The business of play is large — as in $27 billion in the US alone — and the New York Toy Fair is the place to explore it. The largest toy trade show in the Western Hemisphere, it’s the place to find the latest releases, check out current trends, and make useful business connections.

It’s not open to the public, but luckily, there’s an intrepid reporter with really good walking shoes prepared to suffer a day of play for your sake. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it! That is, if they can get past the first challenge: registering for the fair.

Attendees must submit multiple credentials for approval, and I was attending with two different hats: business and press. So yes, I would have loved to bring you with me, but no, I couldn’t.

And the Winner Is …

The Toy Fair takes place in the Javits Center, which occupies six blocks’ worth of space in New York City. I checked in at the automatic kiosk, affixed my very official-looking badges onto sponsored lanyards (Ty and Crayola, in case you’re wondering), and accepted my sponsored tote bag. (Also from Ty and featuring sequined slippers and improbable animals with unicorn horns. I have yet to comprehend this trend and wonder what you call a horned lion.)

There are a few sample toys rattling around the bottom of the tote, which I mentally assign to appropriate family members. But the Toy Fair isn’t sample-heavy — the totes are more for catalogs and order sheets than loot.

I hurried down the stairs — time was a-wastin’! — but I paused at the wall of TOTY winners. That’s Toy of the Year, to the uninitiated. Then I pouted, because almost all of them are licensed, and I tend to avoid character-themed products, both for the toy store I manage and in my writing. In our world, being associated with a specific digital or TV-themed trend limits the market instead of expanding it, and small toy stores can rarely compete with the corporate giants for pricing of licensed items.

But for the curious, here’s an overview: L.O.L. Surprise! won three of the multiple categories, including Doll of the Year, Collectible of the Year, and overall Toy of the Year, each with a different product. (If your kids have been bitten by the bug, you’ll understand.) Baby Shark was License of the Year, and their Song Puppets won Plush of the Year. (Another bug to avoid. This one’s an earworm.) Lego won three different categories, too.

Game of the Year went to Pictionary Air, which involves drawing in the air with an electronic pen. Teams see the “invisible” drawing on their smartphones or tablets and guessing proceeds like classic Pictionary. Yeah, it’s cool, but it’s also exceedingly muktzeh and unlikely to catch on with my Lakewood-based market. Also super cool, but requiring smartphone use, is WOW Stuff Collection’s Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak. No, it won’t make you disappear in real life, but the matching app will make it appear that you did on screen, which makes for some pretty cool video possibilities.

I do some disappearing myself and set off in search of awesome stuff to share with the frum world.

Launch Time

I’ve been to the Toy Fair before, so I know how easy it is to get lost in the maze of folding-table booths. That’s why I map out where I need to go, highlighting destinations of interest — and then completely ignore my map. Hey, I’m a kid in a very large toy store. Don’t judge me!

I did follow my plan to begin at the Launch Pad. This section is reserved for new vendors, and it’s a great place to scope out what’s doing in the world of toys. It’s also a curious mix of fancy-schmancy, professionally staged, extra-large display “booths” and little 6 x 6 booths displaying new and innovative but not-yet-large-scale products. That mix is echoed in other sections too, but here, the little guys are even scrappier.

I was surprised to find multiple European companies looking to expand to the American market, because Asian contributors are more common. We associate European toys with classic quality, and I wasn’t disappointed. The toys I saw were attractive, minimalist, and beautifully crafted.

I was particularly impressed by Gigamic, with their gorgeous, solid-wood strategy games, and Scratch Europe, which has some of the best quality children’s puzzles and games I’ve seen. I loved their magnetic puzzle line — two small puzzles in a sturdy magnetic folder, perfect for travel.

I was also really excited by I’m A Girly, a line of trendy 18-inch dolls with — get this — long, gorgeous wigs, perfect for styling play. They’re not heat safe, but the length and ability to switch the wigs out means that aspiring sheitelmachers can experiment with cutting as well as styling. They’re also not cheap (roughly $135, and extra wigs range from $20 to $35), but I can see these taking off as a popular afikomen or Chanukah present. Unfortunately, they won’t be available in the US until later this year.

There’s also a range of styling heads (around $100) with extra wigs available (about $45) called I’m A Stylist. These are made to be used for makeup as well as for hair. The newly introduced I’m A Wow line features more affordable 14-inch dolls. The hair on these is not removable, but it’s photosensitive and will change colors in the sunlight.