Special Feature - Toy Fair Review

All the fun of the fair

If you were at London Toy Fair in January, you were in good company, with the toy trade once again gathering en masse to check out the latest toys, games and kids’ products that will be keeping the nation’s children (and adults) entertained in the months ahead. Toy World looks back on another superb show and chats with attendees about how the event was for them.

24th-26th January saw London Toy Fair return once again to London Olympia for three packed days of buying, networking, and – of course – having fun. The UK’s leading toy trade show was a sell-out, even with an expanded footprint that made good use of the entire National Gallery to accommodate additional stands. The BTHA’s Majen Immink, director of Toy Fair, is understandably thrilled with the feedback she and her team have received in the weeks since. “Following a huge amount of support for the show in 2022, this has been an even better year,” Majen tells Toy World. “The atmosphere around the halls was incredibly lively; there was a real buzz to the show and visitor numbers returned to pre-Covid levels.”

The BTHA onboarded a new PR agency for the 2023 show, Retail PR, and the consensus among attendees is very much that the team did a superb job. Those of us with access to the much-improved Press Lounge on Press Day (opening day) will have noted that the Toy Fair Hero Toys presentation was heaving with journalists from a raft of major news outlets; indeed, the pre-presentation filming that took place inside the lounge was so well-attended that people were having to sit or kneel on the floor in an effort to avoid the sheer number of cameras in the room. As Majen explains, this translated into tangible media coverage that exhibitors really benefitted from.

“We started working with Retail PR this year,” she says. “As always, when you’re working with someone new for the first time there’s no guarantees, but we’ve had a really good time working with the team. We saw a great range of media coverage of the show, the industry and exhibitors across print, online and broadcast. One particular highlight was Toy Fair being shown live on Sky News, while a big selection of our exhibitors’ products also featured on ITV’s This Morning. Retail PR organises PR opportunities that are available to all exhibitors at the show, which is why we always recommend they get involved as much as they can.”

Press Day also saw the winners of the Best Stand Award 2023 announced. Show newcomer Connetix, which had travelled all the way from Perth in Australia, received the award for Best Space Only Stand, while Mojo Fun, in its second year of exhibiting, was named Best Shell Scheme Stand. Accepting the award on behalf of Connetix, co-owner Brea Brand told Toy World: “It really is an honour to receive this award, we’ve had a great reaction already.” We also caught up with Brea after the show, and she told us: “Toy Fair London was even more amazing for Connetix than we imagined. We had a wonderful turn out to our stand and great feedback regarding our products. The fair has opened new opportunities for us, and we loved getting to meet so many of our current retailers in person.”

Ordinarily, Press Day would also see the announcement of the Toy Industry Awards, but the ongoing improvement works at Olympia meant the traditional evening ceremony had to be shelved in favour of a more modest affair, attended by a much smaller guest list. The winners had been revealed on the eve of Toy Fair, so this gathering was purely for the purposes of handing out the awards and taking official photos. If any reader missed the official announcement which went out on our newsflash, we’ve provided a round-up of the award winners overleaf.

Golden Teddies were also presented on the opening day too. This year the PR industry was in the spotlight, with Michele Norton of Norton PR and Julie Pittilla of Pittilla PR given the accolade at a special reception attended by friends and trade journalists. Speaking after accepting her award, a clearly overjoyed Julie praised the work of all PR people working in the industry: “PR as a profession has never been recognised like this before. The success of so many toys hinges on good PR and I’m delighted that in presenting Michele and I with these Golden Teddies, the work we and countless others do is finally getting its moment in the spotlight.”

Of course, Toy Fair isn’t just about awards – it’s primarily about seeing products. And yet again, there was a huge amount of them to see. The Toy World team wasn’t the only one with packed diaries across the three days, as retailers, buyers and distributors applied themselves with gusto to finding the next big thing they simply have to have on their shelves. Many we’ve spoken to came away with the sense that innovation has returned to the toy industry after a couple of fallow years disrupted by Covid, Brexit and economic factors. From what we saw, innovation was largely within existing brands, while range extensions and lines based on hot licences were also front and centre. With retailers remaining risk-averse, and consumers looking to spend their pounds on triedand-tested brands they know their kids already love, this makes sense. It would be unfair to call out the numerous individual products we spotted (as well as hugely impractical – our readers are still recovering from our January issue and we’ve promised not to damage any more letterboxes with another massive edition until next year), but Toy World saw some massive leaps forward in innovation from the likes of Lego, Funko, Mookie, Click Distribution, Moose Toys and many, many more, promising a very exciting second half of 2023 to come.

Maddi Tiscoe, UK Marketing Manager at Moose Toys, told Toy World that her team enjoyed over 100+ sales and marketing meetings across the three days, and that the ‘buzz at London Toy Fair was unreal’. “The stand looked incredible, with many commenting on our re-useable flat pack ‘reboard’ design, made with recyclable materials and used across multiple shows - just one example of the changes we’re making to commit to target net-zero by 2040,” she said. “We were also proud that Magic Mixies Colour Surprise Cauldron was named a 2023 Hero Toy by the BTHA.” Maddi added: “The show generated incredible tangible excitement for the innovative 2023 line up we’ll be bringing to consumers, from the toys we showcased in the kids’ Demo Zone area to the unveiling of new brands including Cookeez Makery and Little Live Pets My Puppy Home. We also celebrated Little Live Pets’ 10-year anniversary, which demanded lots of cake to be eaten. And of course, everyone wanted a selfie with Bluey. We had representatives from our LA and MBO offices attend, including our Global Gaming lead David Norman and of course our co-owner Paul Solomon, whose presence truly made this Moose Toys’ best ever London Toy Fair.”

Those words – ‘best ever’ – were heard a lot across the three days, from both exhibitors and visitors alike. B&M Stores’ toy buyer Hayley White told Toy World that 2023 was the best Toy Fair she’d been to in years, and that she listed more new lines than at any previous show. “I feel like strong December and January sales had put everyone in an optimistic mood,” she elaborates, noting that with the Hong Kong show season out of the picture, London presented the first opportunity to see a lot of the newest toys and games in person. “We’re really excited with what 2023 will bring, now we’ve seen so many stand out products.”

We gleaned from conversations with clients during the show that pretty much all the major buyers and retailers had been spotted at Toy Fair, along with a very good turnout from the UK’s specialist independents. Many of these took some time out of their very busy schedules to sit down with the Toymaster team in its comfortable lounge on the Upper National gallery for a chat about membership of the buying group. Rosie Marshall and Aimee Hill from Playroom, the toy sector of the AIS buying group, were also at the show: in fact, Toy World’s John Baulch and Rachael Simpson-Jones very nearly got locked into Olympia with them and several other industry peers after ignoring curfew – we were all having far too much fun to want to leave, which says a lot.

Day three of Toy Fair witnessed the return of the Influencer Day for the first time since 2020, which provided yet another opportunity for exhibitors to secure media coverage for their products, and representatives from the charity KidsOut took to the aisles at the end of the show for their own best-ever Toy Fair, collecting over 5,000 toys generously donated by the trade. These will make their way into specially curated toy boxes given to children fleeing domestic violence, often for the safety of a refuge and with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Julian Margolin, chief ambassador at KidsOut, said: “We were once again overwhelmed by the amount of support from the toy trade at this year’s Toy Fair Trolley Dash. Over 80 volunteers were literally rushed off their feet after rolling down the aisles and back with trolleys full of donations. We would like to thank not only everyone in the trade but also the BTHA for its continued faith in the cause and especially to Majen Immink, Jo Lester and their teams for allowing us the opportunity, as well as the unseen heroes supporting with trolleys and transport, Tesco and (DHL) Marks and Spencer.”

Reflecting what the team here has heard from just about everyone it has spoken to, Majen Immink says the feedback the BTHA has received on Toy Fair 2023 has been overwhelmingly positive. The show organisers have already apparently been fielding a large number of enquiries from returning and new exhibitors alike who want to attend the 2024 event, something Majen says is ‘great to hear so soon after the show’. She adds: “As with every show, there are always areas to improve on and we welcome all feedback from our exhibitors and visitors to ensure the show improves year on year.”

“At the moment we are still wrapping up what has been a great show for us this year and preparing for exhibitor applications to open in March for Toy Fair 2024,” Majen adds, when asked what plans are in place for the next show. “Next year is Toy Fair’s 70th anniversary, so we will hopefully have some exciting surprises to celebrate the show that we love so much.”

Lewi Hillier UK Sales & Operations director, Click Distribution

We were delighted with the number of visitors to our stand. Our team were present for the full three days and the appointment diary was fully booked for all of them - but most importantly, the quality of visitors was exceptional. We are very grateful to our retail partners for their support and for coming to see us.

London Toy Fair never fails to deliver new opportunities for us year after year. It’s a fantastic show which is heavily supported by both suppliers and retailers. I personally thought the atmosphere this year was great. We were fortunate to have a number of new properties and toy ranges which we announced at the show, which only added to the excitement.

Nicola Bergot UK managing director, Magicbox Toys

Toy Fair felt more ‘back to normal’ this year, with everyone being less guarded and more comfortable with meeting and chatting. The Toy Trade ‘kiss and hug’ is back, the mood was good, and everyone seemed to be in high spirits (retailers and suppliers alike).

We were delighted with our stand: it presented a blast of Magicbox colour in the main hall, which looked great. Being an open stand, we were able to welcome all our appointments and accommodate additional visitors. It’s a frustration at these events that there seems to be a growing reluctance from some buyers to make appointments (thankfully not all). The stand may be open and welcoming, but you can only talk to one customer at one time.

Overall, we had a very good show. It is certainly the kick-off event in the toy calendar, and we couldn’t wait to get started. We saw plenty of quality visitors, enjoyed lots of positivity and good meetings, and came away with lots of exciting opportunities to build on.

John Styring CEO, Curious Universe

We were thrilled to attend our first London Toy Fair and even more excited to showcase our fantastic new toy brands: Cutesville, Crystalverse and Curious Universe Games. 2022 was an exciting year of product development for us and we created some amazing new concepts - what a great start to 2023, to be able showcase all that hard work at Toy Fair.

We were able to speak to visitors with whom we have long-standing relationships whilst also developing exciting new connections. It was great to establish ourselves in a relatively unchartered space. We dove straight in and can’t wait to see what exciting ventures come from this.

James Barrett Sales manager, Peers Hardy UK

As a first-time exhibitor at Toy Fair, we were not sure what to expect – we needn’t have worried though, as the amount of people who visited our stand, particularly to see our new brand Wow Generation, was far above what we could have hoped for. As well as connecting with our existing retailers we met many prospective new customers from multiple retailers, independents and distributors and look forward to working with them all.

We are glad that we decided to advertise in Toy World: we had visitors who had seen us in the January issue and made a note to come and see us, which was great. The atmosphere was fantastic, and we look forward to coming back next year.

Nat Southworth Managing director, KAP Toys

Toy Fair was totally awesome: I’m only sorry that I didn’t get to speak to as many friends and former colleagues as I would have liked - we were simply too busy. Disney 100, Fuzzballs, Hello Kitty and Marvel Mission Arena caused a lot of noise. We’ve got so much follow up to do and it was great to experience the adrenaline rush of a trade show again – thank you to all involved. Our industry felt like it was back to its best!