touchingbase
70 year reflection
Remember the time…
Although not many of our readers will have attended all 70 years of Toy Fair, the event has provided a host of wonderful experiences and memories for attendees in all capacities over the years, which we share here.
John Baulch - Publisher, Alakat Publishing (Toy World)
I attended my first Toy Fair in January 1981, six months after I had started work on Toy Trader magazine. I have never missed a single day of any London Toy Fair held since then. The show was held at Earls Court – I had missed the previous Brighton / NEC eras. It was a very different show in those days – for starters, it was five days long, which allowed a lot more time for what we now refer to as ‘networking’ (i.e. drinking). I was young, fresh out of school and had a lot to learn about trade show etiquette. On the first morning, my boss, a grizzled Irishman by the name of Pat Sinnott, asked me to get him a drink. I replied perkily: “Sure Pat, tea or coffee?” “He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be daft young Shaun, I’ll have a pint of bitter.” It was 9.30 in the morning. Welcome to Toy Fair, 1981-style. The early 90s were something of a golden era for me in terms of milestone moments in my personal life, many of which actually took place during Toy Fair. In 1991, I went on my very first date with the assistant toy buyer from Makro, a certain Ms Anita Watson. We had to make sure someone invited her boss Colin Fox out for dinner, so we could go our own way (thanks Waddingtons). The following January (1992), Anita and I returned to the same restaurant where we had our first date and got engaged. Two years later, we announced to my colleagues in the bar of the Kensington Hilton that we were expecting our first daughter (who returned the compliment earlier this year and made us grandparents for the first time). There was another big night out which didn’t happen because of Toy Fair, in the early 1980s. I was in a band and acquainted with a few successful pop stars of the day, some of whom frequented the same nightclubs as me, my band mate and our manager. One said he would meet us one evening, so we could hand over our demo tape, which he agreed to pass on to his record company, and at the same time give us a few pointers on a career in the music business if we were successful. His schedule was quite booked up, leaving him only one night to meet up with us - unfortunately for me, slap bang in the middle of Toy Fair. So I wasn’t able to enjoy the night out with George Michael, who took our demo tape away as promised. We later received a kind reply from the record company saying that while they liked the songs, they were too close to Wham’s for them to be interested in signing us. So it was that a few years of fleeting music stardom never came to pass – and I couldn’t be happier. I would have left the toy business and missed so many amazing memories - and more importantly I would never have met my wife. Thank you, Toy Fair.
Rachael Simpson-Jones - Editor, Toy World magazine Although we don’t have products to showcase, I’m nonetheless really looking forward to returning to London Toy Fair, sporting a copy of our enormous January issue and catching up with all the clients that continue to make Toy World the UK’s leading toy trade magazine: it’s so nice to be able to see everyone in person and get hands on with the product we’ve all read so much about these past months. At Toy Fair 2023, the Toy Retailer of the Year awards was held in a slightly different way, with a small selection of media representatives and awards winners gathered upstairs on the gallery following the close of the show for the prize-giving and photos. Afterwards, an even smaller selection of us remained behind to ‘network’ over the copious amount of leftover prosecco (doing our bit to tackle food waste, I say!) until we realised it was getting very late, and we needed to head to our various dinner reservations. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that we were stuck within the Grand Hall: all the entrances were shut and locked, and we appeared to be the only souls in the venue. In our slightly merry condition, various plans were hatched – John was preparing to scale the gates, a senior person at one of the buying groups was searching for a bobby pin to attempt some lockpicking, others were squabbling over who nabbed the Elmo-themed bed on the Just Play stand. Luckily, before any minor criminal activity or acrobatics became necessary, we were discovered by a security guard doing the rounds. He was slightly bemused to find us all still there, but kindly freed us for the night after we explained our predicament – with a reminder to leave on time the following day…
Toy World 158
