Tail End Charlie

"Gentlemen (and lady), how was Nuremberg?"

Text: Jakub Nademlejnský

We began with Nuremberg in Mr. Šulc's editorial, and we will conclude this issue with Nuremberg as well. And what can I actually write about Nuremberg Toy Fair? I still have mixed feelings about it. It wasn't actually as bad as many people in our industry think. Just two weeks before the fair, I had five meetings scheduled in our shared planning calendar, and I thought to myself that it was going to be a real flop. I was thinking about which halls to visit so that I could finally see the whole fair properly, except for the trip to Revell, which I have faithfully made every year and which is really worth it. Revell has a stand in Hall 12.2, which is one of the furthest halls from our Hall 7, and it's a really long way to walk. We usually allow 15 minutes for the trip, but this year we even managed to get lost on the way, so even 15 minutes wasn't enough and we arrived late. In our defense, I must add that it was on Tuesday at 9:00 a.m., which is the official start of the fair, and we underestimated it a bit. But I digress.

It didn't turn out as badly as we feared. As you read in the introduction, we had around 40 meetings, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were particularly busy days for us. Friday and Saturday were slower, but that's usually the case. However, the number of meetings was nowhere near what it had been in previous years, when a larger Eduard team traveled to Nuremberg, meetings were held simultaneously in three booths, and our colleagues were happy to keep up with everything. This year, there were only three of us attending: myself, Mr. Šulc, and Kateřina Borecká, it was probably the smallest Eduard team at this event in the last 30 years.

Let's now summarize which other companies from the industry had stands at the event. In addition to us, Special Hobby, Tamiya, Airfix at the Hornby stand (which is getting smaller and smaller every year), Academy, Trumpeter/HobbyBoss, Clearprop together with the accessory manufacturer Reskit, Italeri, the trading company Modellbau König, which also brought together friendly or affiliated companies such as Andy's Headquarters, Das Werk and others at its stand, and the distributor and profiles manufacturer Albion Alloys and Revell in Hall 12.2.

An interesting development, however, was the participation of Zvezda, which, unlike in previous years, (when it was keeping low profile.) after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, either staying hidden in offices in the bowels of the fair or behind walls in a closed stand, now presented itself at a completely open stand with a large Zvezda sign…

Compared to last year, Miniart and Heller were missing from their joint booth with European distributor Glow2B. Faller was also missing, which resonated throughout the fair, as its booth used to be one of the largest in our hall. When I write it down like this and compare it to last year, it's not actually that bad. Only a few companies were missing, and they didn't actually disappear from the fair completely, as their representatives were there for a few days, visiting the individual stands. There is a sharp decline in interest from the media and influencers, and unfortunately, there is also a sharp decline in distributors and traders who come to the fair. This is the biggest stumbling block and, in fact, the main reason not to come to the fair next time. Thanks to the fact that we see each other there every year, we are already in contact with the regulars among the manufacturers. Relationships have been established and maintained, and we see each other throughout the year at various exhibitions. Thanks to these, we don't have to spend huge amounts of money on participating in the fair. So now we can hope that this year's negotiations with potential new distributors will lead to mutual cooperation and that we will thus have new reasons to go to the fair again next year.

Almost every other visitor to our stand during the event asked how satisfied we were with Nuremberg this year. They asked if we would be packing up next year, as other companies were talking about it quite loudly. We replied that it wasn't so bad. But actually, it's not up to us. The fair will make sense for us as long as other companies continue to attend. If they pack up and don't come, the fair will cease to make sense for all of us. And plastic models will practically disappear from the International Toy Fair. Sure, companies like Tamiya will probably stay, but only a fragment of the original hall full of plastic modeling companies will remain.