LEGO fumbles the bag on Shire launch, but it really is available now

The LEGO Group fumbled the bag on the launch of 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire, but it really is available now – along with its exclusive gift-with-purchase.

The latest Middle-earth model was supposed to go live for LEGO Insiders at midnight wherever you are, but all around the world LEGO fans experienced issues actually snapping up The Shire and its companion gift-with-purchase, 40761 The Lord of the Rings: Sméagol and Déagol. Reddit, Facebook, X and more were full of Tolkien nerds sharing their struggles trying and failing to give the LEGO Group their hard-earned money.

“Stayed up late for nothing,” Nick Rethman wrote on Brick Fanatics’ Facebook page. “LEGO Insider and can’t order yet.” Plenty of others chimed in with a similar story, and it was the same over on X, where Light Yagami reported that LEGO.com was ‘all wonky’. Hundreds of people echoed those concerns on reddit, with some calling the situation ‘outrageous’ and ‘insane’.

“I thought this month would be better with them spreading the bigger releases out over several different days,” said Adept_Speaker4806. “Nope. They have to know their website can't handle the amount of traffic it gets at launch. You'd think they'd spend some money to upgrade a little.” Fellow redditor ronjon53 agreed: “It’s mind-blowing that a company as large as LEGO would let their website issues go on and on and on like it has.”

A couple of people tried to bring some levity to the situation – ‘They’re waiting for our 111th birthday to release this, I suppose’, and ‘We wants it, precious!’ – but the wider sense of frustration wasn’t without cause. Last year’s exclusive The Lord of the Rings gift-with-purchase sold out within a matter of hours of 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr going live, giving Middle-earth collectors good reason to be trying to buy on minute one this time round.

The good news was that the LEGO Group did manage to resolve its storefront shenanigans eventually, but only after an hour and a half or so. And the better news is that 40761 The Lord of the Rings: Sméagol and Déagol is still available in most regions, so either the LEGO Group has produced more copies of this one than last year’s 40693 The Lord of the Rings: Fell Beast, or 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire isn’t selling quite as quickly as Sauron’s tower.

Either way, if you head over to LEGO.com right now and log into your LEGO Insiders account you’ll be able to snap up 10354 The Lord of the Rings: The Shire with both 40761 The Lord of the Rings: Sméagol and Déagol and 40764 Easter Bunny Surprise (where still available). Today is your last day for the Easter GWP, while Sméagol and Déagol – and their exclusive minifigures – are available through April 8, or while stocks last.

If you want to catch up on previous LEGO The Lord of the Rings sets at the same time, both 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell and 10333 The Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr are available with double Insiders points (equivalent to 10% cashback to spend on future LEGO Store purchases) until April 8.

Check out our review of The Shire here.

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