Letter from the Director, April 2025

Dear Brick News site users,

Frase here. It's been three months since the last big update from me, and I'd like to cover some information on the current state of Brick News, future plans and what you can expect from us this year.

Just a quick notice, I am going on a trip to New South Wales from Saturday, April 12th and returning on Tuesday, April 22nd. During this time, the Brick News email inbox (info@bricknews.com.au) will still be responding to emails and direct messages on Instagram. The forums will also continue to be monitored and moderated - however, users who encounter certain technical issues (such as doubling up on subscriptions or mistakenly locking themselves out of their accounts) may need to wait for my return to have these resolved. As of the time of this article, we have no known ongoing technical issues on the Brick News website.

During my trip I plan to visit the LEGO Certified Store at Pitt St Mall in Sydney, the biggest LEGO store in the world. I'll be in there on Tuesday, 15th of April, so if you see me feel free to say hello! On Saturday, May the 3rd I will be at the Melbourne Museum in the LEGO Star Wars Exhibit from 9am. I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Now, let's get to the announcements ...

Brick News May Monthly Draw

The Brick News Monthly Draw in May is highly anticipated by our LEGO Star Wars community, as the grand prize will feature the Ultimate Collector's Series: Jango Fett's Starship. The set still has not yet officially been announced by LEGO, but we know it's coming due to photos being uploaded online early (such as the one pictured below).

A leaked image of the UCS Jango Fett's Starship. Image source: Undisclosed online retailer.

Brick News is currently waiting on the official reveal by LEGO as well as a pricing confirmation to determine whether the draw will feature one set, or if it will feature two (and consequently result in having two grand prize winners for May). We'll provide an update on this as soon as we have one.

Build Competition Update

Right now we have an active build competition (which you can view the details for here or enter here). However, some of you may have noticed there was no build competition last month. This is partially due to budget constraints and partially due to lack of interest. We've noticed the vast majority of our VIP members prefer to enter the draws on the website, or the giveaways on Instagram rather than the build competitions.

We will continue to host build competitions, however there will not be a guarantee of a build competition occurring every month. With that being said, if we begin seeing more entrants into these competitions, they will occur more often in the future.

Content Creator Sponsorship Competitions

In March we began our first joint competition with content creator UniBricks. This marked the beginning of our content creator team-ups and we're now actively promoting a free-to-enter competition with JediBricks. Going forward you can expect to see more of these occasional cross-promotions with LEGO YouTube Creators, including both free-to-enter and VIP-exclusive competitions! Sometimes content creators will offer special discounts for subscriptions on the Brick News website, so it's worth tuning in during months where Brick News is sponsoring them.

If you are a content creator and you'd like to collaborate with us, send us an email and we'll get back to you.

Now that I've covered all of the fun stuff, feel free to click out of the article! To those of you still interested though, thanks for sticking around. Now I'm going to dive into the state of Brick News.

Brick News director & founder, Frase.

Current State of Brick News

Brick News has now been running for almost 2.5 years. We kicked off our first ever public draw in December 2022, and we've had numerous site members and Instagram followers win prizes from us over the last 2.5 years. We've covered plenty of LEGO leaks and built up a small community of our own. I'm very proud of how far Brick News has come since we launched, but it hasn't been easy.

We've faced quite a few challenges since we got started - advertising issues, navigating the legality of launching international competitions, website technical issues, shipping limitations and many other issues behind-the-scenes that have almost forced me to shut down the company multiple times. Despite these setbacks, I have made sure Brick News customers have never failed to receive a prize if they've won a competition, have been refunded in a timely manner if facing a technical issue on their account, and I have personally read through every email ever sent to the Brick News mailboxes over the years.

Despite advice from friends, family, acquaintances and others, I am committed to keeping the Brick News VIP subscription at just $5 per month. Some of the big LEGO sets Brick News includes in its monthly draws are unfortunately just a dream for many people who don't have the luxury of being able to outright buy those LEGO sets. Alienating people from having an opportunity to win these by hiking up the prices of a Brick News subscription is the last thing I want to do. Expect the $5 AUD per month cost to remain as the most expensive subscription plan - the price of just one cup of coffee every month. We'll always stick to our rule of strictly one entry per subscription holder, keeping it fair for everyone.

I also refuse to accept donations or funding - although the offers have always been greatly appreciated. If Brick News cannot operate on its own, it will cease operations rather than inconveniencing others with increased prices or requests for funding. As of right now, Brick News is in a stable position. If you're a fan of what we do and you've already got a VIP subscription, the best thing you can do to support us is tell your friends and family about us and help spread the word.

Thank you immensely to all of our VIP members, both past and present. You are what keeps Brick News running and you've brought great joy to the 29 Brick News Grand Prize Winners who've all scored some amazing LEGO sets.

If you have any feedback for Brick News, please email it to info@bricknews.com.au or message @bricknewsco on Instagram. We look forward to providing our readers with more LEGO leaks & news, and to hosting more awesome competitions in the future. Take care!

Frase

Director, Brick News