Road Trip to Nürnberg

Good, long day yesterday.

Filip and I drove the approximately-four-hours (including stops to recharge his electric car) to Nürnberg to attend the 2025 Spielwarenmesse — the largest annual toy & game fair in the world.  We had been given guest passes by my friend Rob Feltes from Tucson, who was there to represent his Arizona-based toy-and-puzzle-making company, and, when he learned that Filip and I were exploring a card-game business opportunity, invited us to come and experience the Spielwarenmesse in all its glory.

So Filip picked me up outside my apartment at 7 am, and we got to Nürnberg without incident about 11. We changed from our road-trip clothes into something a little bit nicer, and walked the football-sized parking lot to the entrance.

Only another 200 meters and we're there!

Finally!

Craziness. According to its website, at least, the event — the largest event of its kind in the entire world — hosts 2354 exhibitors from 68 countries, in a 165,000-square-meter space, hosting some 57,000 visitors. It's a multi-day event, so it's possible not all 57,000 people were there yesterday, but you couldn't prove it by us. 

Not Filip

The space alone is enormous — larger than the largest airport terminal I've ever been in, with 12 separate (and each individually enormous) halls, divided into stands, spaces, and rooms, with more toys, dolls, games, and puzzles than you could possibly imagine — as well as some sort of only-tangentially-related things you might not expend to find, like some baby clothes, fireworks, body-paint, balloon-and-ribbon vendors, sporting goods, strollers, playground equipment, and just so ... much ... more. It was absolutely overwhelming.

Really difficult to capture the scope and energy of the place

Filip and I spent the next six hours or so walking around, shaking our heads, laughing, experimenting, testing, looking for (and at) potential competitors, and trying to learn about how the industry works. Also lunch in one of the ... I don't know ... 4 large restaurants, which do not include the 6/7 separate cafes and imbisses and additional ice cream stands and beer taps.

Ferrari-branded scooters, anyone?

It was a little surreal, honestly, to be in this one enormous convention center filled to the brim with multi-colored toys and games and whirlibobs and thingamajiggers, including a number of larger-than-life in-costume characters walking around for photo ops (like the Paw Patrol puppies) ... and no kids, who are absolutely not allowed at the event. 

No kids!

It was much busier than this, honestly.

Also surreal to walk past one stand or room or exhibitor-platform and see a full table of adults handling the products, seriously discussing how the games are played, how the toys worked, and so on, all with the eventual aim of making those lucrative deals. "So tell me more about this 'He-Man' I'm holding in my hand? What are his powers? Does his head come off?"

Much business is done in this festive atmosphere

Fairly exhausted, at about 5:30 Filip and I headed back to our car, then drove into the center of Nürnberg to meet Rob and his colleague Rachel for dinner at one of Trödelstuben, which first opened its doors in 1893 — one of their favorite local haunts, as they come to the event every year. 

A quote posted prominently on the restaurant's website reads, "He who has not
been inTrödelstuben,has not been in Nürnberg." Now I have been in both.

A delicious (and very German) dinner of spätzle, beer, and sausages followed. Then we took a photo to commemorate the unexpected meeting, and Filip and I headed back on the Autobahn towards Prague. I finally arrived home to a hungry cat around 12:30 am.

Thanks, Rob!

Today, back to ordinary life. But nice to sprinkle in some excitement once in a while.

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Oh, a little extra news! I received an email yesterday, while on the road, saying that all my things will be arriving from Tucson next Thursday! Needless to say, I'm tremendously excited. I keep thinking of new things I'll have access to. My cheese grater! My knives! Floor rugs! All my clothes! My bicycle! My second tennis racket! My books!

I can't wait. 

Here's a photo of me in my local coffee shop, Cafe Zive Kytky, from last week, but you can imagine it as me reading that email yesterday.