Toy Fair 2010, to be held in New York February 14-17, will be attended by 20,000 toy-industry professionals. I'll be there all four days to gather all the news on this year's hot, new toys.
According to the Toy Industry Association, the industry group that puts on the show every year, buyers, manufacturers and media will see more than 100,000 toys, of which 7,000 will be making their worldwide debuts.
The four-day event fills 350,000 square feet of space in the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. It's huge! Many of the large manufacturers set up elaborate offsite hospitality suites where journalists can see behind-closed-doors previews and take a short breather between meetings. The event is enormous and Toy Fair week is always extremely busy.
First, I'm booking meetings with all of the big toy manufacturers, who have PR representatives who act as docents, walk me through all the product demos and help me make a list of the toys I want to review for next Christmas. When the toys are available they'll send samples, press information and artwork for all the new toys.
Then there are after-hours events( or before-hours breakfast meetings) where the interviewing, hobnobbing and schmoozing commences.
I will also block out a couple of hours each day to walk the floor and see what's new and exciting. Each year new trends rise to prominence at Toy Fair, so I'll be looking for the "next cool thing."
Each evening (after hopefully seeing my children while they're awake) I'll blog about the day's discoveries. The event is not open to the public so toys.about.com readers can attend vicariously by checking in here every day of the show.
Toy Fair is a fun and exciting event that is always exhausting and invigorating at the same time.