun on the Inside Tour! I didn’t realize that they shifted them from summer-only. That’s great.
I would say to definitely have some extra room in your luggage. The store will ship sets for you, but you’ll be receiving other things during your trip, including the exclusive sets at the end (three of them if there are three of you).
To secure the LIT set i would keep it in the cabin luggage…
You’ll bring back too the model that you’ll create during the building challenge of the first evening.
Many goodies too + the LEGO House visit including the 21037 set.
At the employee shop that’s very interesting for the big sets : imagine the new MF 75192 half price 🙂
Let us know if the exclusive set will be the same that the previous group of this year.
Hey Julien,
We are back from the LIT 2017. Yes. The LIT set was the same as those handed out in May/June. We are very happy with the he set, but haven’t built it yet!
Unfortunately the UCS Millenium Falcoln is even sold out at the employee store, although there was one at the Lego House store. Even at half price, it’s still expensive, although we were lucky enough to have dinner one night with its designers, so that would have made it easier to justify.
The LIT did not disappoint!
Hi There,
Can you shed any light on when it is you pay the LIT tour fee? is it straight away on the day you do the application form or within a certain number of days after being accepted?
Regards,
Richard
Our Inside Tour started June 9. Payment was due by February 27.
We were on the October 2017 tour and our payment was due before Christmas 2016 😱😱😱😱. But worth it! Good luck!
An article inThe Guardian claims the factory is half a kilometre long
Thanks! Just received official notice from LEGO that the factory is 65,000 m2 and approximately 11 football fields.
how big is the lego staff shop? i’m going on the tour in september ☺☺☺☺☺
It’s big! They had most things there that we wanted. Easily enough that we filled up our allotted boxes.
For a 7 year old and for me Eric LOL!
Ryan
Can you arrange for a group of 15 students & educators?
I can’t do anything. I was simply a participant. You’re welcome to contact LEGO and ask them.
How much is shipping for what you buy at the Lego employee discount shop from Billund to The US. If it’s 1 box for free does that mean 1 set or a shipping box that can hold multiple sets?
It’s one large box per person for free that holds a lot of LEGO sets.
What information do I need to fill in for registration?
If you go to the Inside Tour website, linked in the blog post, you will see that LEGO has four tours in 2022 and they go on sale on October 26, 2021. If you go to the website on that date you will see the information you need to complete.
i will have a ticket for the LIT 2022
just a question: I come by car, so can bring the lego sets i buy easily home.
But after shopping in the employee-store… where do you leaf the sets you bought?
bring them back in the hotel, let them in the bus, they will bring it to you car?
Hi Harm. Have an amazing time!
Since they kept our sets to ship them to us, I cannot speak to the best way to transport your sets from the store. That’s a question for your LEGO representative.