Just announced today, the Australian Toyfair (scheduled for March 27-30) has been cancelled for a second year, reverting to a digital format like last year (which Hasbro didn't participate in). .
Eh, "advance copy" reviewers are doing a fairly decent job of keeping people in the loop on new releases anyway. In person convention show case is an outdated and needlessly expensive format.
Man I miss convention reveals. So much more intrigue, from pouring through images of dioramas to trying to figure out the transformation from a random set of photos. So much more of a buildup to the final release that I don’t get from just having a video of the figure right away. I’m not surprised by this though, if US shows are being canceled, there’s no way a place as broken as Australia is gonna hold them.
As long as HasTak continue to see success from their fan streams they're not going to risk a live event in the current climate. They have the name value that they can issue pressers when they want to show off anything to wider audiences/press, so there's really no pressure on their end to rejoin the convention circuit.
I do not blame them for this course of action. Regardless of personal feelings on this situation, you have to agree it is more sensible for them to err on the side of caution than to have potential lawsuits and issues due to attending.
Honestly at this point I think we should just operate under an assumption of "cancelled unless stated otherwise". Glad to see the heads of the Australian Toy Fair erring on the side of public safety. Lord knows the people of Melbourne aren't gonna protect themselves. Melbourne and Sydney are the covid capitals of Australia, anything that tries to stop another outbreak can only be considered a good thing.
Am a bit worried, Hasbruh doesnt seem too hyped. Im still hoping they can collaborate with Bandai somehow and bring us G1 Gobots. Or atleast give us a Turbo. Also dreaming for a TF/MASK crossover, or TFs with alt modes that can do MASK stuff! Or bring back Armada. That line only suffered from poor articulation which can be fixed now.
Titans Return felt like the perfect opportunity for that. Triple changing voyagers with cockpits and those little $5 dudes that had the double changers with a pilot.
I feel for the smaller vendors. It's a few opportunities in a year to get in front of so many buyers under the one roof. ... but it's the right decision. Don't want more interstaters coming into town specifically for the toy fair to add to the already high Covid numbers. As they say... No use crying over spilled milk.
Damn this is not good, Australia doesn\'t seem to get a brake given that they also lossed like half the entire earthrise series from what I\'ve been told.
