EDITORIAL

This year’s Nuremburg Toy Fair is now history.

What can I say? In the coming days and weeks,

you will hear something regarding the new items

that were announced, and also about how the

fair is progressively getting worse and how the

number of participants is dwindling. Well, naturally, the fair is changing. For example, it’s

extension to initially six days, later dropped to

five following exhibitor protests, and the general expansion of the facility and its associated

complications, brought about a drop in the number of visitors. A greater number of halls, with

a corresponding increase in the square footage

of display room, spread over a greater number

of days, gives the illusion that there is a smaller

number of people visiting. For someone who

shows up to attend a seminar in Hall 7 on the

Thursday of the fair will be left with a false sense

of the decline of the event. I think that the discussions regarding the decline of the fair emanate from the illusion described. It’s perhaps true

that the fair is unnecessarily long. The format of

such fairs as Spielwarenmesse would be satisfied

in four days. Even in days gone by, the bulk of

activity was always concentrated on Fridays and

Saturdays. Those were truly hectic days, and they

still are – some things never change. Wednesdays and Thursdays are calmer affairs, although

I would say that even these days were quite busy

at our table. Sundays are relatively dead days,

and we all agree that Sundays would be better

spent at home. On the other hand, there’s enough time to get to know the neighbours and to

discuss what needs to be discussed. It’s a kind of

friendly, small town pleasantry before everyone

scurries back home.

At the same time, and somewhat logically, the

participation of modelling firms is changing. It’s

true that in the past few years, many companies

cancelled their tables and they participate only

on the basis of prearranged meetings, for what

I consider to be basically ‚chats‘. This leads to

visits at our table driving me out of my office. I

will point out, however, that this does not bother

me. On the contrary, all are welcome! I don’t

believe that I am taken as the predictor of the

decline and eventual downfall of our profession.

I would say that it is a fact that modelling as a

whole is evolving, and the dynamic of change is

significant, even if it might not appear so at first

glance. But, there is nothing wrong with that, and

is nothing that is exclusive to our industry – it is

a feature of our times. The question is not weather or not change will come, but rather when

will it come and what form will it take. This is also

the sign of the times, I would say. Things are moving so quickly and in surprising directions that

it is next to impossible to predict where things

will end up. A general feature of change is the

fact that changes are more easily dealt with by

smaller firms than by larger ones. Smaller companies tend to introduce innovation and initiate

change, but on the other hand, they can’t always extract everything from the changes. Putting

innovation into practice is an expensive endeavour, and it often occurs that a company invests

a large amount of money into an innovation that

either ends up being a dead end, or the company cannot withstand the weight of investment in

a new process and their entry into the market

is threatened. The time required for an innovation to bear fruit can be irritatingly long, and boy,

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could I tell you stories! Large companies are also

more susceptible to economic crises and other

external factors. We have some experience with

that, too. In the seventies, one of the industry

leaders, Frog, were in a precarious position with

day to day increasing signs of dying altogether,

because they could not survive the oil crisis. On

the one hand, there was a rise in investment in

the company with committed funds, and, on the

other, a drop in demand that came exactly when

that committed money was going into expanding. The oil crisis also meant the ultimate end

of several traditional firms, first and foremost

American, that at the time were going through

some really tough times, but in a stable environment would survive. Their departure opened

the door to the up-to-then overlooked Japanese, who came along with an innovation in the

form of electroerosion machining, which gave us

recessed panel lines and allowed them several

decades of domination in the field. But nothing

lasts forever, and the pressure of innovating is

always there, making it very dangerous to hang

on to traditional methods. It’s good to keep in

mind that even the traditional methods at one

time were innovative. Through the eighties and

the nineties, we saw an influx of several innovators that in the end failed to meet expectations.

Remember Trimaster? They brought about the

concept of interior and surface detailing that

was unheard of up to that time. Unfortunately, it

brought with it a correspondingly as yet unseen

high price tag that buried Trimaster, only to evolve a few years later into Dragon. This firm maneuvered itself into a leadership position in the industry, but the ambitious pace of innovation and

progress could not be maintained and the firm

fell, only to be later reincarnated several times.

The last time they were at Nuremburg was about

three years ago with a table full of Mickey Mouse

and the traditional optimism of furhter evolution. I suspect that the firm is still working, but

they no longer attend the Nuremburg Toy Fair.

Perhaps, there were not enough retailers crowding their table. But that’s pretty normal. There

never really were any crowds of retailers there

to begin with. Add to that there is no shortage

of Mickey Mouse. There is a certain similarity

between the concepts of Trimaster and today’s

Zoukei Mura. It’s basically the same thing, except

at a higher technological level. Guess why. The

similarity can also be seen in firms like Wingnut

Wings. There is also a similarity in the financing

of WNW and ZM.

The nineties also brought us the ambitious

concept behind Accurate Miniatures, who also

quite successfully in the American style attained

the status of a producer of some of the best kits

on the planet, only to fail on the heels of supp-

orters that did not inject enough of their money

into the product to support it. The initially sound

concept of producing moulds in Korea for a good

(meaning low) price, and selling the product for

a good (meaning high) American price in the States ran into a stumbling block in the form of disagreement from the Koreans as to what a ‚good‘

price was, and likewise, what a ‚good‘ American

sales price was and an inability to sell enough of

the kits at that amount. This was especially apparent outside of the United States, because the

cost of these kits was high as hell in Europe. An

interesting little tidbit was that the owners of the

company were originally bankers, well used to

their standard of living. They set their pays in the

modelling field on the standard that they were

used to in the banking sector. Personally, I consider this an incredible thought, and I would like to

live it, too. Unfortunately, it meant that the firm

ended a few years later without money, and the

owners had to ensure their standard of living by

other means. The new century brought about

a set of new crises and changes. One significant

change that came about was the rise of companies from the former Eastern Bloc, of which Eduard proudly considers itself to be a part of. From

modest beginnings in the nineties, a list of these

companies consolidated and continue to grow,

and the crisis from the end of the first decade of

the 21st century ended up strengthening them,

rather than defeating them. They came through in good condition, which is now increasingly

evident. It was a similar situation with the Chinese. The invasion of the eastern European and

Chinese companies was at least as significant as

the introduction of the internet and e-shops.

Those that have the biggest issue with all this

are the traditional firms and leaders in the field.

Monogram is done. Revell combined with them,

and, although managed to survive, went through

changes under new management that modellers

(and maybe even the firm itself) aren’t all that

happy with. As a sidenote, the typical visitor to

the fair didn’t make it to their table this year, because it became an almost impenetrable fortress

that annoyed a lot of people because the journey

from Hall 7 where we and the permanent exhibitors reside to their table was a long one. The

Japanese firms seem to be taking some sort of

a hit as well. Traditional Japanese firms are

slowly disappearing: case in point, Fujimi. Hasegawa was missing from this years‘ fair. There was

a time when there was a lot of anticipation and

passionate discussion around new releases from

these companies, but now, the silence is almost

deafening. One has done nothing, the other has

come out with, albeit nice, tractors and excavators. Their ability to come out with new items

relevant to our hobby has fallen to essentially

INFO Eduard - February 2020