While the pandemic was impacting the lives of everyone around the world, businesses and summer attractions were attempting to get back on their feet. With the weather warming up and everyone wanting to resume their normal lives, many places were trying to figure out how to attract people while still keeping within the confinements of social distancing and regulations.
The San Antonio Zoo found a pretty fantastic way to do so.
The zoo, which makes its money off of crowds of individuals coming to see their animal exhibits, created an incredible way for people to see absolutely awesome creations while social distancing, too.
The zoo installed “life-sized” replicas of their best exhibits all created and made out of Lego blocks.
While having a replica of the animals is amazing within itself, the replicas are made entirely out of Legos. You know, the Legos you cry about stepping on when your kids leave them out around the house.
Some of the replicas took over 400 hours of work and labor.
Not to mention the crazy number of Legos it took to even build the replicas up. Some took thousands while others took several thousand. The number of Lego bricks used for each animal are listed on the exhibit’s plaques.
The exhibit was called the “Wild Connections” exhibition of animal sculptures.
It was originally created by New York artist Sean Kenney, who is also a certified Lego professional. The Lego sculptures were on display in San Antonio until September 5th, but we’ll always have the photos.
The exhibition took a lot of help from a lot of very talented people.
One of the exhibits, the baby pandas, took 405 hours to make and the artist used 53,460 bricks to build it. That takes a lot of people and a ton of hands!
Some of the animal exhibitions were wholesome and sweet.
Clearly, Sean knew that people needed a reason to get out of their homes and put a smile on their faces. Luckily, there were no large crowds for this show.
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The San Antonio Zoo also made it possible to see each animal exhibit from the car.
This sculpture of a bald eagle took 184 hours and 42,198 bricks to build. People could buy tickets to the zoo online and drive through the zoo in their cars, maintaining social distancing.
Combining Legos and the animals at the zoo was a no brainer for San Antonio.
“LEGO bricks have been a large part of many childhoods sparking curiosity, ingenuity, and creativity. Now they can be experienced larger than life, in nature by families visiting the zoo. These giant plants, animals, and bugs are the perfect complement to a zoo visit,” said Tim Morrow, President & CEO San Antonio Zoo.
The tickets to the drive-thru Lego zoo weren’t too expensive, either.
San Antonio Zoo sold the “drive-thru” zoo tickets for $15 each on their website. It was the perfect way to get out of the house with your little ones and see nature.
Even the pictures are breathtaking.
The details and beauty of each exhibit looked absolutely perfect. You can tell that the artists and laborers took their time with each of the animals to look super real.
People loved the zoo exhibition and seeing the Lego animals.
And we definitely can’t blame them! I think more places should look into opening Lego zoo exhibits — especially the places that don’t have zoos already!
