Thousands of people of all ages packed into the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall Saturday for Brickcon 2009, a convention celebrating LEGOs and the adults who still love to play with them after all these years.

After a two-day private convention for solely 18-and-over enthusiasts, the convention opened its doors to the public on Saturday and Sunday and everyone got to see the incredible creations.

The LEGO masterpieces were on display in various themed areas, from “castle” and “town” to more over-the-top themes like  ”apocalyptic,” complete with a zombie theme park, and “space” with all kinds of recreations of your favorite sci-fi flicks.

There was Spock’s ship from the new Star Trek movie, there were TIE fighters from Star Wars, and there were all kinds of recreations of famous buildings. Art Van Bergeyk stole the show in that department, with his 1:100 scale recreation of downtown Seattle circa 1930. Composed of over 140,000 bricks, this was the first time the whole thing had been put together.

“Nobody’s really known about this until I brought it here,” Van Bergeyk said. “It was just me, no help, this is actually the first time it’s been set up because it doesn’t fit in my house.”

Van Bergeyk said that he chose to model the skyline in 1930 because there was more diversity in the buildings then, and the older buildings work very well with LEGOs.

“Highrises are boring,” he said. “I could make the Columbia tower but it would just be thousands of black pieces.”

Glenn Pearson shows off a part of his model, "LEGO Springs" to a festival attendee. Photo by Angelo Carosio.

In addition to the LEGO showcase, there was also a “building zone” that was packed with kids building their own creations, which were also on display on a massive table.

The convention proved that building with LEGOs isn’t just for children, a more adult mind can put together some pretty amazing artwork with little rectangular blocks.

Some of the LEGO enthusiasts get their whole family involved.

“My whole family built this,” said Glenn Pearson, who built a piece based on the Puyallup Fair called LEGO Springs. “It took three months to build.”

Pearson’s piece included a Brickcon train and a train bridge complete with a timed motor to raise and lower the  bridge in time for the train to cross.

Brickcon is in its eighth year at Seattle Center, and is getting bigger every year as more people realize that there’s a LEGO scene for adults. Van Bergeyk, who has been building with LEGOs his whole life, just found out about the convention last year.

“I built with LEGOs for years,” he said. “Then I found out that other adults use them because of this convention!”