– 5 per cent more visitors from Germany and abroad
– Leading fair is successful trendsetter for consumer goods fairs
Over 76,000 trade visitors from 112 countries travelled to the biggest Spielwarenmesse of all time (2013: 72,595). The extra buyers and traders came mainly from the major target markets of America, Asia and Europe. They were all delighted with the new hall 3A with the TrendGallery and the many new products from the toy industry. The product groups Baby and Infant Articles, Carnival and Festive Articles, Fireworks, and Model Railways and Accessories noticed new impetus this time. Many of the 2,748 companies from 61 countries detected an increased interest in ordering among the visitors.
The premiere of the TrendGallery turned out to be a real hit with regard to design and content. Fit4Life, Mini is King, Retromania and TechToys, the current trend streams presented there, were also core themes in all the halls at the fair. Eduardo Rinke, Director of Rinke Import from Brazil, emphasizes the fact: “Trends start here. This is the best place for getting to know the new products on the toy market for the coming year, but also for broadening your horizon and doing international business.” The companies were again very eager to see how visitors would accept the new ideas, as Andrea Schauer, Managing Director of geobra Brandstätter GmbH & Co. KG, explains: “Spielwarenmesse is definitely the international gathering of the industry and for Playmobil a key indicator of how the potential of our new products is rated.
Ernst Kick, Chief Executive Officer of Spielwarenmesse eG, is proud of the spot landing: “We are delighted that Spielwarenmesse 2014 has again created the platform our exhibitors and visitors wish for their business. Especially the extension of the Baby and Infant segment and the restructuring of the product segments attracted an excellent response from all sides. This spurs us on even more for the coming fair.”
The expansion of the Baby and Infant Articles product group will be continued. Even the first step produced good results, as Claudia Lässig, Managing Director of Lässig GmbH, found: “We particularly like the new arrangement of the Baby and Infant segment, as the distances are shorter and the quality of the buyers has increased for us. The related themes of halls 1 to 3A make the development of the market very easily recognizable and the relevant buyers find their way straight to us.”
The changes in the other halls also proved successful. Gerd Horbach, Managing Director, Fritz Fries & Söhne GmbH & Co. KG, commented on hall 9: “The expansion of carnival articles to the whole of hall 9 has made the segment more international.” With its new position in hall 4, duo schreib & spiel registered twelve per cent more visitors, according to General Manager Hans Jörg Iden: “We feel at home in hall 4. We had the most visitors on Sunday.” The manufacturers of model railways and accessories also experienced a boost in hall 4A. 86.9 per cent of the visitors rated their product spectrum as complete (2013: 80 per cent), which also recognized the involvement of the small-series manufacturers represented: ABE Atelier Belle Époque, Lokführer-Lukas Modellbau e.K., REGNER Dampf- und Eisenbahntechnik, SAI Collections, Soft-Lok and the Sol-Expert Group. Florian Sieber, Managing Director of Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH, was also pleased about the many customers who have so far not had anything to do with model railways.
ThinkFun Inc. from the USA also nails its colours to the mast in Nuremberg for the first time. Chris Gough, Director International Business, explains why: “We have decided to exhibit in Nuremberg this year so that we can present our brand at the location where all buyers are present.” Sue Foung Kong, Managing Director of Jefin Sdn. Bhd. from Malaysia, knows why the long trip to Nuremberg is worth it: “What I like most is the huge choice of brands and toys from all over the world, because Spielwarenmesse offers simply everything – exactly the products I’m looking for and those I would never have dreamed of too.” The next Spielwarenmesse takes place from 28 January to 2 February 2015.
