Welcome to Diagon Alley! Officially revealed today, we have Jonas Kramm to walk you through every shop – as well as the new moulds and each of the 14 minifigures – found in the latest LEGO® Harry Potter extravaganza. Editorial note: Although views expressed by Harry Potter's creator do not align with that of New Elementary, we continue to cover HP sets. Read about our stance here.
75978 Harry Potter Diagon Alley is the new addition to the LEGO® Wizarding World, launching on 1 September 2020, just one day after the official reveal! Measuring over 1 metre (3.3 feet) long and made up of 5544 pieces, it’s one of the biggest LEGO sets ever and will cost £369.99 / US$399.99 – to learn the price in your country, see the list at the end of this article.
In terms of number of pieces, it compares to the just-over-6000 pieces of 71043 Hogwarts Castle but unlike the castle, Diagon Alley comes in minifigure scale. The alley features various magical shops that Harry and his friends visit in the different movies. We will describe each of them in a moment.
Thanks to its modularity, the houses can be displayed all in one row, swapped around, or even placed on different shelves. The back sides of the shops are all open, allowing you to see inside and to discover the detailed interiors.
With many sets being announced lately targeted at an adult audience, it might be a surprise that 75978 Diagon Alley is labeled a 16+ set.
New LEGO parts in the Harry Potter Diagon Alley set
The biggest news in this set for all fans of LEGO elements can be found in the wand shop.
To keep them safe, Ollivander stores his wands in long, narrow boxes, which here get represented by a new mould.
 |
| Prototype of the new box |
Another new part is the sundae glass from the ice cream parlour.
We've spotted many parts in new colours in the set too but we'll list all those if we get our hands on the actual set!
Decorated elements in 75978 Diagon Alley
75978 Diagon Alley comes with a lot of decorated pieces adding more detail to the interiors and the shop fronts. Two sticker sheets will be included, but it is some of the printed pieces that we want to highlight here: namely, windows!
Two of the shops in the Diagon Alley will feature new printed elements to make the windows. First is Quality Quidditch Supplies, with red windows. Cleverly, the decoration is printed on Brick 1X2X5 (35274) in Trans-Clear, to make the same design usable for both the 8-module-wide window and the smaller one that is 4 modules wide.
The second shop is Flourish & Blotts, with green windows printed onto two Wall Element 1X6X5 (59350), that are built in sideways.
More printed elements are included, but can hardly be distinguished from the pictures alone.
Which Diagon Alley shops are included in LEGO set 75978?
I have listed in detail below which shops can be found in 75978 Diagon Alley and which scenes from the movies they depict.
Ollivanders Wand Shop and Scribbulus Writing Implements
First from the left is Ollivanders Wand Shop, with the iconic windows on the exterior.
He stores his wands over two stories. This is the shop that features the new mould of the wand box but only three; the other boxes are brick-built and can’t fit wands. Harry's most iconic moment in Ollivanders is when he visits it in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s / Sorcerer’s Stone to get his own wand.
On the same baseplate as Ollivanders is Scribbulus Writing Implements, a shop that sells quills, ink, and parchment. In the movies, Harry never visits this shop. For collectors of LEGO accessories the quantity of red and white plumes in the inventory could be interesting.
Quality Quidditch Supplies and The Daily Prophet
Quality Quidditch Supplies is correctly placed next to Scribbulus, as mentioned in the books, and is Harry’s favourite shop in Diagon Alley. Here, everything needed for the popular wizard sport is sold. The LEGO version features brooms in three different shades and two new Quidditch outfits. New Elementary-wise, the use of the Ice Cream Cone (11610) in Dark Orange is new and also the use of a Black carrot as a bat. Talking of bats: one of the images shows the three bats on the board the wrong way around, not clipped in, but flying like magic!
At the front, Quality Quidditch Supplies features the already-mentioned printed windows and, for the shop sign, the golden snitch (37704). Next to the red entrance of the Quidditch shop is the door of The Daily Prophet. This building makes no appearance in the movies apart from showing the sign for a split second, but is part of the coulisse at Universal Studios.
“I love how faithful the final design is to the architectural details in the film. You can barely see some of these buildings zooming past your screen, but we tracked down different photographs from the sets – some of them from nearly 20 years ago – to make sure everything is spot on. Diagon Alley is the biggest set I’ve designed to-date and I am really proud of how it has come together.”
- Marcos Bessa, LEGO Harry Potter Design Lead
 |
| When you remember there is a new mould in your set and it will be mentioned on New E |
Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor and Flourish & Blotts
Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour is one of those buildings Marcos refers to above. It’s mentioned a couple of times in the books, has close to no screen time in the movies, but the LEGO set still features the little green chairs and the table that are decorating the awning.
The inside of the parlour reveals a little counter and cups for ice cream. Among them are two of the new sundae glasses mentioned earlier. It also seems as though we will get a Round 1x1 Plate with Hole (28626) in Dark Tan here, used for the stand of the vitrine.
Flourish & Blotts is the bookseller in Diagon Alley and is placed on one baseplate with the ice cream shop. Thanks to the green facade and the new printed windows the bookshop is instantly recognizable, even though the design seems to have changed, for example Universal Studios feature a different looking entrance.
Knockturn Alley and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
Between Flourish & Blotts and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes is an arch leading to Knockturn Alley, which Harry accidentally enters in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets via the Floo Network. No buildings of this dark part of Diagon Alley are included but the Harry minifigure features an alternative head print with soot on his face, referring to his travel through the Floo Network.
Last shop in the row and the biggest in the alley is Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, founded by Fred and George Weasley after book five. The location appears on screen in the sixth movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when Harry and his friends visit the shop. On the exterior the huge figure of a wizard lifting his top hat and the striking colour scheme of lavender and orange make the shop highly noticeable. Window 1X2X2 (60592) is new in Bright Orange/ Orange and already gets used in great numbers here.
Minifigures coming with 75978 Diagon Alley
Now to the minifigures: a total of 14!
Of course we get the lead characters Harry, Ron and Hermione. Their clothes and leg-length are fit to recreate the scenes in Flourish & Blotts from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Also appearing in that scene are Gilderoy Lockhart, Molly the Daily Prophet photographer, Ginny and the two Malfoys, Lucius and Draco.
Hagrid is the one who brings Harry to Diagon Alley in the first movie and also the one who picks him up when he gets lost in the nearby Knockturn Alley in part two.
Fred and George Weasley are included at an older age from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, where they have their own joke shop. The two other shop owners included are Florean Fortescue and Ollivander.
Summary
LEGO Harry Potter 75978 Diagon Alley launches on 1 September 2020, contains 5544 pieces and 14 minifigures. The dimensions of the build are 102.4cm x 13cm and its height is 29cm (40.3 x 5.1 x 11.4 inches).
The following shops are included: Ollivanders Wand Shop, Scribbulus Writing Implements, Quality Quidditch Supplies, the Daily Prophet, Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, Flourish & Blotts bookseller and Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
How much does LEGO 75978 Harry Potter Diagon Alley cost?
Here is the global pricing for this new set:- Australia 599.99 AUD
- Austria 399.99 EUR
- Belgium 399.99 EUR
- Brazil 3499.99 BRL
- Canada 499.99 CAD
- China 3699.0 CNY
- Croatia 399.99 EUR
- Czech Republic 10999.0 CZK
- Denmark 3199.0 DKK
- Estonia 399.99 EUR
- Finland 399.95 EUR
- France 399.99 EUR
- Germany 389.91 EUR
- Hong Kong 3199.0 HKD
- Hungary 134990.0 HUF
- Ireland 399.99 EUR
- Italy 399.99 EUR
- Japan 44980.0 JPY
- Malaysia 1699.9 MYR
- Mexico 8599.0 MXN
- New Zealand 699.99 NZD
- Norway 4299.0 NOK
- Poland 1800.0 PLN
- Portugal 399.99 EUR
- Romania 1999.99 RON
- Russian Fed. 31999.0 RUB
- Singapore 599.9 SGD
- Slovakia 399.99 EUR
- Slovenia 399.99 EUR
- South Africa 6499.99 ZAR
- South Korea 499900.0 KRW
- Spain 399.99 EUR
- Sweden 4499.0 SEK
- Switzerland 429.0 CHF
- Taiwan 12999.0 TWD
- The Netherlands 399.99 EUR
- Turkey 2999.9 TRY
- Ukraine 12999.0 UAH
- United Kingdom 369.99 GBP
- USA 399.99 USD
Help New Elementary keep publishing articles like this. Become a Patron!
Massive thanks go to our 'Vibrant Coral' patrons: Iain Adams, Baixo LMmodels, Andy Price, Anthony Wright, Geppy, Chris Cook, London AFOLs, Gerald Lasser, Big B Bricks, Dave Schefcik, David and Breda Fennell, Huw Millington, Neil Crosby, Antonio Serra, Beyond the Brick, Sue Ann Barber & Trevor Clark, and Kevin Gascoigne. You're awesome!
Massive thanks go to our 'Vibrant Coral' patrons: Iain Adams, Baixo LMmodels, Andy Price, Anthony Wright, Geppy, Chris Cook, London AFOLs, Gerald Lasser, Big B Bricks, Dave Schefcik, David and Breda Fennell, Huw Millington, Neil Crosby, Antonio Serra, Beyond the Brick, Sue Ann Barber & Trevor Clark, and Kevin Gascoigne. You're awesome!
All images are © 2020 The LEGO Group unless otherwise attributed. Text © New Elementary
My bank account celebrates again that I'm not into the Harry Potter franchise. This set looks awesome if you are.
ReplyDeleteAlso, new door colors in dark red, dark green, and cool yellow. And dark orange and lavender brickwork bricks.
ReplyDeleteLavender. I've always wanted to use lavender as a primary color for a building and the introduction of brickwork in this color is probably the best most unlikely thing to happen to me. I only worry that they'll be exclusive to this set for a long time unless LEGO can make a case for including them in Friends, Disney Princess and similar themes.
ech, the Quidditch shop is too colorful and sort of throws off the look. In the movies Diagon Alley is way more dingy and desaturated.
ReplyDelete15 minifigures w/o the mannequins ;)
ReplyDeleteA lovely set with all sorts of amazing parts and building techniques. I'd probably be super interested in this if it had released 10 years ago or so, before J.K. Rowling made absolutely clear what an insufferable bigot she was. But these days when she regularly makes the news for disparaging trans people or using her obscene wealth to threaten news outlets for criticizing her, I can't really stomach the thought of buying anything branded as Harry Potter. Maybe at best I could Bricklink some of the colorful parts from this for Elves MOCs. But mostly I just wish Elves itself were still around so I could enjoy a colorful and whimsical fantasy theme without having to worry about the money I spend on the sets being used to deprive my friends and family members of their human rights.
ReplyDeleteI applaud all those who, unlike me, have principals. I am however wondering: Wouldn't buying parts from a vendor that parted out this set be the same kind of indirect funding of JKR as buying a set directly from Lego? Or is it guilt-free because you can convince yourself the bricks COULD be from another set?
DeleteDon't get me wrong, I think if more people thought like you the world would be a better place, I'm just curious.
Looks like there are plenty of sand green tile modified 2x2 triangular used in the bay window of the book shop.
ReplyDeleteSo, Ollivander works for Blacktron? Anyways, I see two more of the dark-tan 1x1 round plate w/ hole used in the lamp on the second floor (along with a reappearance of the black hotdog), and yet again holding the flower stem for the Weasley balloons (though the actual balloons, which are interesting in their own right, are held by dark-tan 5-petal flower plates). So after finally rolling out sweater torsos for all four Houses, the QQS provides the missing two Quidditch outfits to match the ones from the Wizarding World Quidditch set...and now they introduce yet another generic House torso design that's only available for two Houses, with the Harry/Ron/Hermione Gryffindor robed torso, and Draco's matching torso for Slytherin.
ReplyDeleteBlacktron, that's interesting. Maybe I'll buy a few of the window parts separately...
Delete