Set #41004 Rehersal Stage: Many sets in the LEGO Friends Theme have introduced some interesting build techniques, fun colours rarely seen in LEGO form and great play features for the target audience. Some sets however are better than others and this set is somewhere in the middle of great and ho-hum. Mostly because it tries to be two things at once and doesn’t succeed at either of them. But we’ll get into that later, let’s start off with the usual.

Box/Instructions

Again the LEGO Friends boxes are different from typical LEGO sets. Not because of the purple colours, but because of the smooth curved nature of the boxes. They aren’t exactly rectangular, the images on this box shows the set quite nicely. You get to see all of the features on the back and the front showcases the main feature of a double-stage that can rotate between one and the other. It’s a great design and does show the set brilliantly, it’s just a shame that the set isn’t the best LEGO Friends has to offer.

The instructions are what they are. We’ve seen them many times before, the design of the Friends manuals doesn’t change much. Here it breaks the build up between two numbered bags, it shows each step without any problems, though there are some stickers involved for the mirrored surfaces. There’s also the standard cross-promotional images in the back. And of course my personal favorite, the set checklist for the wave in the back. Not much more to say here.

Parts

This is another great parts packs from LEGO Friends, with a massive number of dark and light purple colours. Some light teal/blue parts and even some rare light orange plates. Great set for the parts, definitely.

Minifigures

Stephanie: This mini-doll has a nice top. It looks like a ballet outfit’s top and is a nice print, unfortunately it has the standard skirt leg piece in a light purple with the legs painted white to look like she’s wearing leotards. It is effective enough I would suppose, however I do wish that the legs had a better looking tutu piece. A regular skirt just doesn’t do the effect of giving the appearance of a tutu because there are too many folds in it and it is slightly too long.

For accessories she comes with a light blue guitar, an orange brush and a gold crown for her head. Decent accessories in this set, and it’s nice to see the CMF parts being used outside of that line. Especially as the guitar is in a really nice new colour here.

The build

The most satisfying element of this build is the small dressing room table with mirror. It’s a great little build that features not too many parts and you have something to play with quickly, you might need help in placing the sticker correctly though for the mirror.

The main build of this set is really just a huge open curtain and the rotating stage which is a fun build, it’s nice to see the techniques used before with the curtains from smaller 12.99 sets into a larger, thicker looking build. It’s the more satisfying build of this model compared to the stage. Again you’ll find you may need help to place the mirrored sticker on the stage.

The speakers on the stage is a nice clever little build too, and is pretty fun once you finish them.

The completed model

The vanity is an interesting little side model with a mirror, some perfume and flowers and a drawer for storing Stephanie’s crown. It’s a nice little mini model that works as a great model for play time. The mirrored stickers LEGO has introduced is impressive.

The stage however is a bit weak. As finished models go it isn’t too terrible, it has a lot of play potential. It just is a terrible looking display piece and doesn’t fit in well with the other Friends sets of a similar price point. It tries too hard to incorporate the ballet practice area and the rock concert stage that it suffers because of this. The curtains are too far back from the main stage, which rotates so you can practice ballet with Stephanie, or rock out with the Friends with a keyboard and microphone stand.

My main issue with this model is that it’s too open, if there were some walls or something on either side to show the wings for the stage it might be better. The fact that you can practice ballet and then spin the stage around to perform musical numbers isn’t a bad idea for a play feature. The execution of it here just feels lackluster. Because the structure built is missing everything that would make the stage stand out more as a full stage, the main stage is on a too small spinning hexagonal plate while the baseplate surface is ignored.

That’s it. The LEGO Designers should have made a regular concert stage build that fit the baseplate, and then added the spinning play feature that allowed you to practice ballet on a small section of the stage which could have featured modular rearranging to fit in the ballet idea. Instead they combined music performance and ballet in a way that just threw away a perfectly good baseplate. It’s too small for all your mini-dolls to actually perform.

Overall opinion

I recommend this set more for the parts than anything else, especially that nice tan baseplate, which isn’t very common. However I think fans of the Friends Theme could make up a much better stage for rehearsals than what the official LEGO designers came up with. Hopefully the new Rock/Pop Idol sets in the summer of 2015 will feature a much better stage for the Friends to interact with.