A spring in your step
2013’s Spring Fair International welcomed over 68,116 visitors, including more than 5,000 international buyers, with overall visitor numbers up 6% on last year. Toy World takes a look at the show and how some of the exhibitors from Hall 3 got on. Tom Roberts reports
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uyers attended from leading independent retailers and all of the UK’s major stores including Selfridges, House of Fraser, John Lewis, Hamleys, Harrods, Liberty, Tesco and Marks & Spencer were well represented.
Spring Fair offered Europe’s largest presentation
of trend-driven gift products to a market that is hungry for newness and originality. Around 300,000 new launches were showcased by 3,000 exhibitors operating across 13 different market sectors. Commenting on this year’s fair, Sarah
Mclaughlin, portfolio director of Spring Fair International, said: “We are delighted that so many retailers attended this year’s Spring Fair and that they were placing such healthy orders with exhibitors. There was a real emphasis on innovation and creativity throughout the show, including the new Design Lab area which provided buyers with a new hot bed of creative talent. With so many British companies exhibiting, it was fantastic to see the strength of their product, something that was praised by the buyers in attendance.” According to the organisers, exhibitor and visitor feedback indicated that 2013 was “an exceptional show”, particularly given the tough retail environment and challenging economic conditions. The atmosphere in the aisles was buoyant and upbeat throughout the week as visitors turned up early, and in the mood for buying.
Hall 3 – Children’s Gifts, Toys and Gadgets For Toy World, it was all about Hall 3 and the toy companies exhibiting there. I spoke to some of the exhibitors for some Jon Thorpe, managing director of John Crane, said that “the Spring Fair experience was good this year. We changed our strategy and
had a smaller stand with just new items on rather than entire ranges, and this worked fantastically. The B range went down extremely well, but Bristle Blocks was the star. We also got a lot of interest in our Symphony in B, which had just won US Toy of the Year, which we assume had been seen by UK retailers in the press already.” I also caught up with Holly Oldham of Rubie’s, who said that “Spring Fair was an overall success for us; having had prime location in Hall 3, we had many interested visitors who were amazed by our extensive selection of costumes.” She continued: “Our best received products this year were the Power Rangers kids costumes (celebrating their 20th anniversary this year), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Skylanders Spyro and Trigger Happy, Marvel’s Ultimate Spiderman and Iron Man 3, and of course the wonderful glittery new range of Disney Princesses with the addition of Princess Sofia and the quirky Doc McStuffin. With Book Week coming up soon, our top five Book Week costumes were well received as always, including Peter Pan and Captain Hook, Red Riding Hood and many more. A very exciting surprise hit were the new Victoria kids costumes, including Pickpocket, Urchin and Maid costumes.” Sambro’s Nikki Samuels added: “Spring Fair was
excellent for us; we had some very good meetings which we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to have in such a short space of time, so Spring Fair is always a very important show for us. We had the most interest in One Direction, Turtles and Mini Mouse, so we had three very good lines.” Jonathan Wynbourne of BanBao UK commented:
“All of our products were incredibly well received at the show and almost every retailer we spoke to was amazed at the high quality of our range, particularly as the price points are so competitive. The range of eight pull-back cars probably
caused the biggest stir – buyers couldn’t believe that such comprehensive kits had a trade price of just £2.50. BanBao’s Loving World, which is a girl’s construction toy range, also received a lot of interest, and I can see this really taking off, particularly as the girl’s construction toy market is growing so fast.” I asked Jonathan why Banbao chose Spring Fair for their first show. He said: “We chose to launch BanBao into the UK at Spring Fair as we felt that visitors attending the show would be more relevant to the diversity of our brand, and we weren’t disappointed. We took orders from a number of sectors in which we knew our products would fit well including toy shops, gift shops and garden centres.” Alison Coates of Rainbow Designs told us that
“this year was our best ever year at Spring Fair. We had an improved bigger stand in a better location, which really paid off, and there was a good spread across all order taking. There was a fantastic response to all the ranges to be honest, but the Charlie & Lola ‘Lola Loves’ range was a hit, particularly the new Chatterbox Lola. Abney & Teal and The Snowman collections also received a great reaction.” Manhattan Toy’s Erica Roberts said the absence
of snow “made a big difference to attendance, particularly on Sunday. I think i2i has made a significant improvement to the look of the show and the overall visitor experience and they should be congratulated. We wrote significantly more business this year at Spring Fair, this year. Motorworks, our new vehicle line, was also a big hit with retailers. Our new Imagine I Can range of games, crafting and role-play sets also went down an absolute storm.” So as you can see, the feedback is very positive.
Next year’s Spring Fair takes place back in the NEC over the 2-6 February 2014.
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