For many in the UK toy community (and even a few from the international market), this week has largely been all about the Toymaster May show in Harrogate. I am old enough to remember walking the aisles of the show many years ago to (mostly) listen to reps grumbling about the lack of visitors, a dearth of orders or sometimes both. Those days are long gone.

Anticipation has been steadily building since the start of the month, when our May issue flew out of the traps, as retailers started to plan their trip (slightly more useful than a ‘preview’ that didn’t actually land on desks until after the show finished – technically, I guess that makes it a review). Last week, my LinkedIn timeline started to fill up with posts from people enthusiastically looking forward to the show, and this week it’s been full of compliments and plaudits from exhibitors and retail visitors. Safe to say that the event didn’t disappoint – indeed it felt very much back to how things used to be pre-pandemic.

Visitors – tick. Orders – tick. Passion, enthusiasm and (cautious) optimism for the second half – tick. By and large, Toymaster members are in a really good place right now, and the suppliers who have worked out how to align with the indie channel are benefiting from that. Of course, that doesn’t mean every supplier – some ranges are stronger than others, some companies were offering better deals, some had keener and more realistic pricing (several suppliers have even reduced prices, partly as a result of falling freight rates and partly through careful planning on product design, packaging and other factors). Some companies are also better at communicating and marketing to the B2B channel – no surprise that the Toy World team spent much of the week talking to our advertisers, and we didn’t hear any of them complaining. Essentially, a lot of companies worked hard to make the show a success – and they reaped the rewards.

It is a wonderfully egalitarian show – major companies and one-man-bands essentially have the same space to showcase their key lines. It is all about the product, not the bells and whistles, or even smoke and mirrors that a mammoth trade show stand can sometimes confer.

Indie retailers remain as straight-talking as ever: At one point, Midco’s Dave Middleton ‘misplaced’ his notebook for four hours, with all of his unexpurgated notes about the product ranges he had seen at the show – now that would have been an interesting read. If anyone managed to photocopy it while it was missing, do let me know. Another retailer came up to me (I didn’t know him) to tell me how much he loved our magazine, but that he hated my picture at the front. I’ll take that – better that way round than loving my picture and hating the magazine.

The evening events were as convivial and enjoyable as ever: Tuesday’s Irish night – a great way of recognizing Toymaster’s Irish contingent, who turned out in force once more – was a joy, while we were sad to miss the Wednesday evening (we had to dash back to put the finishing touches to our June issue), when I gather the gospel choir provided fantastic entertainment. A series of well-deserved awards were given out on both nights: Tuesday saw a selection of Toymaster members recognized for celebrating 25 years with the group (“an award for getting old” as one of the recipients joked to me, but in truth so much more than that), plus a double award for Ciaran Fitzpatrick, who received both a Special Recognition award and a Golden Teddy. The second night saw Erica Heythornthwaite and Kingsley Matthews given Friends of Toymaster awards (does that give them the freedom of Harrogate in perpetuity?) and another Golden Teddy presented, this time to popular sales stalwart, KAP Toys’ Neil Leah.

As ever, it was great to spend time during the days and evening with so many of our friends, advertisers and readers, and we also met up with our American contributor Rick Derr for the first time in person. It was lovely to hear not only how much he enjoyed the trip and how welcome he felt, but that he had also found it incredibly useful from a business point of view, finding ideas and new products that – in his own words – “more than paid for the trip.” You’ll be able to read his thoughts on the show in our June issue – he makes some very interesting observations, comparing and contrasting the similarities and the key differences between the way the UK and US supplier community interact with the indie channel. A couple of the points he made certainly came as a surprise to me, and when you read them, I suspect UK indies might appreciate that on the whole, our suppliers treat the specialist channel far better than many of their US counterparts (no direct supply and no credit facility anyone? Thought not…).

So, we finished our trip to Harrogate exhausted and hoarse of voice but energized by a great show. Well done to the Toymaster team for organizing such a well-run and valuable event, which sets the toy community up nicely for summer and the all-important second half of the year.

Speaking of summer, my ‘eye-roll emoji’ of the week is awarded to the major retailer whose outdoor buyer has allegedly been asking toy suppliers for markdown money…in May! I have heard of jumping the gun, but that is truly insane – maybe they are young and inexperienced, maybe they are being leaned on by finance directors…but surely there must be someone above them in the hierarchy with the experience and wisdom to explain that once the sun comes out for a couple of days straight, those pools and other outdoor staples will be gone in a flash.

Away from Harrogate, it was great to finally be able to reveal details of the new Wednesday range from Wow! Stuff, which I teased in last week’s Blog – I’ve seen the full presentation deck, and there are some real winners in the range which will be perfect for toy retailers. We also showcased Spin Master’s new Bitzee range of interactive pets (one of the hits of the Toymaster show by all accounts), and announced that MGA’s Miniverse entered the UK top 10 in its first month on sale. And I also hear the original Beanie Babies are back, with a 30th anniversary commemorative range. As I have said before, there is no shortage of fantastic new (and ‘old new’) lines coming through – and despite the tricky economic climate, ‘new’ is selling. Bring on autumn winter – we’re ready and raring to go (once my voice comes back, anyway).