The beloved Toymaster May Show opens its doors today at The Majestic Hotel, Harrogate, with indies and suppliers from across the country gathering to both network and let their hair down.
Taking place until 23rd May at the beautiful Majestic Hotel, the sold-out Toymaster May Show kicks off today.
Over 100 suppliers are ready to showcase their ranges at the event, which – demonstrating the generosity and altruism of the group - is open to Toymaster members as well as non-members. The show takes place across the usual rooms of the hotel: the Carriage Suite, Harrogate Suite, Regency Suite, Drawing Room, Reading Room, Billiard Room, Upper Marquee and Lower Marquee (a full breakdown of who is exhibiting where can be found below), and there are plenty of special show deals for visitors to take advantage of: member-specific deals as well as carefully curated deals designed with the indie retailer in mind. This year, the Toymaster team has been strongly encouraging exhibitors to offer closeout deals, giving indies a bite of the clearance cherry.
Tonight sees the return of Toymaster’s popular Party Night, while tomorrow night (Wednesday night) is Formal/Award Night. Both events take place at the hotel, where guests will be able to enjoy a three course meal, live entertainment - including very special guests - and fun on-table goodies. There will be no theme for Party Night this year (just put your glad rags on), while the dress code for the Formal Night is smart/casual attire. Several 25 Year Membership awards will be presented during the show as well as a Golden Teddy, so do try and attend both evening events if you can - Team Toy World most certainly will be.
To help readers prepare for the show, Toy World published its first-ever standalone Toymaster May Show supplement, a whopping 88-pages of industry-leading insight, news and views, from the Toymaster group itself to the independent retailers and suppliers who've made their way to Harrogate for the event.
Why not start with a behind-the-scenes look at what's been taking place at Toymaster's Northampton HQ, which has undergone a major revamp so it can even better serve the group's members. MD Yogi Parmar told Toy World's John Baulch and Rachael Simpson-Jones: "We’re so proud of this building and we’re delighted with how the refit and upgrade has turned out. It’s so much brighter and has a more spacious feel, and it means our members and suppliers can now use it for their own needs too. As a mutuality, having an office our members can utilise for their own training needs is important to us as well as reflecting the group’s ethos. If a member wants to hold a supplier meeting here, for example, they need only ask. And suppliers can use the space for meetings with their national sales team."
Readers can then find out exactly what makes the Toymaster May Show - and the buying group itself - so special with our dedicated Talking Shop feature, in which we spoke to a raft of member retailers from across the country. And before diving into our comprehensive round-up of what's on show this week, and the deals exhibitors are laying on, readers can also hear directly from suppliers themselves about why the indie sector is so vital to the UK's toy retail landscape and what they value most about working with independent stores.
Toy World's John Baulch, Rachael Simpson-Jones, Caroline Tonks and Gabriela Garcia will be at the show throughout the three days (Mark Austin is flying the Toy World flag for us out in Las Vegas this week for Licensing Expo), so please do say hello as we're making the rounds. We can't wait to see you all.
Toymaster May Show Exhibitors 2024:
