Pre-Toy Fair Jitters
02.11.06 By Collin DavidIt’s about this time every year that a cold, dry wind blows through the hallowed halls of toy collecting. Many companies become strangely silent - hesitant to reveal any details about upcoming products too soon, action figure enthusiasts shift nervously in the blue glow of their computer monitors and speculate about the year to come, and somewhere in New York City, they’re preparing for the toy event of the year : Toy Fair.
Toy Fair is the annual gathering of nearly every major toy company into one shiny plastic behemoth of FUN. It’s like the best show-and-tell that you’d ever hope to experience, except for that time in 5th grade when someone thought it would be cool to bring in the self-foaming raccoon that they found and they had to cancel school. Everyone from independent game creators to doll salesman, pogo-stick inventors to candymen, illustrators and mad geniuses - they all come to Toy Fair, set up booths among the several trillion square feet of the Javitz Center, and try to promote the heck out of their product of choice. Often, they earn your favor with free samples of their goods. Just try and leave Toy Fair without sacks full of Matchbox cars and chocolate bars. If you reach the exit without a visible glow of excitement, they send you back in until you’re suitably glowing.
And in the back, in case you get hungry, there’s a guy sellin’ hot dogs! Real ones, even. The fake, plastic ones can be found on Aisle 34, the ones that look like hot dogs but are actually candy can be found on Aisle 56, and the ones that have faces and sing the regrettable Elvis-parody song, ‘I Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hot Dog’ when you squeeze them - that’s aisle 79.
Beyond the Javitz Center, Toy Fair also stretches into at least three other buildings throughout the city. At these buildings, toy companies have year-round showrooms and offices to display and promote their wares, outside of the relative chaos of the main event center. Attendees are graciously shuttled between these locations on luxurious buses.
Much to the chagrin of your average toy enthusiast, Toy Fair is an industry only event. If you aren’t in some way a buyer, seller or reporter for a major toy-related entity, they’ll kick you to the curb. Probably with giant, squeaky clown shoes too, and that’s the most undignified way to be kicked ANYWHERE.
Still, collectors everywhere are excited for Toy Fair. A few choice toy journalists are allowed inside this mecca of merriment, and they return to their websites and magazines with cameras full of photographs and brains full of character assortments - enough to anticipate almost a year’s worth of toys. If it’s coming out in the next 8 months, you’ll see photos of it leaking out of Toy Fair.
It’s not easy work, though. Take your average daily walking distance and multiply it by seventeen. Then, give yourself nasty boot sores and chafed shoulders from carrying sacks of promotional materials. Subsequently, coat yourself in that ‘new plastic smell’ for about a week. That stuff doesn’t go away in the shower, like dried bloodstains.
But to be one of the first people in the world to see the newest rotocast Batman? It’s worth it. Stay tuned for more Toy Fair 2006 coverage!
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Article Tags: , convention, Javitz, NYC, Toy Fair, ToyFair================
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