The Toymaster Show which was rearranged to take place in September this year, from its usual May slot, has been cancelled.
The Toymaster group has made the announcement in the last hour, that, owing to the continued need for social distancing, and the Government restrictions on the number of people allowed to gather in one place, the 2020 Toymaster show will no longer take place this year.
“Due to the continuing need for Social Distancing, Government restrictions on the number of people allowed to meet up and ever conscious of the safety of attendees the decision has been taken to cancel this September’s event,” read a statement from the group.
Going forward the Show is booked for 18th to 20th May 2021 at the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate. Full details for the Show in 2021 will follow in the New Year.
The Toymaster Show which was rearranged to take place in September this year, from its usual May slot, has been cancelled.
The Toymaster group has made the announcement in the last hour, that, owing to the continued need for social distancing, and the Government restrictions on the number of people allowed to gather in one place, the 2020 Toymaster show will no longer take place this year.
“Due to the continuing need for Social Distancing, Government restrictions on the number of people allowed to meet up and ever conscious of the safety of attendees the decision has been taken to cancel this September’s event,” read a statement from the group.
Going forward the Show is booked for 18th to 20th May 2021 at the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate. Full details for the Show in 2021 will follow in the New Year.
Toy Aid, the charitable initiative set up by KidsKnowBest’s Joel Silverman and Wow! Stuff’s Richard North, has revealed the total money raised as part of Global’s Make Some Noise charity campaign to be an impressive £143,075.
The Toy Aid movement’s aim was to raise money for charities that support disadvantaged children, young people and their families – those most vulnerable during the recent pandemic.
Founders Silverman and North have seen ‘massive support from allies all over the toy and licensing industry’, with companies pledging support via monies from the sale of ‘Toy Aid-able’ toys, video games and entertainment products as well as licensing fees and business services.
“There are so many individual thank yous that myself and Richard wish to make (hopefully in person in the not too distant future), commented Silverman. “And special thanks must also go to Ian Downes, Tracey Richardson and Norton PR who all stepped up to show their support from the outset.
“Of course the biggest thank you goes to every single company that has donated money and products to this amazing cause, in no particular order: Smyths Toys Superstore, SEGA, Playmobil, TOMY, Spin Master, ViacomCBS, Ravensburger, Golden Bear, EPOCH, Rubies, Plum Products, Rubik’s, Interplay, KidKreations, Canal Toys, WickedVision, Topps, Winning Moves, Big Potato Games, Retail Monster, Dr Zigs and Products of Change.
“Now Toy Aid is complete, I really hope everyone has positive times ahead and the toy industry as a whole is remembered for the support they gave in a time of need for many families. I never in my wildest dreams thought this would reach £10,000 so to raise over £140,000 is just fantastic.”
Hyve, the organising team behind Autumn Fair, has confirmed the cancellation of this year’s home and gift retail industry show.
The announcement arrives following speculation that the show was to be called off owing to the ongoing situation surrounding the coronavirus pandemic and the social distancing measures and laws around gatherings still in place. This year’s Autumn Fair will now be replaced with a virtual event this September.
Hyve has also confirmed that Spring Fair will continue to take place on the 7th-11th February 2021 and Autumn Fair will return to the NEC on the 5th-8th September 2021.
Hyve and the team behind Autumn Fair are now working closely with partners and clients to deliver a virtual forum this September with exclusive seminar content and practical advice designed to educate and inform participants. More information on the virtual forum will be available on the website in due course.
“We have been listening to both our exhibitors and visitors, and the feedback from the market has been incredibly supportive of Autumn Fair. We’re excited to have the opportunity to take a fresh approach and launch a virtual forum this September,” said Jessica Dawnay, event director, Spring & Autumn Fair.
“We are also looking forward to when the industry can meet again in person and will focus all efforts and resources on helping the industry bounce back in 2021, both at Spring Fair in February 2021, and Autumn Fair taking place 5th-8th September 2021.”
“Autumn Fair is consistently one of our favourite and important exhibitions of the year. That said, the idea of a virtual show is inspired, and I look forward to getting fully involved in showcasing our latest puppet and soft toy collections online,” said Peter Lockey, The Puppet Company Ltd
Autumn Fair and JWF continue to provide exclusive webinars, industry news and product updates that keeps the home and gift retail community informed, connected and inspired on The Community hub.
What have Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles, the Marvel Universe, and the cast of iconic characters from Star Wars all got in common? Answer, they’re all the subject of a new pop-culture focused LEGO Art launch aimed directly at the adult fans.
The LEGO Group has launches a new canvas for creative expression, aimed at adult fans of LEGO and offering them ‘a different way to transform their passion into art,’ in the form of a series of new building sets that once complete become their own LEGO artwork portrait to display.
The LEGO Art sets offer adults a new creative experience to help them relax and recharge as they transform a blank canvas (or in this case, small interlinking base plates) using LEGO tiles. Each set can be reimagined in a number of different ways to express the personality of each different builder, and to make it easy and simple for pop culture lovers to refresh the LEGO Art piece on display in their house.
All four new sets come with a signature tile unique to the set that is worthy of any true work of art, and a new hanging element to make them easy to hang up and switch around.
The launch comes following research from The LEGO Group that found that 73 per cent of adults often research new ways to help them relax. Each LEGO Art set comes with a bespoke soundtrack to aid the construction, each featuring anecdotes from the creators of Iron Man and Star Wars, or those closest to the stories of Andy Warhol and the Beatles; the soundtracks dive into the inspiration behind each design.
The LEGO Marvel Studios Iron Man set will be available exclusively from LEGO Retail Stores and LEGO.com while the other three sets will be available from retailers from 1st August 2020, or from 1st September in the US.
LEGO Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe set will allow pop art admirers to recreate Andy Warhol’s famous bright pink screenprint of Marilyn Monroe from 1967, or reimagine it in three different colours using LEGO tiles.
With LEGO The Beatles, music lovers can bring Beatle-fandom into the home with a LEGO portrait of their favorite band member, whether it’s John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, George Harrison or Sir Ringo Starr. Each set can be used to create four unique portraits or collect four and display the full band side-by-side. Fans can get by with a little help from friends of the Beatles as they switch their headphones over to accompanying soundtrack to listen to music and stories about the band as they build.
LEGO Marvel Studios Iron Man challenges super hero fans to decide between powering their hero up with the Mark III, the Hulkbuster Mark I or the Mark LXXXV with this three-in-one set. After the tough decision is made, builders can recharge by listening to cool details about the set and stories from Marvel Experts as part of the accompanying soundtrack.
Fans who want to channel Tony Stark and ‘run before you walk’ can combine three of the same sets into one to create the ultimate Iron Man artwork.
Finally, LEGO Star Wars The Sith celebrates iconic villains from a galaxy far, far away with this three-in-one portrait set. Choose between portraits that pay tribute to the Sith, with Darth Vader, Darth Maul or Kylo Ren, or take the artwork to the next level by combining three sets into an ultimate Darth Vader wall piece.
The soundtrack means the Force will be with fans as they create their very own piece of wall art while listing to music from the films and fun stories from Star Wars creators.
Louise Elizabeth Bontoft, senior design director at the LEGO Group, commented: “We know adults are always trying to destress after a day at work, and we thought, what better way to help them switch off than by encouraging them to explore their favourite passion in a new creative way?
“With these wider ranging designs, we believe that we can inspire film fans, music lovers and art and design aficionados to immerse themselves in a world of art and creativity linked to their idols. Through this new experience, we believe adults can unwind, engage in a mindful building activity and ultimately create a beautiful piece of wall art that perfectly reflects their personality.”
These new wall art sets are the second 2D tile creative concept to be announced by the LEGO Group this year, following the launch of LEGO DOTS, a new theme that offers children a new way to express themselves inspired by arts and crafts.
The LEGO Art range will be available to pre-order from Zavvi.com and lego.com from 2nd July.
Little Lion Entertainment, the team that set a new tone for the immersive experiential concept when it launched the Crystal Maze Live Experiences is back with a sci-fi adventure based on the iconic Judge Dredd IP.
Four years on from the debut of the Crystal Maze project, Little Lion is teleporting urban adventurers into the surreal, high-action future with Judge Dredd Uprising: The Live Experience, a new multi-level team attraction based on the satirical world of the British comic book character, Judge Dredd himself.
The new experience takes Little Lion’s mix of immersive live theatre, mental and physical challenges, multi-level problem-solving, and world building to the next level, boasting ground breaking interactive technology and a real life cast of crooks, robots, and convicts set to a backdrop of immersive set design.
‘In the sprawling megalopolis Brit-Cit, the post-nuclear London of the future, all manner of characters roam the streets. But Judge Dredd, has discovered a terrible plot and you and your merry gang of chancers are the city’s only hope,’ reads a description of the upcoming immersive experience.
“This new show is insanely exciting,” said Tom Lionetti-Maguire, founder and CEO of Little Lion. “The experience is part comic book, part sci-fi film, part immersive theatre, part escape room, part action adventure and part indoor theme park… all wrapped into one.
“This is our second show and I really wanted us to push the boundaries of what audiences can expect, to explore the space between theatre, film and reality. With Uprising we have really achieved that. Judge Dredd’s mega-cities are a wild, prophetic and very funny world of future crime, surreal action and crazed citizens… and now you can experience that world for yourself. It’s time to choose your side.”
CEO of Rebellion Entertainment, Jason Kingsley OBE, owners of Judge Dredd intellectual property, added: “The world of Judge Dredd is the greatest imaginative universe to come out of British comics and we’re proud to bring it to ever wider audiences. Every reader has dreamed of setting foot in a Mega-City, and with Judge Dredd Uprising: The Live Experience, they can do just that…”
Of the first 50,000 fans who register an email address for updates at www.judgedredduprising.com, 100 will be selected at random to have their name inscribed into the attraction and be immortalized in Judge Dredd forever.
Everyone who’s subscribed will then also be the first to hear when tickets go on sale later this year.
Kelvyn Gardner is an individual who really does know licensing. It’s by no accident of course, and only to be expected of a man who has spent over 40 years working in or around the industry, and certainly the trait of a one who has spent the last 13 as the managing director of Licensing International UK – both in its incarnation as LIMA UK and its rebranded moniker.
But if the global response to COVID-19 or the uprising of the Black Lives Matter campaign has taught us anything, it’s that 2020 is the year for change. And with it, Gardner too has found opportunities presented as the result of evolution and coming out of the other side of his role with the industry body.
Some 22 years on from the establishment of his own company, Asgard Media – a licensing agency-meets-consultancy business operating predominantly in the collectables, food, and beverage spaces – Gardner is preparing for a relaunch. Or perhaps more accurate, a reacquaintance, with the business that he had always had ticking over in the background, even throughout his LIMA UK/Licensing International years.
Whatever you want to call it, it is Gardner’s moment to put Asgard Media back on the radar for this multi-billion dollar industry, with one very clear message. And it’s one that he suggests works for the licensing industry in its entirety.
“It’s an appeal to the thousands of manufacturers out there who do not use brand licensing as part of their marketing mix,” Gardner tells Licensing.biz.
“Our message is ‘Connect with the world’s biggest brands’, because that is what all of us are about, surely?”
It’s become an industry-wide headline, that the opportunity now for the licensing industry, is that retailers and consumers will retreat to the brand names while it negotiates the ongoing pandemic situation within an uncertain retail environment. It’s a school of thought that Gardner subscribes to, and one that he is ready to take to the next level, all, he says, to the benefit of the industry he loves.
“I am a lifelong believer in the power of brand licensing, and although we are a private company and not a trade body, to a certain extent, what Asgard Media is trying to do is bring new companies into the licensing world, by focussing on the companies or the manufacturers with great product, but for whatever reason, not already in the licensing space, and that should be for the benefit of everybody in licensing,” Gardner continues.
“It’s clear from discussions in the licensing press, and some of the sessions from Virtual Licensing Week, that right now, co-operation and flexibility are required more than ever if we are to make licensing work for existing players.
“This is even more important if we are to attract new licensees, and to persuade reluctant brand owners to open up their IP to the many excellent licensees that we already have.”
The advantage from which Gardner implements his mission plan is that he comes back to the scene without affiliations. He is now what he calls, an honest broker.
“If I find somebody in a category, I am able to approach any brand or any licensor as an agent, rather than someone who has a portfolio to promote,” he explains. “To some degree, I hope not to be bringing in licensees just for me, but licensees and businesses for the wider licensing community.”
It’s the role of guide, then that Kelvyn is looking to adopt through his Asgard Media outfit, braced with the knowledge accumulated over a 40 year career (to date) in the licensing business and the laser-like knowledge of its intricacies (Gardner asked me if I’d spent much time reading licensing contracts – it turns out he has read through a few). In his former role with Licensing International, Gardner was a man passionate about educating the next generation of licensing executives, and opening up the boundaries for new product sectors. It’s a mission statement he has carried on with him.
“I have come across it so many times over the years,” he says. “It’s easy for those inside of licensing to know how it works, but I think it is so misunderstood, or not understood at all, outside of the industry; and we don’t go out of our way to make it easier. But there are ways to explain it to people in simple terms if we take the time to do it, and if, as as part of my world, that brings in business for the whole of the licensing industry, that has got to be a positive thing.”
To that end, he suggests, simplicity is key. Look at the work he has done for the Asgard Media client Harrogate Tipple, helping to broker Universal Studios’ first licensing partnership down the spirits aisle, or the longstanding relationship he has with Topps, the ever-expanding Finsbury Foods licensing roster, or Yoplait – the company who famously stood vehemently against licensing until it recognised the perks it was offering its competitors in the food sector.
“The other strand to it all is that – having been a licensee for ten to 15 years myself – there is a tendency to think ‘we don’t need anymore licensees.’,” Gardner says. “Now, I’ve never believed in the Barbie dollar – the idea that there is a dollar to be spent on Barbie merchandise, which subsequently has to be split between all of its licensees. I still think the market can expand, providing that everybody is sensible, withou having to go down the route of ‘splicensing’ as it is known.
“It is also true to say that there not that many manufacturers and marketing companies who regularly buy licenses. The last time I did an analysis of this, there were only about 700 UK companies listed as working with a license. How many manufacturers are there in the UK? There’s got to be tens of thousands. Licensing is a big business, but most companies aren’t in it. The holy grail for us all in licensing is to find somebody in sectors that aren’t currently doing licensing; and by all accounts there are those people out there.”
Gardner’s approach from here on can be likened to the old ‘the man who built it’ brainteaser. The clients he is looking for don’t know they want Asgard Media as a service provider; in fact, they probably don’t even know they want to be in licensing. Asgard Media has to fill in all of the gaps for them.
It’s a point Agard Media certainly looks to address in its new marketing material, kicking off with the newly launched company video that highlights the message ‘Licensing is our world, let us bring you into it.’ It’s the metaphorical hand that Gardner is extending to all of those businesses currently not in licensing, to help them along the way.
How does marketing today compare to that of 1998, the last time Gardner actively promoted the Asgard Media name? It’s fewer marketing mailshots, and more video content for a start, suggests Gardner. So we can expect a lot more of that in the coming months.
MixMups, the new stop-motion animated pre-school series created by #ToyLikeMe’s own Rebecca Atkinson comes with one mantra: There is always another way.
Currently in production under the expertise at Raydar Media and an extended ‘dream team’ comprising some of the kids’ entertainment space’s most influential names, MixMups is the animated embodiment of actual change.
Put into development in the midst of strict lockdown measures across the UK, Atkinson’s project is one that has taken to life amid a challenge to the status quo. Meetings are held remotely, schooling is being conducted in the home, and the talent behind the production of the series has found a way to make the concept animatic, all while practising social distancing.
On top of this, MixMups is on the precipice of a moment of great change. By placing disability at the very centre of its narrative, and visible within a mainstream pre-school TV show, it’s in Atkinson’s own words that “changing the children’s industries to make them more inclusive is possible.”
Aimed at three to five year olds, MixMups follows three friends, Pockets, Giggle, and Spin and their magic mixable dress-up box. With a wooden spoon they mix up the magic inside the box, and are transported on dress-up adventures. During these adventures they meet the Lucky Loover Bird, their guide and philosophiser of the message that ‘There is always another way.’
“There is always another way is something of a metaphor for disabled living,” Atkinson, the show’s creator and founder of the #ToyLikeMe movement, tells Licensing.biz. “Disabled people, and I include myself here, are expert problem solvers. Much of the time, having a disability is about working out other ways to do things. But the show’s mantra is also a universal message for all children about resilience and problem solving.”
Key to the show is that two of its characters have physical disabilities. Pockets is partially sighted and has a lazy, but dutiful, guide dog called Yappette, and Giggle is a wheelchair user who has an assistance guinea pig on tiny roller skates. Together, the MixMups live in a Helter Skelter home constructed with integrated wheelchair access with a lift, walkways, and automatic doors.
In MixMups, Atkinson has created a world accessible to children living with disabilities; one starkly different to that she – being partially sighted and partially deaf herself – grew up in.
“I am very inspired by the British seaside, but most rides are off limits to children with wheelchairs because design has excluded them,” she says. “I wanted to create a world for the MixMups that was designed to include everyone.”
Another major inspiration for MixMups is the phenomena of wheelchair fancy dress, which sees children with wheelchairs and their parents create large cardboard structures to transform their chairs into whatever their imagination can create, be it an ice cream van, a digger, a rocket, the potential is boundless.
“Fancy dress allows children to be anything they dream of, while the concept of MixMups allows these disabled characters to break out of any stereotypes,” Atkinson says. “They can be literally anything they choose. It’s all about play, fun, and possibility.”
MixMups is the culmination of five years of hard graft. In 2015, Atkinson established the #ToyLikeMe movement, a campaign to bring about better representation and inclusivity of disability within the children’s industry. Over the years, Atkinson has been instrumental in much of the change the toy and entertainment space has seen to date. Today we are beginning to see Barbie dolls with wheelchairs, others with cochlear implants, and play-sets embracing accessibility. MixMups is now Atkinsons chance to truly bring the message to the mainstream.
“I wanted to create a comical mainstream brand, bursting with fun and colour, which would be compelling to all children and which would translate with ease into consumer products,” she says.
“I wanted to move the aesthetics of disability on from tired stereotypes and create a playful brand which was unapologetic, and really welcomed and celebrated disabled children, while maintaining really strong mainstream commercial appeal.”
Atkinson makes no secret of the matter that MixMups was developed with toys, publishing, and consumer products in mind from the get-go. In fact, it’s something she wears with pride: the chance to bring a ground-breaking new brand that talks openly about disability – with it embedded in its DNA – to the mainstream, is exactly what her #ToyLikeMe campaign is all about.
“I wanted to truly fulfil the remit of the #ToyLikeMe campaign and see real consumer choice when it comes to disability representations,” she says. “The brand has play schemas embedded in the format and design. MixMups consumer products will be as innovative and creative as the show itself, so expect something quite extraordinary here too.”
Under the guidance of Valerie Fry, an expert in the field of licensing consumer products and the founder of FryDay Brands, MixMups is on a mission to find the kind of partners who understand and resonate the passion of MixMups and its goal of bringing change to the industry. Alongside this, Atkinson is looking to license the Loved By ToyLikeMe endorsement on all products, to help support awareness raising work of the campaign in schools.
Valerie Fry is one part of the ‘dream team’ that Atkinson has assembled around the MixMups brand and its mission statement. A cast of talented and experienced individuals, including Debbie MacDonald (former VP at Nickelodeon) as script editor, Alison Rayson (Raydar Media) as executive producer, Chris Bowden and Andy Burns at McKinnon and Saunder (who have worked on Postman Pat, Raa Raa, and Moon and Me) producing and directing, and with Karen Newell (formerly of Ragdoll) across children’s response testing, each have a first hand experience of living with disability. It’s given the team the ability to make that experience a central part of the series.
At the heart of it, MixMups comes with a real potential to not only change the lives of the some 150 million disabled children worldwide through better representation in the mainstream, but changing the face of the mainstream altogether.
“The little kid in me is hopping around on the ceiling to have reached this point,” says Atkinson. “I just love what I do. I’m very lucky to have the most incredible, creative problem-solving job I could wish for. I love the way that because disability is such uncharted waters in children’s industries, there is just so much creative potential to explore.”
The global video gaming franchise Fortnite has found yet another means to captivate its audiences and pull in all of the headlines at the same time, thanks to a newly forged deal with leading content owners that will allow it to screen films to players through an in-world cinema feature.
Yes, it’s an entertainment system within an entertainment system, making it wonderfully poetic that among the first films to be screened when the Epic-published games begins testing its ‘Movie Nite’ feature this Friday, will be Christopher Nolan’s Inception. It will be joined by Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Prestige.
Players will be able to watch one of the three Nolan films – all owned by WarnerMedia’s Warner Bros. Pictures – all while inside the Fortnite world.
What players will be able to watch will depend on the territory they are in. Players in Germany will be shown The Prestige, while those in France can sit back and enjoy a screening of Batman Begins.
The limitations to the test roll-out of the feature have been addressed by Epic who said that “navigating distribution rights for different countries and languages for full movies is challenging.”
“As part of this first test, we wanted as many people to experience Movie Nite as possible. The film you’ll be able to watch will depend on your country, and unfortunately we couldn’t reach everyone with these screenings,” the company stated.
“We believe the idea of getting together with your friends and family at Party Royale to watch a movie is powerful and exciting, and we’re looking at ways to increase global participation in the future.”
Like cinema screenings in the real life, the Movie Nite screenings will not be able to be broadcast – or live streamed – on platforms like Twitch.
Brand development agency, The Copyrights Group has appointed License Connection as its Benelux licensing agent for Paddington Bear. The outfit will represent the popular IP across classic, baby, movie, and TV for a broad range of products in the region.
Written by Michael Bond and first in print in 1958 in the volume titled A Bear Called Paddington, Paddington has become a literary icon that has gone on to sell 35 million copies worldwide. The series has since been translated in to over 40 different languages.
The Paddington movies produced by Studiocanal, with Harry Potter’s David Heyman have become the most successful independent family movie franchise ever, with more than $500m at the box-office.
This year will see a brand-new Paddington TV series designed for a pre-school audience launch worldwide on Nickelodeon. The Adventures of Paddington features a young Paddington and reaches out to a whole new generation of fans.
Franca Bernatavicius, senior international licensing manager, The Copyrights Group, said: “We are very pleased to be working with License Connection on Paddington Bear in the Benelux. This is a very exciting time for Paddington, with the rich publishing heritage and the success of the films now paving the way for the upcoming TV series and a new generation of fans across the Benelux.”
Daphne Kellerman of License Connection, added: “We are delighted that The Copyrights Group has appointed License Connection as the Benelux Licensing Agent for Paddington. We see great potential for the brand in the territory because of its heritage and the new adventures that are about to come.
“It is a well-known brand already globally and we look forward to add partners to create new products, so kids and parents can go on their own journey with Paddington.”
