LEGO reveals they will not share BrickLink Designer Program set instructions

The LEGO Group responded to AFOL requests to make building instructions for the BrickLink Designer Program sets – but not in the way fans had hoped.

Director of Community Engagement Tanja Friberg told LEGO Fan Media (including Brick Fanatics) that it is unlikely that build instructions will be made available to those who did not manage to secure pre-orders in this or subsequent rounds of crowdfunding, due to contracts prohibiting them from doing so.

“I don’t think we can make a lot of changes [to giving out instructions],” said Tanja. “We have a contract also with the fan designers and that contract does not allow us to just give away their building instructions. What we’re trying to do here is actually honour that.

“For now, what we’re trying to do is make it possible for people to print their instructions [so that] they can have [them] in front of them. That’s what we’re looking into.”

Tanja went on to emphasise the amount of work that goes into designing and creating the sets, suggesting that this is why the instructions need to remain accessible only to those who secured pre-orders.

“We know what it takes to build [these sets], using the instructions and using BrickLink, for example, to collect all the parts,” explains Tanja. You’d be surprised how much more consumers have to spend, to build. Of course, it’s their choice but we want to give the best experience [to] the builders and the owners of the sets.”

Voices from within the LEGO community around the world have been calling for the instructions to be revealed more widely to combat the level of scarcity surrounding the BrickLink Designer Program models currently. This is another sign that the LEGO Group and BrickLink have focused far too much on exclusivity.

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