The Fair is back in town
The BTHA Toy Fair is so close we can almost taste it. Taking place across 22-24 January 2013 at West London’s Olympia, the show is home to over 220 exhibitors, ranging from major toy brands to start-up companies in the Greenhouse. Tom Roberts reports...
T
oy Fair offers visitors and exhibitors an unrivalled opportunity to meet the toy industry, network with peers, see new lines as they are launched for the year ahead, and to plan product
ranges for the next 12 months. It is a trade only event, open to all those involved in the business of toys from buyers and agents to licensors and inventors. The Toy Fair is celebrating it’s 60th year in 2013, it’s Diamond Jubilee, and the Greenhouse is celebrating it’s 10th year, so it’s a big year in the show’s history. Simon Pilling, head of Toy Fair Operations
and Sales, said: “As the show will be celebrating its 60th birthday I look forward to an even more spectacular event. With toys being the subject of the fair, the show is always colourful and vibrant, and every year I look forward to seeing the variety in design of the stands from large to small. The opening day is always eagerly anticipated by the team; after a full year’s hard work it is great to see it all come together.” At the 2013 Toy Fair, over 230 companies will be exhibiting and launching thousands of brand new products on the show floor, in comparison to 218 in 2012. Amongst those 230 plus companies are 53 first-time exhibitors and 21 returning companies taking bigger stands. The Greenhouse, will play host to 41 exhibitors including many innovative start-up companies. The increased floor space on the upper level will also allow for a bespoke event space for the 2012 Toy Industry Awards to run in the same venue on the first night of the show. Toy World reported the news that Toy Fair had sold out back at the end of November 2012, which
seems a long time ago now. At the time, Simon commented that it was “fantastic to sell out Toy Fair, once again well in advance of the show opening.” Toy Fair 2013 has been an ambitious project for the BTHA and the association decided, having sold the 2012 show floor space within three months of the January event closing, to expand into the Upper West Hall and incorporate the Toy Industry Awards into the floor plan. Simon said: “It gives me great pleasure in fulfilling our plans to incorporate more companies and I have to thank the toy industry for its continued support. We are fortunate that demand seems to increase each year which is testament to the value exhibitors place on Toy Fair. This was the reason we decided to expand into the Upper West Hall. It’s great to see Toy Fair prosper and maintain its place as a key date in the calendar for the whole industry. We have already had significant interest for the 2014 show so we’re encouraging people to contact us early to secure their place.”
From the plan to the show It’s hard not to attend a trade show and just gawp at the sheer size of the task organising it must be. Having worked for some publishing houses that ran their own trade shows, I’ve seen first hand just how much organisation, planning and hard graft goes into pulling a trade event like this together. Toy Fair is no exception, and it’s much larger than the events I’ve been exposed to the inner workings of. So just how is everything coming together? Simon said: “Preparations are going well and in full swing; with the show just round the corner now the excitement is definitely building. We have had fantastic support and loyalty from our exhibitors once again. We continue to look at the floor plan each year to make changes in line with feedback, and do our best to accommodate as many exhibitors as possible.” And what about the incredible achievement of
60 years of Toy Fair? Is there anything notable we should be looking out for? Simon commented:
“At the 2013 Toy Fair, over 230 companies will be exhibiting and launching thousands of brand new products on the show floor, in comparison to 218 in 2012. Amongst those 230 plus companies are 53 first-time exhibitors and 21 returning companies taking bigger stands.”
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