[Man using light gun to play on Time Crisis home arcade cabinet]
[LEGO Tulip bouquet]
[Kerri Atherton]
Kerri Atherton (interview): “But what I think we’ve seen shifted a little bit is sort of how wide the audience really is now for toys. So obviously, for a few years now, we’ve been talking about the rise of kidults, which is toys for 12 plus. But adults are a big chunk of that category as well.”
[Melissa Symonds looking at a Demon Slayer figure]
[Demon Slayer figure]
Melissa Symonds (interview): “So three quarters of 18 to 34 year olds say that they’ve purchased a toy either for themselves or another adult in the last year.”
[Man building Cobi model helicopter]
[Cobi Tiger Tank model]
[Cobi model of HMS Hood battleship]
[Cobi model of Bf109 plane]
[Lee Crocker playing with a tank model]
Lee Crocker (interview): “So the kidult market is very, very important. About 70% of our turnover is to stores that are specifically selling to that audience.”
[Self-propelled gun model]
Lee Crocker (interview): “Okay our models effectively are perfect for kidult because we’re more about authenticity and being exact in the scale that we’re doing.”
[Iain Morgan playing with Bladez RPM drift car]
[Hand controlling car]
[Car drifting]
[Car’s wheels moving]
[Details of RPM Drift car]
Iain Morgan (interview): “So the kidult market is very important for Bladez. And because, 1 in 3 pounds (GBP) now is actually spent in the kidult market. And our brand RPM, which actually stands for Real Performance Machines, taps right into that kidult. Where we didn’t have the technology as kids but now we can do and we’ve got a bit more money to spend.”
[Giant robot at Bandai stand]
[Sign showing KPOP Demon Hunters]
[Demon Slayer figurine]
[Demon Slayer collectibles]
[Jujutsu Kaisen and Naruto Shippuden figures]
[Dragon Ball Z figurine on hover bike]
[Dragon Ball Z figurines]
[Karakoro collectible figurines]
Melissa Symonds (interview): “Well we’ve seen a big influence of Asian toys coming into the UK toy market. A part of this is driven by awareness. So social media helping people be more aware of the particular pop culture over in China and Japan. We see streaming driving it quite strongly for places like Netflix doing a live action ‘One Piece’ show. We’ve had a movie release with Demon Slayer in the last year. So we actually see that manga anime element from Asia growing by 56% in 2025, which is huge growth.”
[Pup-pee Showdown game]
Melissa Symonds (interview): “So that gross humour is a key thing that comes back every few years within toys. Kids love it. It’s giving them permission to be a little gross, to hear fart jokes, noises. So that always does well within the market.”
[Under the Sea Fart Book]
[Jeremy Boreham reading book]
[Boreham scratching a page from the book and sniffing]
[Scratch and Sniff: Under the Sea Fart Book]
Jeremy Boreham (interview): “It’s something that’s fun. A lot of times it used to be a little bit taboo and some countries we still find that way. But I think people by making it fun, they make it more acceptable. It’s a bodily function. It’s what we do.”
[Scratch and Sniff Fart books]
Kerri Atherton (interview): “It doesn’t matter whether you’re an adult or a child, you kind of buy into this silliness and a bit of joy that just makes everybody laugh. And it doesn’t matter how old you are.”
[Keel toys botanical cuddly plants]
[Toy Fair show floor]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.