Toy Fair 2007 : A Re-Introduction
02.07.07 By Collin David
It seems like only yesteryear that I rolled up my sleeves and ninja-kicked my way through the icy corridors of New York City, in yet another epic snowstorm that happened to fall on the exact weekend of Toy Fair and brought the mighty city to a dead halt. I don’t know what it is about the myriad of toy powerhouses showing off their finest wares that draws inclement weather to a city, but it happens like clockwork. Still, no weather is too cold, no head-protecting fedora is too expensive and no toy is too small to make it all worthwhile. Hell, this year, I even bought new boots. Just in case.
I think that this will be my 5th Toy Fair, beginning in the days when my college roommate and I had just started All Nerd Review. We were toy and comic collectors (two things that are inexorably associated), and we managed to assemble enough credentials to break into the Fair (including, well, what turned out to be guest passes from someone working on the building at the time, whom we secretly met under a stairwell). Toy Fair is the holy land for 
all toy collectors, though access to the inner sanctums is only granted to toy industry professionals and the press. Once inside the multiple, cavernous floors of the Javits center, one is free to roam and observe everything from dolls to RC cars to candies, both available at your local toy store and as-yet-unreleased. Some companies hand out free toys that one can’t get anywhere else, and a choice few toy professionals shoo you away from their booths like a grandmother protecting her sacred bowl of hard candy that you didn’t want anyway because it has cat hair in it. I won’t name any names, but Spider-Man Backpack Lady? I’m talking about you.
Ninety percent of the action figure stuff is hidden away in top-secret showrooms. Since I have a highly articulated plastic Batman arm lodged in one of my ventricles, this is what I’ll primarily be exploring this year. For weeks beforehand, I’ve been setting up appointments to get personal tours of showroom from Hasbro, Mattel, BanDai, Mezco, DC Direct and Marvel Toys (formerly ToyBiz) over a three-day journey, crossed on foot, taxi, train and shuttle bus. This weekend, it all pays off. There’s nothing to buy at Toy Fair, since that honor is left to the various Wizard World and San Diego Comic Cons, but Toy Fair is an event designed primarily to work people into a fierce anticipatory lather without actually instantly gratifying them. Anyone who’s had a girlfriend knows what that’s all about.
In every year past, the larger action figure companies have arranged a singular meeting time for all of the press, which we all lovingly call a ‘nerd herd’ or ‘cattle call’. We all crowd into showrooms, sweaty and irritable, inadvertently rubbing against parts of each other we’d rather not discuss, snap our photos in the din, and stumble out for air. Curiously, many toy companies are giving each press outlet individualized tours this year. This massive change of strategy could possibly reflect the currently faltering state of the toy industry and budgets being redirected away from the large showroom and presentation expenses that these cons entail. McFarlane Toys stopped doing Toy Fair many years ago, and WizKids Games won’t even be attending this year.
We, as collectors, are constantly reminded that the ‘collector’ aspect of toy collecting is completely dwarfed by the general sales of the ‘play’ aspect, but even in the light of that, collectors are being catered to like never before and compromises between mass and specialty markets are being reached. Message board speculation is heavy, and this year, the talk of the town is Marvel Toys (formerly Toy Biz) and their Indie Legends line of action figures, which will approach popular characters of the early 1990s (arguably a revolutionary time for comics) like never before. Competing with them for the indie spotlight is newcomer Shocker Toys with their… well, Indie Spotlight line of toys, which will encompass characters that Marvel Toys did not license. Fans also look forward to new images and lineups from Hasbro and Mattel, who are the sole possessors of both Marvel and DC Comics action figure properties, respectively. Everything else, as they say, is gravy. Delicious polyurethane gravy.
Stay tuned for more toy news and revelations than any man, or man-child, should have to report.
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Article Tags: , 2007, BanDai, convention, DC Direct, Javitz, Marvel Toys, Mattel, Mezco, NYC, Toy Fair, ToyFair================
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