Slush, Wind, Snow, and Toys

The American International Toy Fair starts on Sunday. I'll be heading to New York for a couple days to make contacts, drum up new business and meet with my foreign licensees. Most exhibitors are worn pretty thin by now. They've said "Have you seen our latest...whatever?" so many times now that the words more or less leave their mouths on their own. Once upon a time, this was the place to introduce new lines, meet with big buyers and little buyers and get a jump on next year in foreign markets.

Much of that is gone. For many years, the February Toy Fair in New York meant several things, not the least of which being that you'd spend Valentine's Day freezing your butt off with the sexy people in the toy industry. It meant that you'd exhibit in an open booth at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, and if you had an established line, you'd also exhibit in some tiny showroom in the Toy Center on 5th Avenue or the connected building at 1107 Broadway. If you had a really established line, you might forgo the Javits space and only have your showroom at the Toy Center. After all, that's where the big buyers were anyway. Well, the Toy Center was sold off for condos, offices, or whatever, Toy Fair now starts after Valentine's Day and new lines have already been shown to major buyers for months.

Holding a trade fair in February seems idiotic anyway, but when the NY Toy Fair first started, the industry revolved around independent toy store sales and most of the new toys, games, crafts, and puzzles were made domesticaly. February was the time to show the new stuff and Manhattan was crawling with toy companies. A couple years ago I had to remind myself of this as 2 feet of snow meant that all of my appointments rescheduled...for some other year.

Today, the mass market and character licenses drive development and the mass market can't buy in February for Christmas sales. If they did, most of the companies who source their items in China couldn't supply them in time. They need at least 12 months and more like 18 to make this whole system work. That's why the mass market Toy Fair is in October, and in Dallas. Among the other Toy Fairs that precede NY Toy are The Hong Kong Toy Fair, the London and Birmingham Toy Fairs, and the big one, the Nuremburg Toy Fair in Germany.

So, why am I and a few thousand exhibitors, salespeople, inventors and buyers putting on our parkas and hiring Sherpas to lug our junk into frozen hotels, cabs, and ultimately, the Mount Everest that is the Javits Center? A couple reasons. For me, its close, just an hour flight, plus I can visit my sister while I'm in the area. For the vast majority of others who don't know my sister that well, NY Toy Fair is a visible, promoted symbol of Toy-dom. Few in the US media have any idea that 80 percent of the toys of Christmas 2008 have already been planogrammed and purchase orders written. Even if they knew, they'd still wait until at least February to tell anyone, because if they reported it any earlier, no one would care, much less remember. So, it's a good media event. Further, while the major toy companies depend more and more on sales to big box retailers, little guys just starting out can exhibit their new item at Javits and get exposure to tons of small buyers. These buyers include online toy stores, catalogs, mom and pops, and small chains. Of course, even if you've been around for a while, it'd be crazy to ignore these buyers or media exposure. Momentum also keeps people coming, especially those from overseas, who've already seen quite a bit at Nuremburg or Hong Kong.

I think it'll be a good show. Without the Toy Center showrooms to suck up exhibit dollars, I expect many companies will expand their presence at Javits. With the economy skidding along, I'd expect to see some creative low-tech for a refreshing change. Speaking of low tech, I'll report back on new jigsaw puzzles and anything that I feel like chatting about after the show. Who knows, maybe I'll even sell something. Wish me luck.