The American International Toy Fair, held each year in New York City, is the toy industry's finest hour. This week-long event brings together toy manufacturers, toy buyers, and press from all over the globe. The primary purpose of Toy Fair is to show prospective buyers all the different product lines that a company will have available in the coming year so that orders may be placed for those items. It is these buyers that determine what you, the consumer, will see on store shelves in the coming year. Of course, toy fans wait with baited breath for every little morsel of information that trickles out of the nearly mythical halls of the toy building each year. You see, Toy Fair isn't open to the public. You have to be involved in the toy industry at some level (either as a buyer, a member of the press or other such position) to even gain entry. And even still, you must get appointments to visit various company showrooms to see all the cool things on display.

And believe us, there are many cool displays to be seen. Companies (including our own) spend lots of time, effort and money preparing for Toy Fair. We are going to take you behind the scenes of our own process of preparing for Toy Fair. We don't want to show everything just yet. We want to save the finished product for Toy Fair itself, but we thought you might be interested in what it takes to design and create our Toy Fair showroom.

Showroom space is extremely limited in New York City. Traditionally, there are several buildings set aside year round for Toy Fair showrooms. ReSaurus acquired a large space right in the main toy building. Even though we have a large space, our entire area will be packed to the brim with all the exciting new products we will have for the next year. We are looking into the possibility of having an even bigger showroom space next year just to show off all the products we will have on display at next year's big event!

Our first task was to design the elements that will occupy our showroom space and help us to display our products. We have a particularly challenging issue to address because of the wide variety of product styles we offer. From the cute and cuddly Bone figures to the dark and gritty Quake figures, we pretty much run the gamut of styles. The question becomes how to best display these diverse products in a unified space. For that answer, we need only turn to our own talented staff.

Here at ReSaurus, we believe we have some of the most talented artists and designers in the industry. We do all of our packaging, advertising, and other graphics in house. Our graphic design department works overtime when it comes to Toy Fair. Initial designs began months ago as we began to get an idea of the products that will be on display at the big event. Even with that type of long-range planning, there are always last minute additions. Our design staff came up with several design elements to pull things together. One of these design elements involved individual banners for each product line. Each of these banners has a distinctive look, but all share common design elements. The result is a series of distinct, yet unified banners that can be used as part of our showroom decor.

In addition to the banners, our designers have also created dynamic logos for each different product line that will be shown at Toy Fair. These logos again feature distinctive looks but are drawn together by their common triangular shape. The finished effect is dazzling!

The next issue involves how we will actually display all the products we have. As mentioned previously, we have a rather large space, but even so we need to accent the space with different shelving and product rack options. We tried out several different rack options before deciding on the sleek, modern stands we finally chose. When assembled, we will be able to use these racks both for hanging our packaged products and for our banners. The combination should look quite impressive and give our space a sense of real depth and character.

So, now that we have all these design elements, the next challenge is getting them to New York City. Most of the decor and accessories will be shipped to the showroom. Some of the items will be hand carried by the designers who will eventually put it all together.

The other challenge is getting all of our products together for display. This year, we are showing more items than we ever have before. We will need packaged samples of all the items we have coming out in the near future. In addition, we like to have loose versions of all those figures so that we can set up attractive displays. In a lot of ways, we do the same types of things you do as a collector. Sometimes we create mini environments or dioramas for our figures. Other times, we try to arrange the figures the best way we can on shelves so that the buyers and the press can see all that we have to offer.

Then we also have to get all our new product together for display. This can be a bit more tricky because when a product isn't due out until later in the year, we may only have a prototype of the figure to show prospective buyers and the press. These are the figures that many fans are most interested in as they give you a sample of what is to come for the next year from our company. These pieces are often one-of-a-kind, hand painted two-ups (i.e., sculpted at twice the final size) that will eventually be used to create the final packaged action figures you see on your retailer's shelves. Sometimes they go through revisions so that what you finally see can be somewhat different than the final product. In any case, it's always interesting to see how things start out, isn't it?

Once our designers are on site, they quickly begin the process of setting up the showroom, preparing it for a steady stream of visitors. Our Toy Fair showroom is a busy place. We expect this year to be our best year ever. Our designers have outdone themselves preparing for this event and we think that our visitors will be rewarded with a feast of great new ReSaurus products displayed in our awesome showroom.

We realize that you all can't come by for a visit so we're going to help you out and send you some live updates from the showroom itself. Look for a great mix of photos and descriptions that we hope will get you into the spirit of Toy Fair as experienced by us here at ReSaurus. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or requests, please be sure to visit our Forum. We'll be checking the forum while we're in New York, so if you want to communicate with us, that's the way to go. Let us know what you think about what we show. We really, really want to be your toy company!

See you in New York!

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