Undercover at the London Toy Fair

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Last week was the end of January, which means time for our annual anonymous visit to the London Toy Fair. Since we were chucked out, we're reduced to attending incognito, slinking around in the shadows like the commercial lepers we are. It's not so bad; we can pretend we're James Bond inside an underground Russian military base and then the day just flies by.

The Toy Fair was the usual depressing mix of convention humdrum and people in suits talking about 'licencing opportunities' and 'marketing momentum' without any of the joy and excitement that you usually associate with toys and games. Seriously, most of these people could be selling kitchen units.

However, we did meet some interesting folk to help with future TBG projects and even a few friendly faces - yes, it's true, not everyone hates us. The should-be-sectioned, father-son bring-and-buy team from GenCon in Reading last August were there. Despite being scary bad men, they did write a very nice review of War on Terror in their excellent Games Gazette (established in 1980, no less), so we'd best be nice to them.

Biggest snub of the day was talking to the lovely smiley man at the Barnados stand. We played giant jenga with him and talked about Barnados' history at the Toy Fair and how they do really well out of donations from the other exhibitors. We tried to get out of him who the tightest companies were, but he was terribly diplomatic and refused to comment. "Ah, tell you what, give us your card and we'll donate a couple of games of 'War on Terror.", Andy S offered up. A brief, uncomfortable silence followed before Mr Barnados - without breaking his smile - replied "Better not." We can't even give the game away! You'd think we'd murdered someone's mother the reception we get...

All in all, a very productive day and we managed not to get thrown out this time. There's hope for us yet...

Breaking news! Check out the new EVIL Balaclava challenges which all have a brand spanking new prize, needless to say our generosity is growing...

Posted by TerrorBull Games on 7 February 2008 - 0 comments