Toy Fair of the Future Part 3: The Ultimate Show for the Play Industry

You saved me a lot of hlasse just now.

A 10 day show also represents fantastic cost. What is your Monday traffic like? Tuesday? Does it even make sense for most exhibitors to invest in such a venture? Could you even reach your target audience in such an environment? This sort of show only makes sense for a few large manufacturers that have product lines spanning across multiple industries. Smaller exhibitors with more specific product lines are better served by a less expensive show that better meets their needs. Rather than exploding the Toy Fair into something huge and unwieldy, I would rather see it divide into two or three smaller shows run concurrently. This would turn the first and last days of each show into stronger days, provide some cost savings to those that need it, and give better exposure to exhibitors.

A 10 day show also represents fantastic cost. What is your Monday traffic like? Tuesday? Does it even make sense for most exhibitors to invest in such a venture? Could you even reach your target audience in such an environment? This sort of show only makes sense for a few large manufacturers that have product lines spanning across multiple industries. Smaller exhibitors with more specific product lines are better served by a less expensive show that better meets their needs. Rather than exploding the Toy Fair into something huge and unwieldy, I would rather see it divide into two or three smaller shows run concurrently. This would turn the first and last days of each show into stronger days, provide some cost savings to those that need it, and give better exposure to exhibitors.

cont. ..."must go" on their list of shows, but not so big that people are overwhelmed by the products they see. Someone mentioned recently (and they might have been quoting you Richard) that if you wanted to see every product at Nuremberg you needed to spend less than 1 second looking on each one. That seems crazy. I like spending time looking at products without feeling like if I don’t get moving I’m not going to make it through the show. And while I believe that interesting products should capture your interest from a couple feet away - I don't like the idea of missing something really great because someone happens to be standing in my line of sight during the half-second I have to glance in the booth’s direction. With all that said – aren’t there a couple aisles of candy, books and other products from other industries within Toy Fair already? I think the cross over is nice -- when it’s not in excess. More is not always better.

7-10 days of being my chipper self might be a bit much. :) While I know that NY Toy Fair is only a fraction of what it once was - do we need to add all of those other industries to make it better? I've been to Chicago's All Candy Expo and walking it can take you a couple days. So combining candy, books and a handful of other industries with Toy Fair seems daunting. Personally, I think there is a happy medium we should strive for. NY Toy Fair should be big enough that people recognize it as a "

Great Take on the future of Toy Fair-From your lips to Gods ears it should happen