Off like a rocket

Once a year the spotlight is trained on the team at Spielwarenmesse eG – the firm that runs the Toy Fair. During the other 51 weeks they wait in the wings. We visited them in Nuremberg.

The Toy Fair has a special significance for Schuco this year it’s the brand’s
100th birthday.

There are some jobs that seem, at first sight, to be concentrated at certain times of the year. Swimming pool attendant, for example. Or ski instructor. Which means that a lot of children see them as the ideal way to earn a living.

At first glance you might think that the equivalent to this in the business world is working for the International Toy Fair. This too happens only once a year, at the beginning of February. It takes place in Nuremberg and lasts for six days.

Just like last year: visitors to this spacious stand at the Toy Fair can find everything that the Simba Dickie Group has to offer.

But one look at the figures shows quite clearly that those six days provide enough work for the whole year. About 2,700 exhibitors from up to 60 countries are looked after by Spielwarenmesse eG’s 40 employees before, during and after the Fair, not to mention 2,500 journalists and about 80,000 trade visitors. A million products – of which some 70,000 are completely new – are presented each year in an exhibition space totalling 160,000 square metres. The richly traditional Nuremberg Toy Fair has been going since 1950 and is the largest of its kind in the world. And the most important.

Management Board Chairman
Ernst Kick

And this trade fair in Nuremberg has something in common with the famous Wagner Festival 80 kilometres away in Bayreuth: there are more would-be attendees than there is space available. “Yes, demand for exhibition space exceeds supply by about ten per cent,” says Ernst Kick, Chair of the toy fair organisation’s management board. “But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t constantly looking for new participants, indeed we have to.”

Kick’s office in southern Nuremberg also houses a toy: a Schuco model aeroplane
that he has owned since he was four. This is not by chance: at that time his ambition was to be a pilot. And he achieved it: he received a pilot’s licence from the German air force. He doesn’t fly himself any more, but he’s still clocking up lots of air miles. He’s just back from a six-week ‘dialogue tour’ which took him to
15 countries and was linked to one of his core responsibilities: presenting and publicising the unique qualities of the Fair. “We have 95 country representatives worldwide and we are in close contact with them. We also have subsidiaries in Shanghai and Moscow, and co-operate with other Fairs. But everything is co-ordinated and steered from here,” says Kick.

He’s headed the Fair organisation for nine years, but it is organised on a co-operative basis. And he still enjoys his work as much as he did on his very first day. “There’s no better job description in the world than managing trade fairs,” he says enthusiastically. He is a sporting man and used to be in Germany’s national handball team. “Trade fair people don’t battle against other firms, they don’t represent one single product: they manage markets. This means that they get together with the most interesting leaders in their business sector and have exciting discussions about key aspects of the future.”

Marketing Director Christian Ulrich

Another person who looks to the future on a daily basis is Christian Ulrich, Marketing Director of Spielwarenmesse eG. He is, among other things, the interface for a team of trend scouts, who monitor international markets on behalf of the Toy Fair. “It’s very important for us to latch on to new developments at an early stage and know what firms are behind them,” admits Ulrich. “Of course it’s very gratifying that the market leaders come back to us year after year. But we’re also constantly on the look-out for small, innovative firms to ensure that the Fair is always exciting and is always developing.” He also keeps an eye on other trend-setting fairs. One of Christian Ulrich’s main tasks is to market the Fair to outsiders, and to support the year-round special exhibitions. “We don’t have a closed season: the network of representatives needs to be fostered on a day-to-day basis,” he says. And the closing date for applications for the Fair is an early one: 30 April of the preceding year.

Katharina Janotta,
Director Project Management

“If each of the 2,700 exhibitors has just ten special requirements, you can imagine how much we have to do here,” says Katharina Janotta, from Hanover, who as Director of Project Management is responsible for organising the Fair from A to Z. Heading a team of 12 people, each allocated to a different product group, she is the toy industry’s fairy godmother, making everybody’s wishes come true – the whole year round.

The IT aspect of the Toy Fair is becoming ever more important, and this is in the hands of Jens Pflüger. He also looks after finance. During the Fair he is present with his six-man team, taking care of networks and server landscapes.

Jens Pflüger, Director IT & Finance

When the Fair is over, that’s when he really gets busy. “It’s when we pay most attention to evaluation, statistics and controls,” he says. “We also develop Fair software and look after online service provision.” The further we delve into the infrastructure of the Toy Fair, the more work we find being done. The service handbook, listing all available services, has to be updated every year. Application forms, stand confirmations and invoices are sent out. And, last but not least, there are future key themes and next year’s new motto to be devised.

So now that we’ve seen the Nuremberg team at work, we are much less inclined
to think in terms of ski instructors. It’s more like working for NASA. The logistics of the Toy Fair are about as complex as the annual launch of a space rocket. This work-for-all-seasons is best described by adapting the old German footballer’s
adage: “The next fair is always lined up waiting.”