Over to New York now for a feast for toy lovers. The 111th annual American International Toy Fair trade show has just opened on Sunday. The exhibition proves that play is very serious business indeed.
The Toy Fair is a grand exhibition of unprecedented size.With a showroom floor more than 7 football fields in length, the Fair has broken records with its 412,000 square feet of exhibitions at the Javits Center. And the toys here cover a broad spectrum, to cater to a broad variety of buyers.
Adrienne Appell, Senior P.R. Manager of Toy Industry Association, said, "The biggest theme of the toy fair really is innovation and as you walk the aisles and you see the hundreds of thousands of products that are here, you’ll see how innovative toy makers are and how play is universal. We have over a hundred companies represented and we took 30,000 people to walk the hallways so that’s a lot of people excited about play."
Exhibitors and buyers are debuting the hottest toys of 2014, including a gender-neutral toy for preschool kids based on the Disney show "Doc McStuffins".
"Toy Fair has the Toy of the Year Awards and they have a bunch of different categories and of course Doc McStuffins picked up the one for preschool toy of the year and what’s great about Doc McStuffins is she’s very gender neutral and she’s a lot of fun and Just Play has a new toy coming out which is Doc McStuffins and the portable mobile," said Joey Fortman, founder of Real Mom Media.
From classic toys to interactive games, many toys here show that playtime can also be educational, in what toy professionals call "steam" learning.
"Steam learning is one of the trends we’re talking about this year - toys that foster science, technology, engineering, arts and math so any kid is interested in any of those you’ll find tons of products." Adrienne said.
The Fair runs till February 19th and has attracted more than 30,000 play professionals from 100 countries.