Last week I had the honor of attending Toy Insider’s Holiday of Play virtual trade show event to check out the newest toys, games and crafts! While I’ve personally had plenty of experience attending trade and consumer shows as a brand representative through the years, this was one of my first times being in the influencer chair.
Enjoy a little look at what I learned while at the Toy Insider’s 2020 Holiday of Play!
DISCLOSURE: I received a free ticket to attend this invite only event to discover the latest toys to market. I am sharing these details on my own accord but was gifted some of the items mentioned in a swag bag post event. I’ve listed any such occasion. In addition, some of the links in this post contain affiliate links, which come at no cost to you. Know that I only promote products I personally use and stand behind. To learn more about my affiliates, please review my disclosure policy.
Event setup
The event itself was done through an online platform where you could navigate a virtual tradeshow floor “walking” into different booths. There are were plenty of videos to watch, which served as mini commercials, live zoom toy demonstrations to attend and opportunities for one on one interaction with brand reps. I even played a few games and won a round of Pictionary, winning an Amazon gift card!
The event itself was 6 hours of coverage, but you were able to interact with different booths on your own time frame. The girls were able to sit side by side with me through several product demos and oowed and ahhed over some new things they’ve never seen before. They actually don’t watch any live TV so they are not even used to seeing toy commercials so everything seemed so exciting!
Full transparency: I typically only share items on my blog and instagram which I or my children have been able to use and I recommend. This is a different type of post that showcases items we saw demoed or received in an after event swag bag that I thought were of interest. Consider this a preview of future potential product features and I’ll share our favorites on a future post or in instagram stories!
Product Highlights
- Crayola STEAM Paper Flowers Science Kit – I didn’t even know Crayola made kits like this, but was excited to see someone that mixes art concepts with science! They can create their own color combos, build a flower base and watch science do it’s thing as the flower becomes different colors!
- Disney Doorables – If your kid loves Disney and surprise toys, this one will be a big hit! The box hints that there are different amounts of Disney Doorables characters with sparkly glitter eyes in the box (“5?6?7?”) but there are 62 total to collect! We received a box in our swag bag and I know my girls are going to be excited to open it up and match up which character they got with the full collection shown on the back of the box. I shared all the details on what was included and a closer look in my instagram stories! It’s all shared in my #HolidayofPlay highlight reel linked here.
- National Geographic Science Kits – We are already familiar with this brand of science kits from Blue Marble as Brielle got a similar kit for her birthday last year. (It made it to our Favorite Products for 6 year old’s list). I’m excited to see they expanded this line for more STEM action.
- Exploding Kittens – We are BIG card game fans in our house and I’ve heard fun things about this one. The box shares that it’s for ages 7+, takes 2 minutes to learn and 15 minutes to play which is a perfect time frame to play before bed. I will follow up in the future if it truly is a hit with our 5 and 7 year old but I have no doubts we’ll enjoy playing it!
- Mixy Squish – My girls have never worked with air dry clay yet so when we sat in the Horizon Group booth and watched a Mixy Squish ornament making demonstration, they were so intrigued. We are planning to work with them to try out one of these kits so I’ll give you a full review on instagram once we get to play! (Other kits we recently enjoyed from this company Made by Me Bead Pets and Made by Me Window Art)
Thank You
Thank you to the Toy Insider for allowed me to attend this event and get my feet wet on the toy influencer side of me! I look forward to following and learning more from the toy, craft and gaming brands I now follow since attending!
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