Getting Ready for the Holidays with Holiday of Play

On October 22 the Fandads attended The Toy Insiders' Holiday of Play from home in the comfort of our dining room. This is the second time we attended an online toy fair and it did not disappoint. From the set-up to the brands that were on hand, the show was a great way to see what toys will be the must get toys for the holidays. So what were the stand out toys and what is going to be added to our upcoming Holiday Gift Guide? Keep ready for a preview of what's to come.

One of the things we did this year was trying to get as many one-on-one meetings with the brands. The cool thing about doing this is you are talking directly with the brand representative and pitching yourself to them. I like doing this because it is more personal in a way as opposed to being in an actual convention center and talking loud over the noise or competing with other people to get their attention. 

At the show, I had a few appointments made and I think we made good impressions on the brands and hopefully, they would want to work with us in the future. Ok, enough talking about business, let's get down to the toys!

One of the brands I had a good time with was Funko Games. A group of us were shown the new Back to the Future game. The upcoming Elf game and played a trivia game in honor of their Marvel BattleWorld game. This trivia game should have been easy for me to win, but I typed the hashtag incorrectly and my answers were not being seen by the moderator. 

Funko Games has some great stuff coming out soon and we'll showcase a few of these items soon. 

Our friends at PlayMonster held a #BuildtoBattle party highlighting their Snap Ships line of toys. We were all given a few minutes to build our ship as fast as we could. I build my Scarab ship and thought I did a pretty good job when the time was up. As you can see by the image below the Scarab is a pretty impressive ship. The design on all the Snap Ships is pretty great and like any building set, you can combine the pieces and create something entirely new. After a fierce competition, everyone was declared a winner and will receive a Snap Ship sent to them for participating. 

One of the cool things about These events is that while you are virtually walking around the show floor there are wrapped presents to look for to get a prize at the end of the event. Each present is worth a different point value and whoever has the highest points at the end gets a prize. I think my eyes were not as sharp at finding these presents, because I ended up with only 65 points. 

Some of the cool brands we talked to there were LEGO, Crayola, Smart Lab Toys, Elenco Electronics, and Playmates Toys. 

Playmates Toys has some great Godzilla vs Kong toys that they showed us and they should be hitting the stores soon. It would have been great to see these gigantic monsters fighting on the big screen, but until that day happens, we can create our own battles with the toys. 

Playmates also showed us some Billie Eilish figures that are available now at Target. The great thing about these figures is that the packaging becomes the display stand/backdrop for the figures. We were told that she wanted this feature to prevent more waste from going out into the environment. My daughter can not wait to find these in stores and display them in her room. 

There were some other great toys that we saw, but those we will share in our holiday gift guide. At the end of the event, there was a virtual happy hour and a scavenger hunt. During the scavenger hunt, we were all surprised by a special guest, Santa Claus. It was amazing seeing the face of some of the children light up when Santa arrived and it was a lot of fun singing Jingle Bells with him. This was a fantastic way to end the day. 

I hope that next year we are able to attend the event in person and actually get to interact with the toys and brands that are there. A big shout out goes to all of the people behind the scenes that made this event run so effortless. 

We were lucky enough to receive a swag box from some of the brands that were at the event. Check out what we received and let us know what toys you are excited to play with this holiday season.