Special Feature - Toy Fair Season

Toy Fair Season the future is wide open

The last two years have seen significant changes to the ways many of us have been used to working, and nowhere is this more evident than in the trade show arena. Toy Fair Season is changing, and based on a few interesting developments in recent weeks, there may be even bigger changes on the horizon. John Baulch reports…

For decades, the traditional January/ February Toy Fair Season has followed a similar pattern; toy suppliers and retailers from across the globe traditionally descend on Hong Kong in the first week of January to kick things off, with trips to London, Nuremberg and New York following over the next six weeks. Unfortunately, that time-honoured calendar has been massively disrupted by the pandemic. Not a single toy trade show took place in 2021, and the likelihood of the shows returning in 2022 was a hot topic of discussion throughout the course of last year. From an early stage, it was apparent that the Hong Kong Toys & Games Fair would not be coming back in 2022: the zero-Covid strategy backed by the Hong Kong government sadly rendered international business travel impractical for all but the most essential trips. However, throughout the fourth quarter of 2021, the organisers of all of the other main toy shows repeatedly made public statements claiming that their shows would be going ahead.

Despite their assurances, the toy community grapevine had been buzzing for months with suggestions that some of the major buyers wouldn’t be attending certain shows, while the turn of the New Year heralded a flurry of rumours about high profile toy companies making the decision not to exhibit. In the end, the steady succession of companies withdrawing their support left the organisers of the Nuremberg and New York Toy Fairs with little choice but to call their shows off.

wThankfully, the London Toy Fair was able to go ahead, and the show proved to be everything we hoped it would be…and more. We have covered the show extensively elsewhere in this issue, but it’s worth adding that with all the other shows cancelled, there was a welcome bonus this time round, as many international attendees came along, not just from all parts of Europe as we had perhaps anticipated, but from further afield too. I liked the tale of two South American visitors who couldn’t speak a word of English, who were so keen to see new ranges after the New York show was cancelled that they made the trip and relied on the international language of toys being enough. I gather there would have been even more international attendees if the Nuremberg show had been called off earlier; by the time it was confirmed, it was too late for visitors from places like Russia and other countries to obtain the necessary visas. It was also interesting to see some major announcements which would traditionally have been held back to coincide with either the Nuremberg or New York Toy Fair being unveiled during the London Toy Fair.

The following week should have seen Nuremberg Toy Fair taking place, but unfortunately that was not able to happen this year. A digital event ran in place of the physical show, but surely the saddest picture of the week was the one taken outside the entrance to the Messe, without a single person in shot. I felt for the Spielwarenmesse team, and hope we are all back in Bavaria next year. Whatever a few people might have suggested on LinkedIn, Nuremberg remains an excellent location for the show, with history, heritage and excellent facilities on its side. If you want ‘great weather’, book a holiday – we’re inside exhibition halls all day anyway, so the temperature isn’t really a major issue. Sure, they could do with sorting the hotel prices out, but hopefully that’s an ongoing conversation and, ultimately, not a deal-breaker for the thousands of exhibitors and visitors who flock to Nuremberg each year.

Meanwhile, over in the US, it has emerged that the Toy Association is in the process of evaluating the future of its event program, and specifically assessing the future of the New York Toy Fair. The grandly titled Toy Fair Reimagination Project is said to be “looking at every aspect of Toy Fair, from timing and location to in-show experiences and content, to the Toy Fair brand itself.” So, in effect, there are numerous potential outcomes – so many, in fact, that I am loathe to speculate on what conclusion they might come to ahead of an announcement on the findings, which is expected in a few weeks’ time.

An article in the New York Post posits the theory that the show could shift its timing – from February to the autumn – and could also shift to an entirely different location, thousands of miles away from New York. Or it could stay exactly where it is. Everything is up in the air. I don’t envy the Toy Association: it has hundreds of opinions, both from individuals and companies, to take into consideration. If my LinkedIn feed is anything to go by, there are many, many different views – all strongly held – and no one obvious solution that will make everyone happy. The massive retailers have different buying calendars to the rest of the retail channel, while the larger toy companies will have different timescales to SMEs. Then there is the fundamental question of the show’s central premise: it is a predominantly retail buying show, or has it evolved into an event that is equally aimed at media and analysts? And is the calendar for media coverage and analyst reaction the same as for retail buyers?

There are a lot of potentially conflicting views to factor into the decision-making process, along with some powerful vested interests, especially when you bring the LA Show into the equation – it’s far easier for that ‘group’ of toy companies to reach a decision, as it is driven by a couple of the biggest suppliers, with other companies located nearby tagging along for the ride. It will be fascinating to see which way the Toy Association leans – and what the consequences are for other global toy shows as a result. If the show does move to the autumn, that would represent a seismic change to the Q1 Toy Fair Season, especially as many US-based companies traditionally hold launches and announcements back until the New York show in the middle of February, which doesn’t always help their European operations to make the most of the London and Nuremberg shows.

Another big Toy Fair Season change could come from the other side of the world, with events in Hong Kong in recent weeks exacerbating an already contentious situation. Essentially, the zero-Covid strategy aggressively pursued by the Hong Kong government has hit a massive bump in the road – there has been a huge surge in cases, over 4000 a day for the first time since the pandemic began. Basically, zero-Covid hasn’t worked – prompting the government to…double down on the zero-Covid strategy. No, I don’t quite get it either. One Hong Kong lawmaker allegedly said that anyone advocating a ‘live with Covid’ approach should be charged under the controversial national security law, likening it to “starting biological warfare.” Contrast that with the announcement that here in the UK, it may not even be a legal requirement to isolate if you test positive from this month.

So, what is the upshot for international visitors? Well, given that the toughest social distancing rules yet were brought in after the latest surge in Covid cases, the opening of the Hong Kong border and the lifting of quarantine restrictions for international travellers seems further away than ever. Hong Kong companies are apparently finding it impossible to recruit international staff, while expats are said to be leaving in their droves (with limits on more than 2 people meeting in a pub, you can see why…). Several toy people who live and work in Hong Kong took to social media to say that these latest developments make the October trip highly unlikely, and even wonder whether the January ’23 trip will be feasible.

There is, however, a counter-argument – namely that this surge in cases might finally encourage more locals to get vaccinated. You can’t even get into some shops without a Covid pass now, so this might be the push the territory has needed to boost vaccination numbers, which ultimately will drive when the territory can re-open to the world.

Let’s hang on to that hope – because if not, the first and possibly the last shows in Toy Fair Season may not actually take place next year. That would certainly make it a very different couple of months at the start of the year…a major recalibration. Indeed, there is even the possibility that the whole calendar undergoes a radical shift (more thoughts on that as and when we know what’s happening).

Either way, for the same reason that many consumers still prefer to buy toys from ‘real’ shops rather than online, the vast majority of buyers prefer to make their selection decisions having seen the products in the flesh. I don’t see that changing any time soon, which is why I firmly believe that toy shows have a viable future. People want to be able to come back to Hong Kong. They want to congregate in Nuremberg and New York as soon as virus conditions allow them to do so.

I appreciate we all said this a year ago – but hopefully by the time that Toy Fair Season ’23 rolls round, the pandemic will be well and truly behind us…or, at least, Covid will have turned from pandemic to endemic, and the world will have learned how best to live alongside the virus - and Toy Fair Season can return in all its glory.

Stay tuned - we’ll keep you posted on further developments with all the global toy shows over the coming months, as and when details are announced.