As proud AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO®!), our members love to show off the builds we've created and collected. Our shows take place all over the Maritimes and are as varied as our members. Check out our calendar of upcoming events right here, or keep scrolling for more information about our signature events and a little bit of MariLUG history!

Click on any event below to learn more, and to see photos from previous years.

Please note that details of future events are subject to change until the date of the event.

Atlantic Canada's #1 LEGO® Fan Event since 2023! Brickplosion is organized by MariLUG member Shawn McLeod through his brand Holdfast Bricks, and run in collaboration with the rest of the LUG.

Our largest homegrown event, Bricksplosion is a 'convention lite' experience where you can find lots of MariLUG builds on display alongside works from our friends across Canada for one creativity-packed weekend!

Bricksplosion happens around Halloween each year. Brick or treat!

In 2023, MariLUG designed a LEGO® replica of the Halifax Citadel and assembled it with a public build day at the Halifax Central Library. Our Citadel model contains over 10,000 pieces and is now on long-term display within the real-life Citadel Hill Historic Site in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

This project was made possible with the support of Molen Services, a renewable energy company based in the Halifax region.

Bricks by the Sea is a labour of love for MariLUG's longest-standing member, Owen. He's been putting on this exhibition through the holiday season year after year, and since 2022 has had renewed support from the LUG to help make this display the best it can be!

Installed annually from November through January, Bricks by the Sea is a Halifax tradition and features one of our largest town & train layouts, supported by a diverse gallery of awesome MariLUG member creations.

Want to see the most unique venue for any MariLUG event? Then you need to visit Ministers Island RailFEST! This annual exhibition, scheduled around the August long weekend, takes place in the 'bathhouse' on William Cornelius Van Horne's historic summer estate near St. Andrews. Access to the island is via a gravel bar that's only exposed at high tide, so the daily schedule actually varies according to the ebb and flow of the Bay of Fundy!

RailFEST celebrates the history of the Canadian Pacific Railway and offers visitors the opportunity to build scenery or rolling stock to add to a large LEGO® train layout.

MariLUG members often come together to enrich our local communities across the Maritimes with regional shows and displays. From variety exhibitions to themed local events, you can often find us and our builds in shopping malls, community centres, museums and more!

Some of our past and recurring community events include build days in Kentville and Wolfville, N.S., mid-term installed exhibitions at the Mic Mac Mall, contributions to festivals, and even a scavenger hunt inviting Haligonians to find LEGO® builds scattered across their favourite downtown stores and businesses.

MariLUG's members are LEGO® fans, but (sometimes) we're social creatures too! It can be a challenge to get together since we're spread out all across the Maritimes, but when we can make it happen we like to hang out and share food, fun, and laughter.

We've also been known to host public hangouts where anybody's welcome to roll up, get their hands on some play brick, and share in the joy of building as well as what we'd like to think of as the pleasure of our company!

Of course we do bridge the geographic distance between us with virtual meetups as well, including our online monthly meetings.

As AFOLs, there's no place we're happier than where we're surrounded by dozens of other people just as passionate about LEGO® as we are! MariLUG members can reliably be found at conventions in eastern Canada including Bricks in the Six and Brickomanie, and we've historically attended now-disassembled events like Brickfête.

Shawn is especially well travelled, and represents us far and wide in his ongoing quest to make it to just about every AFOL gathering there is! If you see him, please say hello – and  remind him to stay hydrated and pace himself.

Sometimes, MariLUG has the honour of participating in collaborations with other LUGs, joint events with cultural leaders in our local communities, or even to collaborate with The LEGO® Group itself through special fan community programs.

We strongly believe in the power of teamwork, and through collaborations like these we can accomplish even more amazing things – and share the passion for building more effectively both in our local communities and beyond.

Hobby shows were once the bread and butter of MariLUG – in fact, it was a model train show that got us off the ground all the way back in 2002, when we went by a different name and had a completely different crew.

Now, more than two decades later, these events are still important connections to communities at the local level. They bring us together with other passionate hobbyists under one roof to show that with commitment, you can build anything!

We'll admit it. Building with LEGO® as an adult is a little bit of a geeky hobby. So why not bring our work to events filled with geeks of all stripes?

We're now a regular presence at the Atlantic Entertainment Expo, one of the region's largest and most professional pop culture conventions. AEX events happen multiple times a year, travelling from city to city so you can likely catch us at one near you!

You'll also find us at Moncton's East Coast Comic Expo, and sometimes at smaller grassroots conventions as well. Keep an eye on the calendar to see where we're headed next!

Not every event fits neatly into one of the above families. Here's where you'll find information about displays and exhibitions that defy categorization – either because they're too unique, or more likely because they're similar to Brixclusive events but without MariLUG playing an administrative role.

With only ten days' notice and all of four members to its name, NovaLUG pulled itself together for the Truro Model Train Show in 2002. This event still runs and we've even returned to it in recent years.

The faces have changed and there has been a long road between then and now, but the tale of the group that would become MariLUG began that fateful October!

The Amazeatorium was a large-scale, LEGO®-themed fundraiser for Touchstone Academy in Rothesay, New Brunswick. This large event was all about helping kids explore and learn, and gave us the opportunity to work with Robin Sather – who at the time was Canada's only LEGO® Certified Professional!

Like so many other things, this event did not return following the COVID-19 pandemic, but we wish our friends at Touchstone Academy well. In the meantime, we've spent the years building a whole new slate of events we think are just as amazing!

They say that when one door closes, another one opens. When the door closed on what had been our flagship event up to 2014 – more on that below – we moved on to a new major annual display in the town of Shediac, N.B.

The Shediac LEGO® Expo was sponsored by the town and ran for two years before passing the flagship event baton over to the Amazeatorium in Saint John.

From its inception until the venue's closure in 2014, the Crystal Palace LEGO® Fair was NovaLUG's flagship event – and what an event it was!

Held during Dieppe's February winter festival, this event drew thousands of excited visitors each year and included a large train layout, large-scale truck models, Star Wars dioramas, sculptures, robotics, a Great Ball Contraption and more!

...Plus, there was a roller coaster onsite. What's not to love?

The Truro train show may have kicked things off for NovaLUG, but the annual Dartmouth Sportsplex hobby show was the LUG's first event that could be described as its flagship.

From 2002 until the Sportsplex closed for renovations, NovaLUG members pulled out all the stops to create large and detailed layouts fit to awe and inspire all who turned out to see.

It took quite some time following the loss of this and the Crystal Palace event for the newly-rebranded MariLUG to once again produce layouts on the same scale as these legacy shows!

Of course, Truro and Dartmouth aren't the only hobby shows we've done over the years. Other events came and went in both the NovaLUG and MariLUG eras.

From Kentville to Cole Harbour to Fredericton, LUG members across the generations have been running trains and monorails in shows across the Maritimes since the very beginning.

Naturally, taking initiative to put on community events isn't unique to present-day MariLUG. They've been a staple for every generation of our group going as far back as 2004.

Whether it's to support a fundraiser, promote our hobby, or simply to delight the community, NovaLUG and MariLUG have popped up for local shows in towns and cities across the Maritimes for years.