Mild exhaustion – tick. Step count through the roof – tick. A voice that would make Tom Waits sound like Aled Jones – tick. Yep, it’s been another hectic trade fair week, as I have spent the past few days down at Excel attending the 25th anniversary BLE show. Mind you, at least I wasn’t battling jet lag as well, as numerous people from the toy community who arrived back from LA over the weekend were bravely doing (some more successfully than others, it has to be said).
Indeed, a few toy suppliers and retailers were still out in LA this week, so unfortunately missed the event – although to be fair, you wouldn’t have noticed, as BLE was absolutely heaving, especially on the first day. Even the last day of the show (yesterday) was respectable – so much so that by lunchtime yesterday, the show had achieved its highest-ever attendance in its 25-year history. Retail attendance was “off the chart” according to show organiser Anna Knight, and she and her team should be very proud of what they delivered this week. Gold stars all round.
Numbers aside, the mood at BLE was also arguably the most buoyant since the pandemic. Even last year, there was still some residual caution, particularly from some of the big studios, with cinema attendance continuing to lag behind pre-Covid days and the whole streaming debate leaving a lot of licensing people feeling a little nervous. Don’t get me wrong, there is still talk of ‘right-sizing’ some licensing operations and there continue to be casualties on all sides of the licensing community. But on the whole, the meetings that the Toy World / Licensing.biz team had this week felt far more positive and optimistic. It was more a case of ‘ok right, what can we do’ than the prevarication and obfuscation we’ve sometimes come up against in recent years. Licensors suggested that licensees and retailers were equally forward- looking and open-minded, wanting to discuss how partnerships and opportunities could be developed. I sense there’s more of a ‘can do’ mentality creeping back into licensing, and that can only be a good thing – it’s always been a channel known for its relentless optimism and positivity, and it’s nice to see the confidence returning.
To celebrate the show’s silver anniversary, there was a birthday party on the first night at which “OG’s” who had been attending since the inaugural show in 1999 were invited to take part in a group photo to mark the occasion. There had been some confusion over the phrase “OG” when the call was posted online – some thought it stood for “Old Gits” rather than “Original Gangstas.” Nevertheless, we all showed up – the photo is at the bottom of this blog.
People often ask me at the show if I have seen anything new, and the answer is invariably ‘no’ – but that’s exactly as it should be.
Read the rest here.
