Toy Fair faces crisis in NYC as big manufacturers skip event, press for LA move: sources
Toy Fair is in danger of ending its 120-year run in New York City — with some big manufacturers pressuring the lucrative trade show to move to Los Angeles, The Post has learned.
Barbie maker Mattel is among the major firms that are snubbing Toy Fair New York this week following a two-year hiatus because of the pandemic. Other absent heavyweights will include MGA Entertainment, maker of LOL Surprise and Bratz dolls; Jakks Pacific, maker of Sonic the Hedgehog; and Zuru, which makes Pets Alive.
That’s after the Toy Association switched the timing of its annual gathering, slating it for this week at Midtown Manhattan’s Jacob K. Javits Center, instead of its usual February event it has staged since 1903.
The change — which some insiders are billing as a disastrous move that could result in the Big Apple losing a major trade show — also follows two challenging years in which toy sales growth has slowed.
“Toy Association made a big mistake [moving] Toy Fair to September,” MGA Entertainment chief executive, Isaac Larian told The Post, adding that he’s “not sure” whether MGA would return to the show if the date was moved back to February. “I have advocated for Los Angeles.”
The chance of a westward move is “50/50,” said another prominent toy executive who asked not to be named, adding that about 70% of the $29.2 billion US toy industry is in Los Angeles. Even Pawtucket, RI-based Hasbro — which will attend the Toy Fair though it won’t have a booth at Javits and hasn’t for years — has an office in Los Angeles.
The North American International Toy Fair, which starts on Saturday and will run through Tuesday, has grown to one of New York’s biggest trade shows, giving New York City’s economy a boost of more than $30 million, according to a city report.
Before the pandemic, the yearly event — which launched more than a century ago with a handful of manufacturers that included Lionel train sets — attracted about 1,000 companies, and 40,000 attendees and filled up thousands of hotel rooms.
In March 2022, the Toy Association trade group moved the event moved to the fall, citing pandemic-driven supply-chain disruptions that resulted in toy shipments from China arriving after the holidays and sparking a glut of toys last year. The idea was that an earlier show would give suppliers more time to avoid holiday crunches, sources said.
But now, some manufacturers see the date switch “as an opportunity to make a break they’ve wanted to make for a long time,” a toy expert who did not want to be identified told The Post.
Mattel, which has traditionally taken a massive space on the top floor at the Javits Center, declined to comment on why it’s skipping the Toy Fair, but a spokesperson pointed out that it had just held its own Toy Fair for retail buyers at its Los Angeles campus, “as we customarily do” in the fall.
MGA Entertainment also holds a yearly preview of its merchandise for retailers each September in Los Angeles, Larian said.
“It’s a waste of money and time to got to New York two weeks later to see the same people and show the same products,” Larian said.
The Toy Association declined to comment on Toy Fair’s future home and said it will announce the date for the next show during the trade show, spokesperson, Adrienne Appel told The Post. She said 375 toy companies are first-time exhibitors at the show this year.
The giant space where Mattel has always laid out a plethora of brands from Barbie and American Girl to Hot Wheels will be used as meeting spaces and lounges, Appel said.
“There are almost no toy companies left in the New York area,” said Jay Forman, CEO of Boca Raton, Fla.-based Basic Fun, maker of Tonka trucks, Care Bears, Lincoln Logs, and Lite Brite. “The Toy Association and its members have been debating this move to LA for 10 years.”
A spokesperson for Jakks Pacific, also based in Los Angeles, did not comment on why the company will not have a booth at the New York show this year, saying only that it would have a display of its Halloween costumes for the upcoming Disney movie “Wish.”
With the exception of Lego — the largest toy company in the world — all of the top 30 companies that supply the vast majority of toys sold in America have showrooms or permanent offices in Los Angeles. Denmark-based Lego, which has offices in New York, will be at Toy Fair this year.
The industry has long wrestled with moving its flagship show, with other prospective venues including Las Vegas, Chicago, or Orlando, Fla. Meanwhile, Los Angeles has become a toy hub after the Toy Center at in New York’s Flatiron District closed two decades ago.
Eataly, the swanky Italian food hall, now occupies the space at 200 Fifth Ave. where the toy industry had held court in Manhattan.
