H from the publisher
John Baulch - @Baulchtweet
appy New Year to you all. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and, prior to that, a successful festive trading period. Let’s be honest, 2021 wasn’t a walk in the park for anyone – either on a personal or professional basis. However, despite the myriad challenges, the toy market seems to have fared far better than many other retail categories. We may have all got a little battered and bruised along the way, but I get the sense that, collectively, we made it through relatively unscathed, and we should all be grateful for that.
Nevertheless, the days following Christmas and the first couple of weeks of January still represent an important trading period for toy retailers, with many children eager to spend the vouchers and money they received for Christmas. A January lockdown would be far from ideal in that respect.
I am writing this column with only a few days to go before stores finally close up for Christmas, but such is the nature of December toy sales, it’s still impossible to know where the market will end up once the numbers are crunched. However, whether it is up or down by a few percentage points, given the hurdles that all suppliers and retailers have had to overcome this year, I think we can safely say that we made a lot of children very happy over the festive season, and we should all be proud of the way that everyone in the toy community pulled together to overcome adversity.
Despite the lack of clarity at the time of going to press, we have decided to approach this edition on the assumption that the shows will take place. Call me a sublime optimist, but we felt it was best to adopt a positive mindset and hope for the best, rather than plan for the doomsday scenario. So, as ever, there is a massive section of this edition devoted to the London Toy Fair, as well as our largest ever Nuremberg preview section. There is also a special section covering the latest launches from the companies who told us they weren’t planning to be present at any of the European shows at the time of going to press, as well as a dedicated Hot Properties licensing section, focusing on the key properties that kids’ retailers should be looking out for in ’22.
So, we arrive in 2022, with the hope that it will prove to be a little less eventful and chaotic, but the expectation that in all probability, another year of twists and turns lies ahead. I have been writing Leader columns for many years, and this is without doubt one of the trickiest I have ever had to pull together. I should be bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm for Toy Fair Season - the opportunity for the toy community to come together to celebrate the successes of last year, to thank our friends and colleagues for their support during challenging times and, of course, to see all the great new products that will be hitting the market in ’22. I very much hope that we are still able to do that over the coming weeks. However, there has been considerable uncertainty in the run-up to Christmas; over the last weekend of December, Germany introduced a travel ban for UK visitors which will be reviewed on 2nd January, long after this issue has gone to press. Meanwhile, the UK media has been filled with debate about the potential introduction of new restrictions early in the new year to combat the surge in the Omicron virus. On the plus side, any form of pre-Christmas lockdown would have been disastrous for retailers, so they will at least have breathed a sigh of relief that didn’t happen.
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All I can say for certain is that the organisers of both the London and Nuremberg Toy Fairs are desperate to go ahead with the events and will do everything in their power to deliver safe shows for visitors and exhibitors. The stage is set, we just need the cards to fall kindly in our favour.
Should both the London and Nuremberg Toy Fairs go ahead as scheduled, our exhaustive round-up of the new lines that will be on show will give retailers the chance to plan who they need to visit at the events. And if for any reason it is not possible for UK buyers to visit one or both fairs, it is imperative to remember that they still need to buy, so all the product information and supplier contact details will be an invaluable aid as they start to make their selection decisions for the year ahead. Because show or no show (and I very much hope it is the former), the toy market will go on. Finally, I would like to thank all of our fantastic advertisers for their incredible support, both for this edition and over the past couple of years. The whole Toy World team has worked incredibly hard over the past few months to bring you this amazing January issue, packed with everything you need to know ahead of Toy Fair Season. Here’s hoping that all of the shows can go ahead as planned and we can all meet up in person for the first time in a long while - I know we are all looking forward to that.
