Nuremberg: Part 1

I have just spent a whirlwind 3 days here and I have to tell you that the sheer size of this show is a big part of the story. It comes down to this, anyone who cares about toys has to come to the Nuremberg show at least once if not every year. To do so is to fully grasp just how vast, just how exciting and just how rich this industry is in people and products. 

This show is so big that the difference between it and other shows is one of sheer scale. There are over 80,000 attendees from 60 different countries looking at over 1,000,000 different toys in 2,689 booths and showrooms. The 17 large exhibition halls that make up the show provide over 160,000 square meters of exhibition space.

If you are interested in only seeing new products, you would have to review over 70,000 different toys. In fact, I was told that if you wanted to see all 1,000,000 toys during the show you could only spend .01 seconds looking at each one.

Why is the size important? It is because our perceptions of what Toy Nation looks like are shaped by our sense of the people and products that make it up. In a sense, looking at Toy Nation is like looking at a mosaic with each tile represented by a toy. The more the tiles we see the bigger the mosaic.

Come next year and be a part of the picture. It will change how you see yourself, your products and your industry.