Reading on Thames Festival

As part of the Reading on Thames Festival, we held a huge public brick building event in Broad Street Mall, in Reading, where we constructed a 14 metre long model of the Thames River as it winds it way through Reading and then got local families to come and build their own part of the town to create one giant scene.

The event was held over the two days and saw hundreds of locals come down to get stuck into the tens of thousands of LEGO bricks to create everything to do with Reading, from their own homes, boats, swans, iconic buildings, to bridges and even the Forbury Lion statue.

For the start of the event, we pieced together the pre-built sections of the 14 metre long river model and then invited people to come and build in lots of sessions throughout the day. We had visits from local celebrities, TV stations and were part of a live cross on BBC Radio Berkshire.

Along with building hundreds of models, guest builders were invited to enter a lucky draw to win a custom made, one off replica of a number 33, Royal Blue line Reading Bus, which we created for the event.

The Festival was a huge success as well as the Big Build event and we were more than delighted to inspire a lot of the local children and get them creating and learning about Reading.

Photo by Reading on Thames Festival / Stewart Turkington