Spielwarenmesse has been making history for three-quarters of a century – and doing so with huge success. While the company enjoys its 75th birthday in 2025, it will not be until 2026 that the Spielwarenmesse fair itself celebrates its platinum anniversary as the Nuremberg cooperative’s most important event.
In 1949, four visionary entrepreneurs embraced the risks and decided to launch the Spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg. After the successful premiere of the German Toy Fair in 1950, the deal to form the cooperative was sealed the same year.
Christian Ulrich, one of three Spielwarenmesse executive board members since 2021, said: “With this legal structure we remain something of an exotic species in the trade fair world, and one of the most successful cooperatives in Bavaria. This leadership trio is supported by some 60 colleagues at the company’s base in Nuremberg and by a network of representatives in over 100 countries.
For all its up-to-date structure, the team at Spielwarenmesse still looks back proudly to its roots: it honoured its 75th anniversary in traditional manner with an evening of celebrations for its members at the Imperial Castle of Nuremberg. The coronavirus pandemic made it impossible to hold the Spielwarenmesse as an in-person event in 2021 and 2022. For this reason, celebration of the 75th anniversary of the trade fair itself has been pushed back to next year: its big birthday party takes place during the fair, which runs from 27 to 31 January 2026.
Christian Ulrich concluded: “We’ll be celebrating this special occasion with all the participants – it’s a moment for appreciating what has been achieved and a prompt to carry our success story into the future, together with the entire sector”
