Toy Fair To Remain In New York; Decision To Move Reversed

The New York Toy Fair will remain in New York, following strong opposition to a decision to move the annual event to New Orleans, the Toy Association has announced.

The Toy Association’s chairman, Aaron Muderick. and the association’s board, sent a letter to members Friday evening saying the trade group was cancelling plans to move the show to New Orleans in 2026.

“We have heard clearly that this change was the wrong choice for our members,” Muderick said in the letter.

The Toy Fair has been held in New York City for over 100 years. The show is a tradition dating back to the days when all of the major toy companies had their primary sales showrooms located in the city.

“It has become abundantly clear through the passionate reaction, that the place holds as much or more importance than the date, and that the industry’s desired location for the great industry-wide coming together remains New York City,” Muderick wrote.

Toy industry bombshell

Trade publication The Toy Book, which broke the news of the reversed decision Friday, described the earlier decision to move to New Orleans as “the bomb heard ‘round the toy industry.”

The Association had announced the New Orleans move on October 2, the third day of the 2023 New York Toy Fair. Reaction at the show immediately made it obvious that the decision did not play well with many of the members.

The Toy Association, in recent year, has been struggling to decide how to respond to complaints from members and industry leaders about the timing and location of the Toy Fair. The fair traditionally has been held in New York in February.

The February timing, years ago, worked well as it was when toy manufacturers, and toy stores and retailers, with the previous Christmas season behind them, were eager to start planning, and buying, for the next holiday season 10 months in the future.

But as toy manufacturing shifted almost entirely overseas, and retailing became increasingly concentrated in a few major retailers, buying decisions were being made much farther in advance. The February show, those critics argued, was occurring after the major retailers – Walmart
WMT
, Target
TGT
, and Amazon
AMZN
– had already made their buying decisions.

Other critics of the New York show complained that February was the worst time for a trade show in New York, with the high likelihood of snowstorms or frigid weather.

Fallout from fall show

This year, for the first time, the Toy Association held the annual show in the fall, in late September and early October. It then received feedback from members that the beginning of the year, preferably January, was the preferred time for the show.

Because the Javits Center, the New York location where the show has been held for more than a decade, wasn’t available in January, the association began a search for a new city, and selected New Orleans.

Going forward, Muderick’s letter said, the show will continue to be held in February.

“While February may not be completely perfect for all, given that Toy Fair has been held during this time for nearly a century, we expect that it can be perfectly imperfect for the vast majority of members, exhibitors, and buyers,” the letter said.

When the association originally announced the move to New Orleans, it said it would not hold a fair in 2024, and would hold the last New York show in March of 2025.

Muderick said the association also received feedback that skipping 2024 wasn’t a good idea. The association is exploring possible events in fall of 2024, perhaps in or around Los Angeles, when many toymakers hold showroom previews in August and September.