NEW YORK TOY FAIR 2026 REVIEW
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NEW YORK TOY FAIR 2026 REVIEW: THE OLDEST TOY TRADE SHOW IN THE WORLD’S BIGGEST TOY MARKET, HOW IT WENT & WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
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After a few years of disruption through and beyond Covid-19, the New York Toy Fair returned to its traditional mid-February slot over the weekend just gone and into this week. Much of the previous debate about this show has been about the purpose and efficacy of a show which comes at the end of the sales cycle, after the biggest mass market retailers have already made all listing decisions. This sentiment (and period of disruption) has seen the establishment and growth of the Preview events in Los Angeles in both April and September.
So, let’s review both the show that has just been and its purpose and place in the Toy industry calendar.
THE 2026 SHOW – HOW DID IT GO?
Look, let’s keep things real here – the show in 2026 is smaller than it was pre-pandemic, mostly due to the above point about the impact of the LA Toy Previews. What do I mean by smaller? Well the main (upstairs floor, Level 3) was pretty much full this time round. Having said that there was some very well executed spreading out of certain areas to fill things out, and some very large Booths from some of the bigger Toy companies who I suspect may have been incentivised or at least encouraged to help to fill out the big floor space.
Downstairs, the more up and coming or typically niche product company section is the section most reduced since the turmoil around this show. There were still plenty of companies down there, including some of my clients, who I know from working to be successful fast-growing companies with products in demand from Retailers, but nevertheless there were fewer than there has been at some shows in the past.
Overall, the footfall seemed fairly strong albeit more condensed versus past shows. I spoke to 10-12 exhibitors who told me they were very pleasantly surprised with the Buyer time they got and even orders written. The reality of course though is that in this modern era, you could conceivably play the 80-20 rule, or Pareto Principle if you prefer, and focus on fewer bigger customers and bypass exhibiting at this show.
If you only sold to Amazon, Walmart & Target today you would capture the majority of the Toy & Game market in the USA. Walmart and Target have long since confirmed their listings for Fall by the time of NY Toy Fair, and Amazon is in effect a platform where you can put product live yourself whenever you want (depending on which Amazon model you prefer). Therein lies the source of most debate around the NYC show – is what’s left worth chasing by exhibiting at the Jacob Javits Center?
The question logically becomes whether each individual exhibitor can justify the financial and opportunity cost of exhibiting in Javits based on the Media/Influencer opportunities, East Coast retailers, Specialty retailers (for whom there are other specialist shows) and to spend more time with Buyers who have already completed their listings. Clearly every company will have their own experience and view on that.
Regardless. If 2/3rds of a $40bn market is already confirmed in effect for Fall by the time of New York Toy Faiur, the fact remains that the other 1/3 is still a bigger opportunity than any single export market opportunity you could pursue (with all the language and regulatory complications that export sales involve).
Moreover, relying on the juggernauts that are Walmart, Target and Amazon isn't likely to leave you feeling empowered and with true agency over all elements of your business. There's no doubt all three of these mighty Retailers can shift huge quantities of boxes, but they would not normally be described by their suppliers as 'flexible and amenable'. You might have to do five times the work to build up a Specialty business to add a fourth pillar to your revenues, but that 4th pillar could be a sound strategy to remove some of the trading risk of supplying such massive, highly demanding customers.
The other perspective which I think gets over looked by the long-established companies who dominate the discourse in our industry is that of new market entrants. In all my time in this business, my favourite dynamic is that of watching new start ups enter the industry and then watching some of them succeed with huge success. When I entered this industry back in the day, hardly anybody had heard of or cared about Spin Master or Asmodee – now look at them, at c. $1.5-2 Billion revenue companies and established pillars of our industry. The New York show represents a critical opportunity for up-and-coming companies to get Buyer time, for the Buyers to see hundreds of smaller vendors in one place and for the Spin Master's of tomorrow to accelerate their growth journey.
So let’s just finish up on the seemingly perpetually endless need to justify this show by stating that hundreds of exhibitors decided to invest in this year’s New York Toy Fair, and presumably will again next year, enough said.
THE SHOW EXPERIENCE IN NEW YORK
February rarely sees tropical weather visit The Big Apple. This time round it was cold, but we fortunately avoided the ultra-cold weather of the previous few weeks. The only remnants of this were piles of ever dirtier frozen snow by the sides of the road across Manhattan. Of all the Toy trade shows, this one has the best after show options – the dining and nightlife opportunities of one of the world’s truly great cities lies within easy reach of the show doors.
While it’s hard to find a peaceful hotel room in Manhattan that isn’t subject to ludicrously loud fire engine or police sirens at 4am, there is no shortage of rooms and despite NYC being a very expensive settlement, hotel rooms are still cheaper than our annual pilgrimage en masse to Nuremberg.
Overall, even taking account of the unappealing weather, I do think that if you can’t enjoy and get energised by a trip to this one of a kind metropolis than there is a fair chance you are dead inside!
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON THE NY SHOW
My first visit to this show was in the year 2000. I had just started working for Hasbro Europe in a Consumer Research role. A new Head of Global Research had come into the business and demanded a Global research summit, and so I got on a plane and headed to the summit in NY state somewhere in the back waters. It would have been silly to not attend the Toy Fair as I passed through, even though at the time Hasbro was in the midst of significant budget cuts following the decline of the first Pokémon boom. I think there were literally only 4 people from Hasbro Europe at that show as a result, and the incredulous looks from the Head of Europe indicated that he couldn’t believe that a Junior consumer researcher had made the travel shortlist.
Back in the days of the old Toy building, I began to look at the New York show as an opportunity to get fitter for football (soccer if you must!) season, as the Toy building lifts were in high demand and being both hugely impatient but also highly claustrophobic, I was not keen on waiting to be cramped into a small metal box to get in between meetings. Thus the show became like my own personal bootcamp with 10-15 flights of stair climbing and descending in between meetings.
This was back when NYC was still in the midst of being cleaned up and made safer. My boss categorically told me at the time that the Subway was not safe and that I was to take a taxi to get around town. The famed New York ‘Crazies’ were in greater effect back then – there was a guy hanging outside our hotel who wore a bird feather hat and made cooing bird noises all day much to my amusement, and to the bewilderment of passers by. Nowadays, at least to an outsider like me, NYC seems much safer and more orderly. Sadly it is therefore less entertaining – the legalisation of cannabis seems to have supressed and calmed the more ‘boisterous’ street dwellers of Manhattan.
IN CONCLUSION: NEW YORK TOY FAIR 2026 REVIEW
This show is now about: meeting media & influencers, selling to smaller retailers, selling to East Coast retailers, another opportunity for mass market Buyer time (albeit post listing decisions) and an opportunity for newer companies who don’t yet have the contacts to pre-book meetings for the closed room LA events to step up and pitch to Retail.
The future of the show will be decided in the end by the Toy Association, their members and also the appetite of exhibitors to pay to exhibit at this show. For me though this still feels like an essential show, and I do believe that the industry as a whole would eventually regret any further moves to diminish or even abandon this landmark event. What do you think?
(Please feel free to disagree with me in the comments)
TOY RECRUITMENT
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Sales Director, HK
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INTRODUCING PLAYMETRIX
At the start of the year we launched www.PlayMetrix.biz with some Tech gurus to help Toy & Games companies profitably grow their Amazon, D2C & other e-comm business.
We have had some great meetings this show season and we’re now working away for new clients, but we’re always open to enquiries.
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This article is copyright 2026 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.
