John Baulch The Friday Blog: A Lot of Love in the Room

As we reach the end of an exhilarating few days, I’m unsurprisingly shattered but delighted that this week’s London Toy Fair was such an uplifting experience, reaffirming everything I have always believed about this remarkable industry.

It was a slightly different show for me this time round – in particular, no late evenings in bars or at functions, but I am pleased that the rest of my team made up for me in that respect. I was ‘supposed’ to be taking it a bit easier, but how do you do that when there is so much to see and so many people who wanted to talk to us. I tried to cram in as much as possible, while taking care of myself at the same time – I think the balance was just about achieved.

I saw plenty of great new products to get excited about and talked to a lot of people who feel energized and – whisper it quietly – relatively optimistic about what lies ahead this year. Most retailers are not carrying over a lot of stock from Christmas or from summer ‘25, Circana announced that last year ended up +6%, and there is a reasonable degree of stability in the toy retail channel and even the wider British economy, which bodes well.

You’ll see and hear about all the new lines in the coming months, but there are some cracking launches on the way. There is also a lot of movement on the distribution side, as suppliers look to find the best way to support their customers – just today it was revealed that Zuru has appointed KTL as its UK distribution partner. Big news for the indies, as they look to be able to compete with the majors on availability.

Let me briefly address the large-eared mammal in the room: dozens of conversations started with people asking me if I thought the aisles were quiet. I honestly don’t know (it’s difficult to evaluate when you are constantly dashing from one stand to another), but I genuinely don’t think it matters. First and foremost, it’s a retail show. Were all the big guns there? I believe the answer to that is yes (I did hear a couple of names mentioned of retailers who may not have been present, but other people contradicted that, so I am not going to name names). The leading indies were there – Yogi told me yesterday that while some of the smaller Toymaster members didn’t make it this time round, the key Toymaster members who drive the group’s turnover were all in attendance. Press day seemed to go well, with lots of big media names on the list. So, if certain licensing companies didn’t send a team of 50 people to make it harder to get round stands, or there were fewer people trying to sell packaging, shipping or other services to exhibitors, I don’t think it’s a major issue. It gets a little predictable to pull out the ‘quality over quantity’ argument every time, but it’s 100% true.

The evening events once again gave everyone a great opportunity to network and share thoughts about the year ahead. Toy of the Year unsurprisngly went to Pokémon trading cards, with Asmodee also picking up the Supplier of the year accolade. After the incredible success which both the range and company enjoyed in ’25, it was fitting reward – hopefully ’26 will bring lots more queues outside indie stores and consumer excitement for new releases. Smyths inevitably won Retailer of the Year after another strong year – some people may question the same retailer winning every year, but if there was a toy magazine of the year category, we’d win it every year too… you can’t argue with consistent brilliance.

Although if anyone from Amazon was in the room, they would have been left in no doubt about the gap between them (arguably the No. 2 account for many suppliers) and Smyths…

Read the rest here.