North East LEGO fans at Darlington Brick Show 2026
Brick Alley members headed to Hopetown at the weekend for Darlington Brick Show 2026, displaying LEGO models, running activities, and sharing our love of LEGO with the general public.
The first Darlington Brick Show was held at the Dolphin Centre in July 2025 to celebrate Brick Alley’s tenth birthday. Our 2026 event moved to Hopetown, a museum about one of the world’s first railways which ran through Darlington.
This year, around 4800 tickets were prebooked including a quiet hour on Sunday morning for those with additional needs. LEGO fans of all ages and abilities were promised a weekend of LEGO fun, and Brick Alley members and other LEGO User Group members were there to help share their love of the LEGO hobby, with over 90 contributors over the weekend.
Trophy winners from Darlington Brick Show 2026
As usual, we had a handful of trophies to award over the show weekend for our members.
Best photograph – GBC by Marcus Hargis
Marcus’ photo of the Great Ball Contraption (GBC) at the show won our best photograph trophy with this futuristic shot, as picked by regular Brick Alley photographer Tiina.
Orangest MOC – Steve and Evie’s GBC gate
Regular readers will know we like to give away a random trophy at our shows, which builders can’t prepare for, and Darlington Brick Show’s random trophy was “Orangest MOC” (My Own Creation – custom model). Steve G and Evie won with their GBC gate module (pictured):
Most Terrific Tractor – Hot Air Balloon Tractor by Andrew Wellings
Our club collaborative project this year is Terrific Tractors – members were challenged with taking the recent LEGO City tractor set and customising it, and Andrew’s hot air balloon tractor caught our judge’s eyes!
Brick Alley Noughts & Crosses Champion – Adam Brine
Regular readers will also know that we tend to gift a specially created LEGO set as a gift for our exhibitors and volunteers, some of whom have travelled long distances – exhibitors included Dom from Dundee and Levi from Brighton – to spend the weekend with us. The gift set for Darlington Brick Show 2026 was a buildable Noughts and Crosses set, and Jack hosted a championship on Saturday afternoon, which finally crowned Adam Brine our winner:
You can see the intense concentration in the final heat between Adam and Ste here:
Best MOC – Will’s Billingate
Our Best MOC (My Own Creation – custom model) trophy went to Will’s Billingate LEGO railway layout, as chosen by Josh and Alice from our venue, Hopetown.
Our next club event is Durham Brick Show on 19 – 20th September 2026 at Ushaw House near Durham but we also run monthly meet-ups for adult LEGO fans across North East England – see our membership page for more information.