Editorial
Dear Friends, I just returned from Nuremberg. I left there in a rather gloomy mood, knowing that it was most likely my last time. I have always defended the Nuremberg Fair as a useful and beneficial event. But alas, its significance to our industry has steadily declined over the years, while the costs associated with participation in it have continuously done the opposite. Still, it has always brought us some benefit, despite of the expense involved.
Dear Friends,
I just returned from Nuremberg. I left there in
a rather gloomy mood, knowing that it was most
likely my last time. I have always defended
the Nuremberg Fair as a useful and beneficial
event. But alas, its significance to our industry
has steadily declined over the years, while
the costs associated with participation in it
have continuously done the opposite. Still,
it has always brought us some benefit, despite
of the expense involved. There wasn't a lot of
new business to be made there, but we met
with our distributors, reviewers and colleagues
from other companies. And yes, it often brought
opportunity for some new business and, for
example, we negotiated a lot of the purchases
of plastic for our Limited Edition releases at
Nuremberg. It went on like this year after year,
for twenty-five years until 2019. Then, along
came covid and everything changed, and the fair
was forced to skip a couple of years. The fact that
the first post-covid event was extremely diluted
was quite understandable, the second being very
similar was frustrating, and that the third saw
no improvement either was much more alarming.
Not that the organizers did not put forth
a major effort, but it seems that the participants
developed some reservations about the benefits
of participating in the fair. So they increasingly
didn’t. Neither the Americans nor the Japanese
attend like they used to, and unfortunately
neither do many Europeans, including Germans.
We can speculate as to why. It is very likely that
two years without the fair have shown quite
nicely that business can be done without it. After
covid, the costs of everything increased, and the
Nuremberg Fair has been begging for a long
time to get on the list of costs to cut. On our list,
Nuremberg holds a pretty high position now.
Nonetheless, our participation at the fair
next year is not high on the list of events to
skip in an effort to cut costs. The results can
be surprisingly good in the end and there is
a chance that this year's fair will paradoxically
reflect on our business operations more than
most fairs have in the past. In fact, this was
also the case last year and the year before,
when agreements concluded at the Nuremberg
Toy Fair practically doubled the volume of
subcontracted work we were able to acquire
through production for other manufacturing
companies. Perhaps the paradox lies in the fact
that, thanks to the smaller participation of our
business partners, there was more time for
meaningful and ultimately fruitful negotiations
to take place. But I suspect that this is actually
a reflection of the changes that are taking place
in our industry and that are visibly changing
it both in terms of production and business
practices. While the production of model kits
is dominated by technologies that push what
is achievable to levels never seen before, the
internet and modern distribution routes affect
trade that yield corresponding benefits in
terms of product diversity and speed of delivery.
And the internet and the communication options
it offers are changing the way we negotiate
deals at the business-to-business level.
The covid epidemic has clearly shown that,
using current communication options, we can
do quite well without expensive trade fairs.
Tell me yourself, why would anyone travel
halfway around the world in the winter, pay
a fortune for flights, overpriced hotels and no
less overpriced exhibition stands, then spend
five days at an exhibition where two days would
be more than enough to arrange all the meetings,
when you can easily achieve pretty much the
same result using your computer at your office or
even at home sitting at your kitchen table? I fear
that this will be the force that will increasingly
push famous trade fairs from the center of trade
to its outskirts. We will ultimately end up going
to Nuremberg again next year, but to be honest,
EDITORIAL
INFO Eduard4
February 2025