Here is the second of two Chinese Festival Special Edition sets for 2022. This one is the lower priced set with it retailing for $79.99 in the US. It was released at the same time as #80109-1: Lunar New Year Ice Festival which was 10 January 2022. This set contains 1,066 pieces so the price per piece is $0.075 per piece.
This set has branding for “Build Together” and it says 6X on the front of the box. The set is designed so that you can build it with others. There are multiple instruction booklets which apply specific numbered bags. I tested it out and did this build with my kids. My 4 year old and I as a team and then my 8 year old going solo. My NLS originally was supposed to join us, but found excuses not to.
The front of the box also has the Chinese Festival Special Edition logo, a picture of the set and then all of the 12 minifigures included in the set. The back of the box shows that you can display the set rounded or stacked on top of each other. It also gives a few details of some of the individual builds.
This set includes seven numbered parts bags. The instructions are wrapped in a bag with the stickers.
There are six instruction booklets so you can split up the build as desired. One slight challenge is that the instruction booklets don’t match up with the bag numbers. So instruction booklet one uses bags one and two. Then after that instruction booklet two uses bag three. The bags and booklets continue the disconnect throughout. Not a big deal, but make sure you pay attention to it when building.
Here are the stickers. There are a bunch. I learned that my 7 year old is really good at putting stickers on LEGO sets. I might have to keep that in mind for future builds.
Bag one builds the first vignette. It has two minifigures cleaning a store that sells pants. There are some fun details in this one to include a small bird, the sticker shows where the window is still being cleaned, and the minifigure pants hanging on the wall.
The second bag builds the piece that holds each of the vignettes together if you want to put them in a circle. Each side has a 2x4 tile with a picture depicting the scene. The top round dish piece is all printed and looks pretty good.
The third bag has a vendor selling various items. There are some chicken drum sticks, some sausages, some green… um… not sure what they are, and then the little minifigures. There are a few boxes on the side with some extra inventory. The use of the textured tiles for the roof area is a nice touch here. I also like the different colored tiny minifigures.
Next up are two minifigures putting up decorations and an orange/tangerine tree. While I think it’s a fun scene, I think LEGO is missing an opportunity to educate the world. What do the various signs say? What are the different traditions? The instructions could have a short little statement on each scene and translations of the various signs and stickers. At least that’s my opinion.
The fifth build has two adult minifigures and a girl watching television right before midnight. The scene is pretty fun with a clock on the wall telling the time and the scene on the TV screen. This bag comes with two smartphone tiles because we are incapable of watching TV without being on our phones at the same time. Also, there are some cups for tea perhaps and some cookies or orange slices. Not sure which they are.
One wall has a fish tank with a brick fish inside. The other wall has a sticker photo taken at 2021’s #80107-1: Spring Lantern Festival. This is a fun reference to a previous set.
The sixth build is of two grandparents giving their grandchild some gifts. From my knowledge, the red 1x2 tile is supposed to be an envelope with money in it. The scene has some fun decorations to include a picture of a tiger on the wall, a flower in a vase, a bookshelf on the wall, and then all the gifts. The best gift is obviously the LEGO bag on the floor. Or maybe it’s not a gift and the grandparents bought it for themselves.
The last build is of a minifigure surrounded by a pot of gold. I’m sure there is some symbolism and once again it would have been great if LEGO shared some of the story in the instructions. The little gold hot dog bun type pieces are fun. You also get a bunch of gold bars and coins which could be useful for MOC builders.
Here is what the set looks like all connected together using the assembly built with bag two. You can spin it around to see each side as desired. The pieces connect pretty easily and can be removed easily, but they don’t just fall out when you try to move the set.
Here are pictures of the set with different views. I tried to line them up with the pictures on the 2x4 tiles so hopefully I came close.
Here’s what it looks like when stacked. There are no instructions to guide you and I didn’t line them up correctly the first few tries so don’t feel bad if it doesn’t look pretty like the example on the set box right away. I prefer this version better as you can see all the vignettes at once.
As mentioned, I built this set with my kids. It actually worked out pretty good to do it this way and we had fun assembling it together and seeing how the different vignettes connect together. My 8 year old did great on her own and my 4 year old did fine working with me so I can endorse the “build together” strategy.
Overall, it’s a fun set with some cool vignettes that I have no idea what they mean. The build can get slightly repetitive with some minor differences between each vignette, but it wasn’t overly boring. This also opens up a chance for you to create your own vignettes using this design or to add your own. For the price it wasn’t too bad, but it does feel rather small for $80. You do get a lot of minifigures though so no complaints there.
What are your thoughts on this one? Has LEGO exhausted the Chinese Festival sets? Should the line continue?
Happy building!
