Status: 02/01/2023 08:21 a.m
What makes children’s eyes light up? This year’s toy fair in Nuremberg is all about apps, augmented reality and sustainability. And discarded refrigerators get a second life.
The trend towards sustainability runs through all sectors. Sustainability is also a top priority at the New Products Show at the Nuremberg Toy Fair. The special show “ToysGoGreen” – toys go green – summarizes this area, according to the head of the toy fair, Christian Ulrich br interview. “There we show the latest state of the art in the industry. What other materials there are besides wood. These are things like cork, bamboo and the like.” This should be firmly established at the fair in the future.
In addition to cork and bamboo, Playmobil also shows which raw materials can be used in sustainable toys. 80 percent of the figures, animals, huts and the like from the “Wiltopia” toy series come from sustainable materials, says press spokesman Björn Seeger br. “On the one hand, it contains recyclates, some of which are obtained from discarded refrigerators, and on the other hand, there are also bio-based plastics.”
Whether bamboo, cork or even recycled refrigerators: the toys are manufactured more sustainably, like the “Wiltopia” series from Playmobil.
Image: Nicolas Eberlein
Sustainability needs a story
The sustainable products have been well received by both customers and trading partners, Seeger continues. However, it is not enough for Playmobil to address the issue of sustainability through the materials alone. “The story is also about protecting the environment in the Amazon region,” says Seeger, referring to “Wiltopia.” “Children are open to sustainability issues if they know what it’s about.”
No bamboo or cork, no old refrigerators either, just sugar cane: the German start-up CompacToys relies on the renewable raw material. 80 percent of their collapsible buckets for the sandpit and beach are also made of the same material. With them, too, the idea of sustainability goes beyond the material. The compactness of the folding bucket means that less space is taken up in the car, says Managing Director Steffen Baumann. “Then you don’t have to buy toys on holiday that are then immediately thrown away.”
Playing with things that aren’t there
A remote-controlled toy car is apparently driving aimlessly on the empty ground at the toy fair. Next to it is a man playing with his smartphone. The world looks different on the screen: Here you can see the toy car driving around via the camera – but also virtual pearls that the car collects. AR, short for Augmented Reality, i.e. “extended reality”, is also one of the trends at the Toy Fair 2023 in Nuremberg.
There are other AR apps for smartphones at the booth of the exhibitor Augmented Robotics. With every small racing car that you might still have in a box at home, you can run over virtual zombies in connection with your smartphone and have to be careful not to ram into buildings. Exhibitors are very much in vogue with such app-controlled toys, says Messe boss Christian Ulrich. It is becoming more and more digital, high-tech ends up in children’s rooms. According to Ulrich, innovations are also reinterpreted classics. The old racing cars in AR go very well with this.
Augmented Reality will make children’s rooms more and more digital in the future.
Image: Nicolas Eberlein
Without war toys and without Russia
However, there is no place for war toys at the Nuremberg Toy Fair. Exhibition boss Ulrich says that the topic is viewed less critically in other countries than in Germany. But the area is neither promoted nor supported at the fair. This has nothing to do with the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
However, the Ukraine is represented for the first time this year with a joint stand. The organization was difficult, but “they also wanted to express solidarity with the war-torn country”. Russia was excluded from the fair this year, according to Ulrich.