UK Toy Fair 2026 - Review: Trends, News, Conversations

UK TOYFAIR 2026 REVIEW 

Walking through the doors of Olympia Exhibition Centre this time was the 26th anniversary since my first visit to this show as a young and wet behind the ears new starter with Hasbro Europe. It's always great to catch up with all the Hasbro folks of that generation - lovely to see you all again, and nice to see how gracefully most people seem to be ageing.

In some ways the industry has changed so much since the turn of the millennium, and yet again some things don't ever seem to change. Perusing through the official 'Toy Fair Hero Toys' selection I couldn't help but think how many of those products could have been the winners 26 years ago...maybe that's the cynical old hack in me. Yet at the same time the industry's biggest customer globally is Amazon - an e-commerce retailer offering no opportunity to touch and feel the products, no 'Try Me' and a totally different interface for listing & selling. That was just a nascent business when I first came to UK Toy Fair, oh how things have changed in that regard.

One of the most contentious topics of conversation at this year's show was a new stipulation from Amazon that ALL products have to be certified as compliant to safety regulations every year. This is an inconvenience for companies with high volume products, but a major issue for smaller companies selling a few hundred units of a lot of different products. This seems likely to lead to a reduction in the number of products listed on Amazon. From one angle I understand Amazon's move - we constantly berate them for having non-compliant products on there, but this seems like a harsh and ultimately self defeating move, anyway, let's see how that plays out and whether it sticks...

Quite a few clients have been asking me for help to find Amazon agencies for the past few years, so we recently launched our own Amazon & D2C agency in partnership with some Tech guru friends - check out www.PlayMetrix.biz  for details in case you need help with your Amazon business. We're helping Toy & Game companies to profitably grow on Amazon & D2C with less work and need to manage the minutiae.

In terms of overall UK Toy market trends - the 'Kidult' segment of the market is ever more critical today and still seems to offer the biggest overall growth opportunity. Certainly adult targeted products were much more prevalent at this year's show vs my first visit back in 2000, with this segment now representing nearly 1/3 of the UK Toy market. It's ironic for me to see this as I did a number of research projects with UK Toy collectors in the year 2000, and they were honestly speaking quite a weird bunch held in very low regard by the industry back then!

The UK Toy market was apparently up c. 6% in 2025 hitting £3.9 billion in retail sales according to Circana (the industry's leading sales data organisation). That's on a par with my predictions with 2025 being a massive year for Movies and a very strong year for some perennial brands including Lego (as always!) and Pokemon. 

The mood among the people I talked to at this year's UK show was overwhelmingly positive. It's not necessarily that everyone had an amazing year in 2025 - as always there were winners and losers, but the feeling I took away was a quiet confidence about the outlook for the Toy & Games market in the UK. There was the usual grumbling and speculation about footfall at this year's show, but frankly I never get that. There are a maximum of ten retailers (or even 5ish) who can really move the needle in the UK. If they all turn up and react positively to your range isn't that what counts? Admittedly there are some companies who rely more heavily on independents, in which case they will need more footfall to service that market, but for everyone else who cares how many non-buying industry hangers on (like myself!) are clogging up the aisles? 

One (perhaps slightly bitchy) comment would be that whatever construction/renovation work has been happening at the Olympia site for years now is not apparent in the two exhibition halls I just visited. I'm presuming there's some lovely modern shops and hotel rooms coming together nicely to the side of the main exhibition halls, but the area we spent the show in is still tired and worn - not really changed since that first visit of mine back at the turn of the millennium! Hope to see improvements to the visitor experience and facilities next time round.

So to bring this to a close, it feels like another great show to me, and god willing I'll greatly look forward to returning in 2027.

INTRODUCING PLAYMETRIX

We just launched www.PlayMetrix.biz with some Tech gurus to help Toy & Games companies profitably grow their Amazon, D2C & other e-comm business. Get in touch if you need help on these areas - we're offering a Free audit of your Amazon account & listings to the first 5 companies who get in touch.

www.ToyRecruitment.com

Our Recruitment business is now representing around 50% of our work. We're currently recruiting for:-

• Toy Sales Manager: North of England

• NPD Manager, Plush Toys, UK.

• Toy Buying Manager, Essex,

• Toy Buying Manager,  (Part time, 3 days pw), UK

• Sourcing Manager, Ningbo, China 

  
  

  If you or anyone you know is interested in these roles and lives in the relevant country, please get in touch. If you're an employer looking for new hires, more info on our services here: www.ToyRecruitment.com 

  
  

  ACQUISITIONS

• We're currently advising a European Construction Toy brand & also a Tech company with bespoke Toyetic AI platform looking to be acquired. Interested parties can DM for an NDA leading to more info. 

  
  

  SEE YOU IN NUREMBERG?

  I'll be at the Spielwarenmesse show in Nuremberg next week if you want to meet - still got a few meeting slots free... 

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This article is copyright 2025 RG Marketing Ltd, all rights reserved. All contributors to this article contributed under a work for hire basis on behalf of RG Marketing Ltd. Please also note, this article was written and published in the United Kingdom.

4 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐏𝐈𝐃𝐋𝐘 𝐎𝐁𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐎𝐘 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐒

4 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐏𝐈𝐃𝐋𝐘 𝐎𝐁𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐎𝐘 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐒

Over the years I've been asked by 100+ clients for Toy Fair exhibiting tips. They are often shocked when I share these blindingly obvious and basic suggestions first:

1. 𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐑 - trade shows are not just meeting grounds for industry folks, they're also meeting grounds for exotic germs. Back in the noughties, after getting sick at a Toy show for the umpteenth time I started using hand sanitiser after every time shaking hands & haven't got ill at trade shows since. If you aren't shaking 50+ hands a day you're doing something wrong. You won't be your best if you get ill from that. Protect yourself, your staff & your customers with a $2 bottle of hand sanitiser.

2. 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖

Do you want to influence Buyers at trade shows? If the answer is yes, would it help if they spent longer on your Booth? Yes...? Well one easy way to get more Buyer time is to have the most comfortable seating at the show. Have a sumptuous couch/sofa on your Booth. Thank me later when the Buyer rests their weary feet and spends ten minutes longer listening to you waffling on just because they are physically comfortable. BUT protect that sanctuary, don't let people you want to get rid of sit on the comfiest seats in the show!

3. 𝐈𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 & 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐊 - 𝐇𝐘𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍!

Have lots of water around, drink it & make sure others drink it. UK Toy Fair 2005 I was locked in a small room with hot bright lights for 3 days pitching the same product line over and over, my late night antics the previous night had left me 'dehydrated'...and just as my throat and voicebox completely gave up the ghost, in walked the then mighty TRU European leadership team. If only I'd drunk as much water during the day as beer the night before...

4. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐁𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄

Let's keep it real here, drinking beer (or whatever) with industry friends and colleagues after the show can be directly linked to $billions in revenues every year. We won't go into the psycho babble about how human beings who know and like each other do more business together...but let's just say that if your show diary stops at 6pm every day you are missing massive opportunities. There are so many examples for this, but my favourite would be one year at Nuremberg when I was on my third party/function of the evening, and frankly speaking, was heavily inebriated. At 2am at the bar, there was a choice to speak to someone in a whacky character costume or the more normally clothed guy to the other side, who turned into a future customer who spent $tens of millions with my clients/partners over time. The opportunities end when you go to sleep, not when official show hours are done!

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