Community Event - CrockerCon 2026

 

A one-day celebration of comics at a local inspiration point.

Key Event Specifications

Location: Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Theme: Comics, video games, movies, sci-fi, fantasy...and LEGOs!
Stats: 4000+ attendees, 100+ exhibitors, 12th year

CrockerCon 2026

My local Recognized LEGO Fan Community was invited to attend this year's CrockerCon, as they've been for several years prior...but with two differences: this year we were given half of the old Crocker Mansion's ballroom for our display space, and this year I attended!

Ok, so the second point isn't that big a deal, but it definitely was for me. I had a blast, and will absolutely be volunteering to help out at CrockerCons of the future. 

1. Setup

But, as I was saying, we were given half of the ballroom, as pointed out by our club president in the meeting beforehand:

As you can see, it's a truly beautiful space, with antique porcelain in the cases on the wall and a salon-style gallery space in the room above. Just imagine a century and a half ago, music and laughter and the sound of leather shoes and beaded slippers gliding across those floorboards, through the opening and into the gallery. The Crockers were part of the "Big Four" of the Transcontinental Railroad, toured Europe (where much of the permanent collection was purchased), and ultimately turned their mansion into an art museum for the betterment of Sacramento culture.

But on this day there would be far different sounds echoing through the ballroom... 

Looking very much like the tails of (electric-type) mice, these charging Smart Bricks were the harbingers of a portion of the club's display. As could be gleaned from the floor plan shown earlier, there were three portions to our contribution to CrockerCon: a collection of club members' MOCs, a community build event, and a demonstration of the LEGO SMART Play system as applied to Pokémon.

There was also a table devoted to displaying the "2.5-Dimensional" sculpture I made for the club's participation in LEGO's "A Touch of Maersk" collaboration: I built the backboard and Maersk container ship and designed the small, stylized shipping containers, and then everyone in SacBB created their own to add to the happy brick-built cargo, easily stacked and rearranged. The fully 3D shipping containers were designed by the club's president.

2. Pokémon Demonstration

I didn't actually have much of a hand with this, as I'll explain later. And given how loud the event was, just from the hubbub of so many people, I couldn't even hear the sounds being made as kids (and adults) tried out the new sets. I did help build a few of them beforehand, which gave me some first-hand experience with some of the fascinating new parts they included (New Elementary's article on the subject did a fantastic job as usual of going over many of these parts, as well as investigating their geometries and connection points). It was all I could do to grab a quick photo or two, and to see the joy that was being brought about through active play.

3. Community Build

Last year, the club's community build was a representation of CrockerTron—the gigantic robotic mascot of CrockerCon—as designed by a local artist (and visible in this post, a few pictures down). This year, the club voted to use the artwork I had suggested, Charles Nahl's epic 1872 painting, "Sunday Morning in the Mines." Not only does it hang in the Crocker Mansion's old entrance hall (just through the doors by the Pokémon display, above), but it has also been turned into a mural on the side of downtown Sacramento's Masonic Temple.

[Note: the Crocker's page for this painting seems to be down at the moment, but the information and image are still visible in this older version archived by the Wayback Machine]

It depicts, as the title would suggest, a Sunday morning in the Gold Rush camps that sprung up after the 1948 discovery of gold in the American River, about 36 miles northeast of Sacramento: some of the miners are carousing, fighting engaging in horse racing, and getting drunk; others are shown reading scriptures, washing and mending their clothes, and writing letters to loved ones. It's also 72 in x 108 in. So with such a detailed and large painting, the resulting brick-built image would have to be similarly massive. The image was divided into sections, 24 horizontal by 15 vertical, into which 360 8x8 plates could be fit, bearing a total of 23,040 1x1 square plates in two or three dozen colors. These were sorted into condiment cups and labeled, and presented to participants along with paint-by-numbers style diagrams.

As luck would have it, I ended up getting the very first square, A-1, when I sat down to help out, so I'll always be able to remember which one I did.

Over the event's eight hour span, the tables were always full, with individuals, couples, and even whole families helping to build the mosaic. If it had run another half hour, I'm sure we would have been able to finish it there and then (as it is, we club members will be finishing the remaining squares at the next meeting)!

Once it's finished, my understanding is that it will enter the Crocker Art Museum's permanent collection, a fitting tribute to a beautiful artwork and a fantastic event.

4. MOC Display

The reason I didn't get much of a chance to work with the Pokémon sets is that I spent most of my time explaining the MOCs (happily explaining "These are all builds by SacBB club members;" "Yup, out of our own imaginations;" and similar) to curious attendees, as well as directing them to the brick-built QR code that would direct them to the club's newsletter. As the voluntary ambassador for the group, I took it upon myself to explain what we did in meetings, adding that we had members of all ages and skill levels, and that we always welcome new members or even just visitors wanting to check us out. I'm hopeful that such a large event (and so many people scanning the QR code) will result in some new faces at upcoming meetings.

It was so cool to have so many people asking about the various builds—both mine and other club members'—and I loved seeing young and old squatting down to peer into my own little constructions. I shall have to remember to bring risers to future events so everything is on display. I loved seeing them marvel at how I was able to fit such intricate scenes into the little 8x8 cubes—the Monster Costume Party, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, and Batman and Superman ones—as well as taking in the storytelling of my larger Pirate Stories and Space+Myth dioramas.

The coolest thing was the dawning realization on each face as they realized that there was more to my Spider Society build, and they peered closer to see all the way in, trying to name all the different Spider-People I included in it.

The more observant attendees made the connection between the micro-scale Crocker Art Museum in my "Inspiration Mine" build, comparing it with the minifig-scale Crocker Mansion built by another club member, and making the connection with the building we were all currently standing in

And speaking of other SacBB builds, the Technic- and Mindstorms-built Rubik's Cube solver (visible on the right of the first picture of Section 4, above) surely must win the prize for drawing in the most guests. Its color and movement—not to mention just how cool it was, seeing it scan and then solve the scrambled cube, over and over—attracted their attention, pulling them in from the noise and bustle of the convention; then the larger builds, like the Crocker Mansion and Cthulhu's Lair pulled them along the table, narrowing their focus, until they finally reached my comparatively-tiny builds, where they were primed to notice the little details. It was really interesting to see this progression (movement -> big builds -> small builds) happen over and over again. I wonder if this approach could be used to arrange future displays...

5. The Rest of the Event

As could be guessed by my description above, CrockerCon is really a celebration of nerdy things, and the attendees definitely took this to heart, with costumes, accessories, themed t-shirts, and an overall attitude to match. I didn't see them, but the famed 501st Legion even made an appearance!

There was never a time when the ballroom was empty, nor even a lull, but the energy was wonderful—even for an introvert like myself!

I'm so glad I got to participate, explaining just what Sacramento Brick Builders does and is, and offering friendly invitations to so many people. Showing off my builds wasn't bad either, and I really learned a lot about what does and doesn't work in a display for the general public (recognizable characters definitely help). It was a long day, but a fun one, and I'm already looking forward to next year's!

Happy building!