Episode #190: The Best and Worst of Toy Fair Plus Why You Should Attend The LAST Toy Fair in New York

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Want a play by play of what worked at Toy Fair New York, and what didn’t? In this new podcast episode, The Toy Coach breaks down every day of the trade show, including setup days, and provides tips and insights to make your next show experience better. Also, if you haven’t already read it on The Toy Coach Blog, you’ll hear in this episode that New York Toy Fair is relocating to New Orleans! Dive deep into the whirlwind experience of Toy Fair, its changes and evolution. If you’re planning to launch your toy or game idea to retail soon, this episode is a must listen.

In this episode we recap the recent Toy Fair New York which concluded October 3rd 2023. Uncover the best and worst parts of each day of Toy Fair and learn insightful tips and tricks to navigate Toy Fair like a pro. Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at one of the toy industry's biggest events!

THANK YOU TO THIS EPISODE SPONSOR, HASBRO!

Thank You To Our Sponsor of Episode #190!

Check out Hasbro's Women Innovators Of Play Challenge by clicking here or tapping the button below.

Submissions CLOSE October 12, 2023.

• Mentioned In This Episode

  This episode is brought to you by Hasbro. Submit your idea to the Hasbro Women Innovators Of Play Challenge here.
  
  
  Check out Airborne Visual Displays for your trade show needs.

  Get my favorite clip board for selling at your booth at trade shows. Click here to grab this clipboard in your favorite color! #affiliate link

  Need a guide to help you get ready for future trade shows. Listen to these podcast episodes covering a variety of toy industry trade shows.

  Read MORE about Toy Fairs move from NYC to New Orleans on The Toy Coach Blog.

  Learn more about Toy Creators Academy by clicking here.

• Episode Transcript

  You are listening to Making it in the Toy Industry, episode number 📍 190.

  Hey there, toy people! Azhelle Wade here, and welcome back to another episode of the Toy Coach podcast, Making it in the Toy Industry. This week's podcast episode is brought to you by Hasbro. Thank you so much, Hasbro, for being a sponsor of the podcast.

  On September 12th, Hasbro held their very first Women Innovators of Play event, and, announce their very first ever Women Innovators of Play Challenge, an opportunity for you to submit your toy or game ideas to potentially win a prize or get licensed. Submissions have been open since September 12th. We'll close on October 12th, 2023.

  So if you're listening to this podcast the day it airs, you still have a day to submit an application for this challenge. The top three innovators will be announced in November of 2023. Visit spark.hasbro.com/women innovators to submit your idea today. Again, that's spark.hasbro.com/women innovators.

  Today's episode topic is all about New York Toy Fair. Ideally I wanted to put out this episode last week, but being around so many people did get me a little sick, which I'm sure you can hear, but don't worry, I'm on the mend.

  I'm going to be sharing my experience at the trade show this year, and we're going to go through the show day by day. For every day, I'm going to be sharing what happened. What was the best part of that day, what was the worst part of that day, and of course, I'll be sharing tips for you to make your experience even better if you attend the next trade show.

  We will also be covering future Toy Fair dates, dates that sent a ripple throughout the toy industry when they were announced. If you are a listener of this podcast and I met you at Toy Fair, hey again, and thanks so much for meeting me, coming up and saying hi, I appreciate you to no end.

  Now, by the end of today's episode, you will have a full overview of my experience at New York Toy Fair, where I went to work with a client, helping manage sales. And of course, within all that, I'll be giving you tips and advice for you to use if you happen to attend the next and last New York Toy Fair.

  Yes, you heard that right. The last New York Toy Fair has been scheduled. We will get into all of the details of that toward the end of this episode, so stick around and you will not miss a thing.

  So let's dive in and get started talking about New York Toy Fair. Now for me, the very first day of this fair was set up day number one, which was on Thursday, September 28th, 2023. My primary reason for attending Toy Fair was to be with clients to network for new opportunities and to attend the TOTY's in support of my husband.

  Now set up day only applied to vendors who were exhibiting at Toy Fair. If you were attending the show and you weren't exhibiting, you weren't coming in for a set up day.

  Vendors were all given different days to start setting up. My client's date for setup was September 28th. I did hear there were some people that came in Wednesday, September 27th to set up. There were of course people that were coming in. Friday, September 29th to set up.

  Now, I want to talk a little bit about decisions that we made prior to the show that made the setup day go so smoothly. So prior to the show, I've been meeting with my client and their team for weeks to finalize the trade show booth design, make sure we had everything in order. And I'd introduced them to a company called Airborne Visual Displays.

  If you need that link again, head over to the toy coach. com forward slash one 90. And once we decided to go forward with this display company, you know, that was a decision that simplified the entire booth setup process and is going to simplify and streamline any shows that they do in the future.

  And why is that? Because the process of setting up your booth is, is cumbersome. And if you can figure out a setup or display system that is consistent, easy enough to put together like Ikea furniture, and also more importantly, can break down to sizes that work for as checked luggage on an airplane, or to sizes that can easily be palletized or sizes that you can actually like roll out of the convention center. You don't just want to pick up any type of furniture or any type of shelf or any type of table to display your product You've really got to be thinking about how that's gonna break down pack up ship Transport travel so that you can reuse that display for not only this show, but other shows in the future. So that was a decision made early on that helped ease the stress of the setup day Because we had a high quality professional display, that was actually easy to put together.

  Now another great decision that we made before the show was choosing to create a catalog rather than create sell sheets for our individual products. If you have one product, it is more likely that you are going to think about having a sell sheet be that takeaway. And a sell sheet is just a one page printout that will have. Image of your product in packaging and without packaging sometimes with pricing information, wholesale and retail, size information, case packs, all that. When you have two products, you're like, okay, sell sheets, fine. When you have three products, you're like, all right, I can still use sell sheets. If whether it's one sell sheet with two products on it, or it's two sell sheets with three products, I can still get away with a sell sheet. When you start to get to five products or more, that's when it starts to become hairy. Like do we need a sell sheet or do we need a catalog? There's not enough real estate on a sell sheet to really sell and explain what a product is. If you have to fit five products on that sell sheet or even three products on that sell sheet. So that's when you might start thinking about doing a catalog.

  So I'm digressing to teach a little bit. But with this client, we, we did eventually decide to go the catalog route because having so many individual sale sell sheets will really just become cumbersome in the booth. So for you really think through your selling process when you're going to be at this booth to decide whether that sell sheet or that Catalog is going to be ideal for you.

  Now another thing I'd highly recommend you having on hand when you're setting up is to have a clipboard to store your order forms, business cards, and your written orders. So I'm going to share a link to one of my favorite clipboards for trade shows at the toy coach. com forward slash one 90. And again, this will be an Amazon affiliate link.

  So you're supporting the show if you buy it. So thank you. And get this clipboard for your next trade show. It is amazing. It holds pens and all your papers. You will look professional. It is perfect. So let's talk about what happened through the day on the 28th the setup day got up early Finished packing all of my extra things. I needed to bring to the booth I had a few extra samples on hand that we didn't have time to ship from the warehouse I had to bring in my clipboard I had to print some last minute order forms had all my catalog copies all the things that I was responsible for Bringing to this booth, of course, I packed a few business cards of my own and then made my way to the Javit Center just before 9:00 AM.

  Now upon pulling into the toy Fair, I was hit with major nostalgia. The iconic Pikachu that you might see in many photos of Toy Fair who's hanging from the glass ceiling of the Javits just triggered so many memories of toy fairs of years before when you arrive to any toy show. During setup day, don't expect to see like big welcome booths or public facing badge pickup stations or any of that to be active.

  On the setup day at the Javits, there was a single check in kiosk on the lower level of the convention center where all the vendors would go, show their confirmation email and their ID in exchange for a yellow sticker that said Toy Fair Setup. That sticker would help you gain access to the show floor.

  Guards would not let you in without the sticker and that sticker would ruin your clothing.

  Now, once we were leaving setup day, you could go and pick up your badge as you're leaving that setup day. There was a kind of a makeshift badge pickup on the show floor and you could show your yellow sticker and again, your email confirmation to get your official badge. I highly recommend doing that because the lines for collecting your badge can get long.

  So if you're a vendor and you get to come in early in a setup day. do yourself and do the event organizers a favor and just pick your badge up while you're there to relieve congestion of all the people also going to be picked, who are also going to be picking up their badges on the actual show day.

  Now, the best part of coming into setup day is that you get to see the behind the scenes of booths that might be walled off when the show officially opens. And you get to see the setup process and behind the scenes. of your favorite brands booths being built. So

  what you'll learn and see pretty quickly is that it's not usually the people working for these individual brands setting up the booth. They often hire people to come in and help set up the booth. There's also union workers that work for the convention center that have to do key things in the booth for booth set up.

  So you will just notice that, Oh, you know, once I get big enough with my toy company, if you're just starting out, you know, it won't just be me here setting up the booth. No, like not every company sets up their booth with their founder, you know, sitting on the floor you know, opening up boxes. That's just when we start out, that's how we begin.

  Now, the other great part of set up day is. It has got to be the nervous excitement buzzing within your own team. When I look back at this most recent show or even the show I did at Javits three years prior with my former employer, I always remember the day one setup day being this buzz of nervous energy, excitement, also passion, everyone on the team has 100 percent full battery.

  Everyone's excited to build those walls, cut those foam core signs, do emergency last minute runs to Ikea, you name it. You can't get a better energy or vibe from that day one buzz. Yes, it can be stressful, but usually everyone's in good spirits because nothing's gone wrong yet.

  Now the worst part of set up day has got to be avoiding all the forklifts. So big tip I give you wear sneakers when you're coming in on set up day. Where jeans to protect your legs a little bit. It just feels like you're in a construction zone when you're in set up day and we wouldn't wear leggings to a construction zone. So wear jeans. I would fully cover your legs. You want to be agile, nimble, and protected as you make your way around the Javits Center. There are forklifts everywhere, people going back and forth carrying big boxes, wooden planks on the floor, bowls of plastics, mountains of boxes everywhere. Do not be walking on that show floor on your phone. Pay attention. The ground is not clear and designed for you to get, make your way through. Just be aware of that when you're going in on a setup day. So let's get into how to make the most of your setup day or set up day one I highly recommend that before the show you do a test setup run and you time it For New York Toy Fair.

  I didn't do this for my clients booth because I wasn't the one responsible for the setup of their booth However, the last trade show that I did that I set up was Astra and I did a full full test setup run of my booth and I highly, highly, highly recommend it. So that way on setup day, you already have a well timed plan for how long it will take you to do everything from installing flooring, putting up your backdrop, your signage and laying out your product.

  That way you can look at your clock and say, okay, we're behind schedule. We're ahead of schedule. You need to know where you're at because you usually only have a limited amount of time on that show floor, regardless what day of setup it is. And you don't want to be stuck in a situation where you cannot finish and they're kicking you out of the convention center.

  We don't want any surprises that we can control and avoid on setup day. The setup day is the one day in Toy Fair where you can actually finish things early. If you plan them well, you can actually go home or to your hotel and get yourself some rest because the after hour events haven't started yet. And you can make final calls or emails to prepare for the days ahead. So the way to make the most of setup day is again, to have that timed schedule for setup.

  And follow it to a tee, make every effort to attend that day early, make sure after you're all done setting up, if you have a team that you grab a meal with them, you thank them for their work. And then you can go into the actual toy fair, feeling refreshed and energized.

  So let's move on to setup day two. September 29th was our day two. We actually had the opportunity to use this as a last minute errand day and a final touches booth day. So one example, I ran to Walmart to grab some beanbag chairs and some extra tech we needed to run some videos on the TVs of the booth while the rest of the team members were finalizing the actual booth display and product placement and all of that.

  Now, not only that, but September 29th was also the day of the premiere event that kicked off Toy Fair, the TOTYs. So the best part of set up day two for me had to have been the TOTYs. The TOTY's, if you don't know, it's like the Oscars of the toy industry and stands for the toy of the year awards.

  This event is a. It's a formal dinner that kicks off every Toy Fair in New York, and it's the first big networking opportunity at Toy Fair, and it's a great time to reconnect with people you already know and to meet new people.

  Now, this awards dinner celebrates the great minds in the industry, and through the announcements of nominations and awards, you may likely learn about people and even products that you didn't know about before. The 2023 TOTY Awards included 17 product categories plus new people focused categories, and they had a total of 21 categories.

  There were also Six inductees into the Toy Association's Hall of Fame, two of whom gave speeches during the event. One group of the inductees was the three founders of Spin Master, Ronan, Anton, and Ben, and another inductee that gave a speech there was Mary Cousin, the founder and president of ChiTag and People of Play.

  Now, the worst part of set up day two also had to do with the toadies. It was a part of the toadies where they played people off the stage. It was a little uncomfortable. while our hall of famers had a great opportunity, ample time to give their creative speeches and were not played off and had their moment and we all loved it. There were key award winners in other categories that clearly took the time to prepare a speech in case they won.

  And then when they won, they were just played off the stage 15 seconds into giving their speech. It was bad. Everyone was talking about it. Now the first time that the audience, that we heard the playoff music, it was a little funny. The person that was giving the speech at the time had been speaking for about two minutes, so it was a little bit of a long speech.

  And then in syncs, bye, bye, bye. Started playing and a few people chuckled and it was, you know, it's relevant for the time because N'Sync's making a comeback and it was like, Oh, that's so funny. But as the night went on and as winners who were seated further back in the event space struggled to make their way to the front of the event space to get on stage, the speaking times for these winners just kept getting cut shorter and shorter to, as I mentioned a minute ago, as little as 15 seconds before the playoff music. Now, there were some people who attempted, and rightly so, to yell over the music and just give thanks to those that helped them because this was a monumental achievement, but the music was too loud to clearly hear the names of the people that they just wanted to thank regardless of getting played off.

  It was clear that the event organizers didn't factor in enough time for the additional awards and for the additional acceptance speeches since they added so many categories, and it was a really bad oversight.

  All in all, the event had. This cool red carpet to walk when you entered with a fun chance to be interviewed by a Toy Association reporter. There was a photo op with a step and repeat wall, great food, great conversation, and a bustling, yet crowded, cocktail hour. So there were good, but there was also bad, and that playoff moment on stage really dampened the mood of getting this incredible award.

  So let's talk about how to make the most of set up day two, if you can attend the toadies, it is an expensive ticket, but you should get there early because there are opportunities to network and you should make the most out of them. Set yourself a goal to talk to a certain number of people and figure out what they do, what you do, how you might work together and exchange contact information.

  So let's move on to show day one, which was actually my day three of the trade show. But this was officially day one of Toy Fair where all the booths were set up and the floor was open and Buyers and media and service providers started just walking the floor to visit booths This toy fair, the show days were long and there were actually four show days.

  Now typically trade show days end at 4 p. m. or 5 p. m. on full days, but this toy fair went on to 6 p. m. Now some manufacturers of course are excited about this because it gives them more time to sell and it also gives buyers more time to get to their booths. However, it does make for a longer and more exhausting day for those who are manning their own booths or manning their booths with a small team and it makes for a longer day for buyers who have to do that trekking up and down all of these booths to see products and hopefully place orders.

  At the end of the show day one, there were a number of non official events. There were dinner meetups happening offsite bar meetups happening offsite. So during Toy Fair for me this year, Saturday was a planned meetup for the alumni of Toy Creators Academy and a few podcast fans joined in the fun as well.

  There is a great photo of this meetup that you can check out at thetoycoach. com forward slash 190. Now, the best part of day one of the show being open has got to be the character parade that Toy Fair puts on to open the show. If you were lucky enough to be able to get away from your booth when this parade is happening, it is a great photo op opportunity.

  Now, this Toy Fair, unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the parade, but my friends did send me photos of them at the parade Ahem.

  The worst part of the very first day of Toy Fair is just the waiting to get buyers and media to your booth. At the very beginning of a show, especially if you have a booth location that's further back, maybe in a corner, it'll take some time for buyers to make their way there to that part of the show and get to see your booth.

  So, try not to get too anxious or judge a show too quickly based on the traffic you just see in the first 60 minutes of the door's opening. Judge the show based on the number of people that you actually see walking by your booth and the percentages of which of those people are buyers, the people that we want to get into your booth to buy your product, service providers, people who are going to sell you on their goods and services, distributors who will offer to resell your products, sometimes to stores they might not disclose or suppliers who might want to start doing business with you and helping you develop your toy or game products.

  Now let's get into how to make the most of your day one at Toy Fair to make the most of your day one. Ideally, you want to have a pre planned schedule of meetings where buyers are planning to come to your booth and walk through your product line.

  Now this meeting planning work is work you'll have to do before you attend a trade show, but one of my good friends in the industry reminded me as I was booking meetings for this last trade show to block off time for lunch, which is definitely something I do in my normal everyday calendar.

  But Toy Fair is like a whole other beast and I often will book things through lunch because it's more important that you get the meeting than it is to take a break. But don't do that. Make sure that before you start booking your buyer meetings, that you do block off time for lunch.

  You are going to need that time to recharge, to eat, obviously, and to reset. Before you attend the show, if you want to make the most of it, make sure you're if you want to make the most of your very first day, make sure that you have practiced your sales pitch and different varieties of it.

  Establish your style and get confident about it. You might be the type of sales person that introduces the product, highlights your accolades, and just sits back and waits for the buyer to make that first move to request to place an order. Or you might be the type of salesperson that does a little bit more of the hard sell, the type that lays out those benefits, the qualities, the moment they sense interest, say, Hey, how about we start you off with a case pack of our bestsellers? And then you might whip out that order form, whether it's digital or on paper and take that order. Whatever buyers come into your booth, you want to make an effort to get an order on the show floor. That is the entire purpose of the trade show in the first place. And if you don't get an order on the show floor, you do run the risk that the buyer will. Commit those dollars to another brand's products as they're walking the show. So do your best to lock in an order as soon as possible.

  And sometimes it can help if you build out a suggested order for a new buyer and just propose it to them. Say, Hey, I would suggest that you start with this case pack of our best sellers XYZ. Our minimum order is this. If you add in this, it will take your order to this and that in that case you can get free freight. Just as an example. Now if you don't know what a case pack is or if any of those terms Sounded kind of new to you if you don't know how to write or take an order at Toy Fair But you're interested to learn more. Then you should check out Toy Creators Academy.

  It is a one year online toy program designed to help you develop, pitch, sell and market your ideas. It includes a community and monthly Q and A's, but more importantly, there are 12 years of toy industry insights, information and contacts condensed into a nine module course that you can get full access to today if you sign up. Just head over to toy creators, academy. com to learn more. Okay, let's move on to day two. What happened to day two? Day two was a Sunday, October 1st, and that was the first time that I stumbled across the freshman class display, which was at the front left of the convention center. Photos of this display are going to be at the toy coach.

  com forward slash one 90. And in my opinion, this was a brilliant addition to toy fair this year. The freshman class display was essentially a mini trade show. It almost looked like a museum exhibition featuring products from some new exhibitors at the show. And it highlighted their booth numbers, so if you like the product, you could go visit their booth. This was a really great design concept and a great opportunity for buyers to get a quick bird's eye view of what's new at Toy Fair, which is what most buyers are looking for anyway, and quickly mark down the booth numbers of those new items that they were interested in so they could pass by the booth.

  this mini display concept wasn't just done for this freshman class, as they called it. There were several other mini displays set up throughout the other entrances of the Javits. I saw one focusing on pet products and another focusing on Halloween products.

  These mini display cases were like having a show within a show. What's great about these mini display cases and these mini exhibitions is the real estate. I mean, it's the first thing you see when you walk into the show. So it really just helps putting all the product on the same level of professionalism with a consistent glass case and a sign that says visit this booth.

  Having these were a great opportunity and I do hope that some form of this continues into future years.

  Now, at the end of day two, day two ended again at 6 p. m. on Sunday, October 1st. And at 6 p. m., Women in Toys held their Wonder Woman Awards Gala, a gala that celebrates the best of the best women in the toy industry.

  There were three honorees who were celebrated for their achievements in the industry. And then 13 Awards that were given that evening. It was a beautiful and moving celebration of hard work and impact that women have had on the toy and game industry. No speeches were prematurely cut and the event.

  actually ended early, which everyone who had to get up early and work a booth the next day was super excited about.

  Now, the best part of the day two of the trade show, aside from the Wonder Woman Awards, of course had to be the... Circus put on by fun in motion toys. So fun in motion was holding a circus several days during the show the one I saw I believe it started at 4 p. m. And this circus was complete with silk performers the cotton candy machine and of course juggling artful juggling advanced juggling not your regular juggling and promoting and using a lot of Fun in Motion products to create the circus.

  It was such a brilliant marketing concept to have the circus in the, toward the end of the day when everyone's kind of tired, especially because fun in motion was located quite centrally on the show floor. So it pulled people deeper into the show at 4 p.

  m., which is a time where people are normally kind of escaping the show floor and ending their day. So that was a brilliant marketing concept and also a really cool circus, but I had to. Rush off because of the worst part of this day. So the worst part of the day, too, was really just trying to get to the Wonder Woman Awards right after finishing a full day at a booth.

  I said Toy Fair extended hours to 6 p. m., which made it impossible, if you were going to work the entire day, to make it to the Wonder Woman Awards gala, which also starts at 6 p.

  m. The cocktail hour is what kicks off at this time. And it's the most important part of this event for networking. So most people that were attending the gala ended their trade show booth day early, so the extended days and times of the trade show, I know is beneficial for many manufacturers in certain ways, but there was a clash here where there were many events starting at the very same time that the trade show was supposed to end.

  Now, how to make the most of your show day two. I have to say, I think you should attend the Wonder Woman Awards Gala and you should get there early so you don't miss any of the cocktail hour, which as I said, is your best time to network. Try not to spend too long in a conversation with one person. Don't be afraid to end a conversation because you need to continue to say hello to everyone and work the room.

  It is what you were there to do. And anyone who's a professional in the industry will fully understand that you want to talk to people, talk about what you do, what they do, share your business card and make connections. That is the entire purpose of the show and any of the events that you are attending after the show.

  Let's move on to show day three, October 2nd, 2023. Show day three was another full day beginning at 9 a. m. Ending at 6 p. m. During this day. I did notice a large number of unique specialty and online retailers Making their way downstairs. At the end of day three, there were several private events that people would attend. Two of which were Mary Cousin Shytag Inventor Meetup and the FIT Toy Design Reunion Meetup. Now, the best part of this day, in my opinion, was there were no more events post show to get dressed up for and rush to.

  You could really focus on selling for the entire day and then you could focus on making connections the entire evening. The worst part of this day is just that you're drained at the end of the day. You've been doing this for several days now. And how can you make the most of show day three? Make sure you have enough business cards. When you meet people, find out what they do, share what you do and figure out if there's something that either of you can do to help the other and propose working together, exchange those business cards and make a plan to reach out post show.

  Now, one of my favorite things to do is to have a Stylish fanny pack. If you saw me at the show, I had a heart shaped fanny pack And the the purpose for having a bag like this is it makes it super easy for you to reach for anything you need during The show without having to take a purse off your shoulder or a backpack off of your shoulders It makes it a lot easier to reach for business cards to hand them to someone or to store business cards that you receive.

  And it's easier to keep those two things separate so you don't accidentally hand somebody a business card that isn't your own when you're trying to give them your own. So I love a fanny pack for those reasons.

  I would also recommend to make the most of your day three and honestly, even your day to see if you can carry a power bank with you to keep your phone charged at all times. You are going to be going through the show from nine to 6 p. m. and then attending events after. And if you don't live local, To Toy Fair, then you're not going to be able to go home and charge your devices.

  So just make sure you either bring a power bank or power cord and you give yourself some time to charge your devices. So you can share contact information or just get yourself a ride home when need be.

  Okay. So day four of the show. So now this is the show floor day four, but really for me, this was day six of Toy Fair. Remember cause we started with our setup days. Now this was the last show day. We normally the final day of any show. is a half day. Normally shows will end at 12 PM or 1 PM but this Toy Fair show ended at 4 PM. People in the industry always complain about the last day of a show being a half day because it's really not beneficial for anyone to come in for that last day when it's only a few hours long. Not that many buyers are walking the floor.

  It feels like a wasted day. So I can appreciate that the Toy Association extended that final day to 4 p. m. so that we're feeling like we're getting a full day. Honestly, 4 p. m. is almost a full day. It's perfect, but it was a lot. Normally, trade shows I've attended, it's just three days on the show floor. And this, we had three full days plus an almost full day on the fourth day. It's a great chance to make those final sales to buyers. But we did notice that around 3 p. m. booths did already start packing up, even though they weren't supposed to but booths did start packing up some things so they could get ready to be out by the time the show ended.

  I would say the best part of day four of the show was that it wasn't wasted time. You didn't come in for a few hours. You had a full show to make sales and connections. So the best part was just that the show extended until 4 p. m. For me, day four was really one of my few opportunities to walk the show.

  Having those few extra hours to get out and see the booths was really helpful. So I appreciate that we had four full days essentially of a show. The worst part of day four is definitely pack up it pack up is going to be the toughest part of any show You were drained you're tired, you know And you've got to think ahead as you're packing these boxes so that you can be prepared for your next show So you don't want to pack sloppily you want to pack well and in an organized manner Because you might need to ship out whatever you're packing to a warehouse for storage for future shows.

  So one of the tips for day four, and this is really something you'd have to prepare to do on day one is when you are unpacking your booth, if you can find a way to hold on to your boxes, open them up, flatten them out, and hold on to them by storing them behind your trade show booth setup, it will actually make your pack up process go faster, and here's why. So, at trade shows the trade show event organizers will give you stickers to either tag your empty boxes as garbage or tag them as something that you need them to store. Now, if you tag it as something that you need them to store, they are going to take it and put it in the back, label it with your booth number and bring it back to you on pack up day.

  However, keep in mind, there are what, thousands of vendors showing their product at this booth. So they've got a lot of boxes to deliver. So people sometimes wait till. 6 p. m. or 7 p. m. to get their boxes back or to get the pallet that they're going to put their boxes delivered. So if you can keep your boxes with you throughout the show and you have a space in your booth to store them, you can actually save yourself some time because you don't have to wait for the boxes to return to be able to pack all of your materials. Now how to make the most of the pack up day I would just say if you can have a team member who comes in halfway through the day To help with your final pack out do that. If you can give them the morning off, let them come in with full energy to help you wrap up for the day. If you're planning to go to a toy trade show and you would love a guide on how to prepare for it what resources you should use to build your show materials. You should definitely consider checking out Toy Creators Academy.

  That is a big part of what we explain in our program for our toy entrepreneurs who want to make their own toy or game products. Just head over to ToyCreatorsAcademy. com and you can read All the details about TCA, you can also send me a message wherever you follow the Toy Coach, and I'm happy to answer your questions about Toy Creators Academy.

  Let's get into the big question. When is the next New York Toy Fair or Toy Fair New Orleans? Yes, Toy Fair New Orleans. Now it hasn't gone unnoticed that the Toy Association has been carefully rebranding New York Toy Fair to Toy Fair New York in hashtags, blog posts, and press releases. This has been happening for years. The industry lovingly calls it New York Toy Fair. In conversation, you will hear Professional toy people say, see you at New York Toy Fair. Will you be at New York Toy Fair? That's how we talk about it. But there has been this subtle shift to rebranding it as Toy Fair New York in the past couple of years.

  It did perk my own feelers up wondering that maybe they weren't planning to stick around New York for much longer and this year, during Toy Fair, we actually received a notification that the day has arrived.

  Just as the toy industry pros started getting all cozy in our feelings about the return to the Javits, even though it was at a weird time of the year, being in September instead of February. The Toy Association dropped major news. There is going to be a huge shift in timing. And location for Toy Fair moving forward.

  So first thing we've got to make completely clear is that according to the latest announcement, there will be no Toy Fair happening in 2024 or at least they haven't announced what Toy Fair is going to happen in 2024 yet. Now this was a fun fact that was just kind of not mentioned in the announcement of the next Toy Fair location and dates.

  Because there is no Toy Fair scheduled for 2024, there is some good news. If you're planning to launch a new product and you were planning to go to Toy Fair New York, you actually have more time now to save up and go big for what seems to be the final Toy Fair happening in NYC.

  When is that Toy Fair gonna happen? It's gonna be March 1st to March 4th in 2025 and yeah, it's gonna be cold, but it's not gonna be as bad as February In NYC, but more importantly, the timeline works better for retail buyers. The timeline of the September show was too late for specialty toy buyers and a little too early for mass market. It almost functioned as a preview show for mass market buyers. but in March, we're going back to a Q1 timeline that works for specialty and mass to be able to place orders at the show, which is what we want.

  But that's not all, following the 2025 event in New York in March, Toy Fair is going to be making a big move 1300 miles away to New Orleans. The very first show in New Orleans will be January 17th to January 20th.

  And that's where we're supposedly going to stay. Now, a lot of people in the toy industry don't like it. They think it doesn't make sense as far as location. As someone who works with a lot of startup toy brands, the increasing prices of Toy Fair in New York have been a hindrance to so many startup companies. So if we do get anything from this odd move, let it be lower prices.

  Well, there you have it, Toy People. That is all I have to share with you about New York Toy Fair, how my show went, and what we can expect for upcoming shows. It's a lot, and I hope that I will see you at the next Toy Fair in New York, and I guess beyond in New Orleans. We'll see how that goes. Now, I've got to give a quick shout out to Todd McClain, owner of Captain Tall Tale LLC.

  So Todd left a great review for the podcast. Thank you, Todd. Todd's review says this. A Jelle Show captures the attention from beginning to end, every episode. I personally have wanted to jump into the toy business for over a decade, and I knew it was time, but I didn't know where to start. While looking up about the industry, Jelle's Instagram started popping up and caught my attention, enough for me to dive into what she was saying.

  I listened to the latest episode at the time which Connected With me on every level so I listened to more and more episodes as if it was a Netflix show. I couldn't get enough of Thank whatever creator you believe in for creating podcast on demand The great thing to note is I just attended my first toy fair and thanks to listening to the episodes I had a successful show because I knew what to expect to plan for success.

  I even bumped into A'Gel at Toy Fair and she is every bit of charming, talented and knowledgeable of the industry as she presented on the show. Looking forward to more episodes and foreseeing the success not only she creates, but of the great success others achieve because of her. A'Gel for president.

  Adventure on Todd McClain, owner of Captain Tall Tale LLC. Well, Todd. Thank you. I'm blushing. Thank you so much for that lovely review. And it's so perfect for this episode. I'm so glad that my episodes about Toy Fair helped you prepare for Toy Fair. And my wish is that this episode prepares the future listener for their next Toy Fair New York or Toy Fair New Orleans.

  If you want to listen to the other episodes I've done about New York Toy Fair or just toy shows in general, head over to the toy coach. com slash one 90 and look for the mentioned in this episode section where you can find a link to. A playlist of all of the episodes related to toy shows.

  If you love this podcast, please, please, please leave a positive review for us. wherever you listen. If you listen on Apple, Spotify, Castbox, wherever, please leave us an amazing review. I do get notified every time a new review comes in and I am happy to read your review on the show.

  Okay, let's dive into your action item to do for next week. Your action item for next week is to head over to thetoycoach. com forward slash 190. Give a listen to all of my episodes about various trade shows. I'm also going to include a link to download my toy trade show handbook.

  It's a guide for all of the upcoming trade shows and it's a guide you're probably going to need if you want to do a show in 2024 because right now at least we don't have a New York Toy Fair planned for that time. So this Toy Trade Show Handbook is going to give you an overview of some of the most popular shows in the industry, shows that will be going on in 2024 that you can take part of.

  Send me a message on Instagram if you have Any problem finding those links, or if you have downloaded that guide and you loved it, let me know. I appreciate you. Okay. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there.

  So it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one until next week. I'll see you 📍 later. Toy people.

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