With many events cancelled this year, the trend is set to continue into 2021 with all three major Toy Fair events either postponed or cancelled completely. Although the three major Toy Fair events are trade events, they also offer the average LEGO® fan the first opportunity to learn about new LEGO products and themes. The London Toy Fair normally takes place first, but not much information is allowed to be reported. Germany’s Nuremberg Toy Fair offers the first real news, with images often allowed. Same goes for New York, with additional reveals slipped in for good measure. In terms of purely public product reveals, these are often left to recognise fan media sites and other media partners. However, these are mainly focused on high profile releases. So where does that leave general new products? Well, could it be time LEGO stepped into the fan convention arena, with a virtual event to showcase new products?
It would be similar to Hasbro’s recent PulseCon or what DC did with FanDome. So a digital event, which could be used to showcase upcoming sets from popular themes including NINJAGO, City, Friends and Creator 3-in-1. LEGO Design Team members are already well known across the fan community, thanks to fronting the various Designer Videos. This event could expand upon those. An even easier option could be what Sony does with their PlayStation State of Play events, with images of sets with a voice-over or simple text overlays giving basic details. A targeted showcase of products would be a great way to share upcoming releases with LEGO fans and wouldn’t affect normal large scale release reveals. Toy Fair season is an exciting time for LEGO fans, so a dedicated LEGO focused event would be well received.
With no Toy Fairs taking place at the start of next year, official details of new releases could be difficult to come by. So what do you think? Would you like a virtual product fan showcase event to take place online? Or is there another way LEGO could reveal general new sets?
