Did you know that 2019 is the Year of the Pig?
Chinese New Year officially starts is February 5th, so I’m a bit early. While most of my friends and family don’t realize that it is Chinese New Year, it is important to Gigglicious. When it’s Chinese New Year, that means New York Toy Fair is just around the corner. It’s the season when the toy industry whips into a frenzy toward the end of January, cramming to get everything done before China goes on vacation for two weeks.
Typically, the month leading to Toy Fair is the busiest time of year for Gigglicious. We keep a hectic pace and make a frantic push to get our best ideas ready to present. We draw, prototype and design presentations as quick as we can. It’s usual for Ryan to still be up working late into the night before we fly to New York. (Personally, I have my own agenda for NYTF planning which includes what shoes to wear that can endure endless hours of walking the infinite aisles at Javitz. Hello? Can’t walk another step!)
We dart from meeting to meeting, some on-site, many in other locations around New York, praying our taxi will get there on time. We sleep through the return flight home, exhausted. Once it’s all over and we take a moment to finally breathe, there is a nice momentum that continues after February. We have follow-up calls and emails from networking opportunities, that keeps us occupied at least through April. It’s a good flow.
However, we have foregone the craziness this year. We have a wedding to attend the same weekend as Toy Fair. Sorry, not sorry. We tossed an invisible coin and Ryan will be making a brief trip to NY. A trip to squeeze in face time with our closest clients for the last days of the show. He will shake hands, talk about ongoing projects, licenses, and discuss concepts we have already presented to them. That’s it. No presentations to build. No fingers super glued together. No Xacto injuries. No worries about getting our videos to embed properly. Easy-peasy.
Hm. That’s nice.
It’s a strange, but quite welcome relief not to feel jittery at Chinese New Year. This year we are making sure we have the right shoes for the wedding, not the showroom floor. We are enjoying the cold grey mornings by candlelight, rather than setting up a light booth in our living room for product shots. On our school snow day this week, we had a fire and curled up with an action flick and our kids, rather than editing shots for Oscar-worthy Gigglicious movies.
We are making sure to appreciate the oddly-timed break for us this year and are as optimistic as ever that 2019 will be a great one for Gigglicious!
GONG XI FA CHAI!