At Toy Fair I can see nearly 100-plus suppliers in four days, going to an office for the day allows me to see a grand total of one, and with all due respect, in order to visit just 20 manufacturers would be more days out than I take as holiday a year.

It is all very nice for a manufacturer to offer to put us up in a hotel, take us for a meal, and then spend the day with not just the rep but others within the office as well. I don’t know how they calculate the costs of the time of other people in the office and I presume I’m not the only customer they do this for.

At Toy fair you focus on product and ranging, at an office you focus on how nice the furniture is, how nice the showroom looks, how nice the lunch is. I’m not interested in those things. Product is KING. As I have said before, without product none of us are anything.

If the BTHA can’t even get its own members to support the show, maybe they should talk to Spring Fair. Toys are pretty well established now, maybe have a toy-only Hall, open two to three days before the show starts and then run into Spring Fair. One stand, one set-up cost and more footfall.  

Okay, I admit that there could be some manufacturers who wouldn’t want the average ‘Spring Fair’ visitor coming on the stand and wasting everyone’s time, but as someone once told me, “just tell them carriage paid is £300 and they leave you in peace”.

Also the Toymaster Show has grown to become an important event in the past few years and needs to be encouraged and supported, with an open invite to ALL indies and toy retailers who don’t get the invites from the suppliers. Without it we will resort to look at product on a bit of paper, and my experience says that is not a good thing.