All Lego for display in Napier

Hawke's Bay's biggest Lego show was taking shape late yesterday, with an estimated million-plus pieces in 30 exhibits throughout one of Hawke's Bay's biggest stadiums, waiting for possibly more than 7000 people to walk past over the weekend.

It's the second Hawke's Bay Brickshow, which will be open to the public in Napier's Rodney Green Centennial Events Centre at McLean Park from 9am to 5pm today and 10am to 4pm tomorrow.

Enthusiast and Hawke's Bay Lego Users Group member Richard Catley says about 6700 saw the first show last year, and pointers are that even more may pass through this time.

"Many people said it brought back memories, and we had an increase in the number of members of Hawke's Bay LUG afterwards," said Mr Catley who at 37 has 32 years of Lego building, wife Hayley and sons Ryan, 12, Nick, 10, and Adam, 8, all now also enthusiasts.

For him it started with the standard set of about 50 pieces (mainly bricks and roof slats) as a present when he was 5.

He built a house, which he still has, but graduated over the years to a scale-model of the 155-years-old Duart House in Havelock North, and currently has designs on "an iconic Napier building", the chosen one being the County Hotel in Browning St, originally the offices of the now long-gone Hawke's Bay County Council.

He's already gathering the pieces for the project, but it could, with frustration, partial demolition and remodelling along the way, be more than a year in the making.

Beauty is, however, in the eyes of the beholder, and Mr Catley looks across the expanse of the Centennial venue, narrows the gaze to one or two displays of his fellow exhibitors, and says: "I'm absolutely staggered. Oh my god, they're absolutely amazing."