The world’s favorite toy turns 90!
It’s a toy that has become synonymous with play all over the world, now the LEGO Group is celebrating 90 years as a company.
Over the decades, LEGO has gone from strength to strength, becoming a multi-billion dollar empire.
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A topical matter joined LEGO to look back on the company’s history, which dates back to 1932.
From humble beginnings in a workshop in Denmark, a carpenter started carving and selling wooden toys.
But Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s real success didn’t come for 17 years when the famous brick we all know and love was born, in 1949.
“I bet at the time they wouldn’t have thought about the size of the Lego company after the introduction of this brick. And I guess the rest you could say is history, n ‘is this not?” LEGO Australia’s Angie Tutt told A topical matter.
“I think the success really lies in the magic of this brick, a very simple brick,” she said.
There are an incredible 70 billion LEGO pieces sold each year.
There are also more LEGO minifigures on earth than there are humans, with 8.3 billion LEGO people in circulation.
“If you look at everything we’ve launched over time, it’s about 18,000 products that we’ve bought into the market over our history, so there’s a lot going on,” she said. .
Miller Keys is the only LEGO Master Builder in all of Australia, says the 24-year-old, has built many sets since he was a child.
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“It’s like art, like painting, but you don’t need to know how to paint. You just need to know how to put two bricks together and then you can build anything – that’s what makes it cool,” he said. A topical matter.
Keys works at Melbourne’s LEGOLAND Discovery Center at the Chadstone Mall.
“When I was four years old and playing with LEGO, if I had known it was going to be my full-time job, it would have completely blown my mind,” he said.
Inside the Legoland Discovery Center is an entire LEGO world, including a recreation of Melbourne, made up of 1.5 million bricks.
Keys says it took the builders 5,000 hours to put everything together.
These days, the toy juggernaut is more than just bricks.
There are 830 LEGO stores around the world, dozens of blockbuster LEGO movies and TV shows, and in recent years, complex sets designed specifically for adults.
“What not everyone does enough these days is play. So that’s what makes Lego really great too – it can take adults back to their childhoods too,” Keys said.
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What’s next for LEGO?
While they couldn’t tell us exactly what was to come, Tutt says next year we can expect a few surprises.
“In 2023 you have to look for new partnerships that we have coming up, definitely new products and new ideas and we really want to get back into Australian communities and lay bricks in our hands,” she said.
To celebrate its 90th anniversary, LEGO is re-releasing some classic LEGO sets and encouraging fans to play for 90 minutes on August 10.
