TOYING WITH APPLE
Fair may bolt to LA
The annual Toy Fair may be ending its 120-year run in the 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, which is being held Saturday through Tuesday at the Javits Center 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 the annual gathering from the traditional February.
The change, which some insiders are calling 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 (inset) told The Post, adding that he’s “not sure” if MGA would return to the show even if the date were 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 toy industry is in Los Angeles.
The fair gives the Big Apple’s economy a boost of more than $30 million, according to a city report. Before the pandemic, the annual event and 40,000 attendees filled up thousands of hotel rooms.
In March 2022, the association moved the event 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 asked for anonymity 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 fair, but a spokesperson pointed out that it had just held its own toy fair 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.
The association declined to comment on the fair’s future home and said it will announce the date for the next show during this year’s event, spokesperson Adrienne Appel told The Post. She said 375 companies are first-time exhibitors this year.