Toy Fair is happening right now and I’m not there! The New York Toy Fair is a huge convention at which toy companies large and small show off their latest and greatest items for the new year. Unlike ComiCon, Toy Fair is a closed event. To attend you either must be in the toy business or have press credentials.
Side Note: There’s something sad and wrong about an entire convention center and several neighboring buildings filled with toys that children are never allowed to touch, but…sucks to be kids.
I attended at least six Toy Fairs as an editor for Stuff Magazine and Maxim, and I loved it. At the time, magazines were still a big deal and so every major toy company was trying to woo me, hoping I’d cover their products in an upcoming issue. Not only did this mean tickets to Toy Fair, but they would send me free toys…lots of free toys. Cases of free toys. (Full disclosure: Though the other editors and I kept a few, most of the toys were happily donated to charity. I’m not greedy.)
Walking through Toy Fair was overwhelming. Held at the Javits Center in Manhattan, it took the better part of the day to just wiggle your way through the crowded show. If you wanted to actually stop and look at the toys, that’ll take another week. One year I accidentally wore a winter coat to the event (it’s February!) and I got so hot that my arm bones fused together and my face melted off and was re-made with nearby Play-Doh.
If you plan to attend Toy Fair, wear as little clothing as possible and sensible shoes. This is not the time to break in a new pair of steel-toed work boots, and roller skates only make it worse.
Inside the hot convention center are booth after booth of toys. Wonderful toys.
Every type of toy was represented — movie toys, board games, action figures, baby toys, outdoor toys, bracelets made of orthodontic braces, balloons shaped like creatures, bouncing things on strings, wooden toys, electronic toys, all the balls and a thing that shot bubbles. Most of the toys were unusable for a men’s entertainment magazine, but that didn’t stop me from asking a PR rep for a doll house company, “So are there any secret passages in this house?” (There were not, and I walked away.)
The big guys like Hasbro and Lego have elaborate, maze-like displays so complicated you need a Sherpa to guide you to the exit. Every year, at least five people get lost in these displays and die. Sad, really.
It’s been five years since I’ve attended Toy Fair. I miss it. I met some great people at the shows and got to play with more toys than I can list. My dream is to one day go back to Toy Fair — not as a journalist, as a toy company. And if that happens, you’d better believe the doll house will have a secret passage.