Graham Draper was just four years old when he had his first experience with the popular Danish toy LEGO.
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Now, more than 40 years later, Mr Draper, a self-described AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) is kicking off his new career with the building blocks with his first for-profit show at the Batemans Bay Soldiers Club.
Mr Draper has been running non-for-profit shows around the South Coast for almost five years, but will now take his show on the road in the hopes of "making a living" from the popular toy.
"Me and another mate do these sort of displays, and we're part of a few clubs around Sydney and the Illawarra," Mr Draper said.
"We both love building LEGO and showing of our creations, so we started a business together to take our show around NSW.
"There will be between 50 and 60 tables with displays, we'll have playbricks for kids to build with, we'll run a large raffle and lucky dip, and we'll have a few retailers who will sell anything from individual pieces to full sets.
"I've been doing not-for-profit shows for about five years now, and I also run a club here in Wollongong called GongLUG that has a charity aspect.
"This year we did three shows and we were able to donate more than $85,000 to charity. This March we'll have our fifth show in the Illawarra supporting KidsWish, and we've donated more than $100,000 to them over the time.
"I love doing charity work, but this Batemans Bay show is our first ever show under our business venture - we'll keep doing our charity run though."
Mr Draper said there would be something for just about anybody at the show, including a 60,000 piece replica of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
"We'll have Marvel stuff, Harry Potter stuff, Star Wars stuff, mosaics - there really is something for everyone," he said.
"We've got a huge city layout that'll take up about 12 tables with trains running all through it."
However, Mr Draper's biggest individual piece won't be on display.
"A couple of years ago I did a piece based on the Interlace building in Singapore," he said. "That one was massive, it had about 90,000 pieces.
"It won best-in-show at Sydney, and got a third-place finish in Canberra, but unfortunately it's a bit too big to take to these types of shows.
"The set up on site for that one alone was about eight hours."
LEGO has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years thanks to the TV show Lego Masters, and Mr Draper said LEGO was a great hobby for anyone to pick up.
"I've never bumped into anyone who didn't have LEGO at some stage of their life, and a lot of people appreciate what it is and what it can achieve," he said.
"There's really no particular skills needed, and it helps build appreciation for a different form of art.
"There are always more advanced designs that take a special sort of person to complete, but you can do much or as little as you want with LEGO."
The Batemans Bay Brick Show will run on January 17 and 18, and will hit the road to tour the rest of the state after its completion.
Mr Draper said Batemans Bay was the ideal spot to start his business venture.
"As much as it's for the business, we're also coming down there for a nice couple of days away as well, and what better place than Batemans Bay for that?," he said.
"The club has been a huge supporter for us, and they've already booked us in for next year - to be able to offer something a bit different appeals to them, and it's been really good working with them.
"After we're done in Batemans Bay, we head to Dubbo in February, then we're in Parkes before our big charity show in the Illawarra in March.
"Then we'll be in Gosford, Penrith, and we're looking at Tamworth as well."
Joel Erickson
Twice weekly
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