Yup, Toy Fair 2012 WAS a big (and good) deal for us. This was our seventh Toy Fair since we opened My Favorite Toys at University Mall in Carbondale in 2005, and this year was was the most productive.
Don't mean to sound like the Midwestern tourists, but any trip to Manhattan is quite a trip! Observation #1 from Suzanne: Nine out of ten women in Manhattan wear fashion boots, even on dry pavement. #1 observation from Sam: 999 out of every 1,000 vehicles are taxis. Well that's a bit of an exaggeration, but there are more than 13,000 cabs registered in New York City, not to mention the illegals who accost you at airport baggage claim with a deal that is usually twice as much as the real cabbies.
With more than 1,100 exhibitors and 100,000 products displayed over three stories of the Javits Convention Center, it's difficult to give rapt attention to everything. It's always exciting to check out the potentially hot toys, games, puzzles and puppets for the year. Just as important to us is to find the treasures among the smaller and newer manufacturers for items that will run under the Big Box stores' radar screen (Of course, once the little guys like us help bring these worthy toys to the retail market, the Wally-Marts often steal them away).
This year we were also focused on finding more made-in-USA items, and we made some headway in that regard.
During the next few days we'll report more specifics on some of the winners we found that will appear at My Favorite Toys this year. Stay tuned!
