75th Spielwarenmesse 2026: I was there too!

Find out what motivates trade visitors from around the world to bring the "Spirit of Play" home with them. 

By Peter Budig
 

Cheshta and Prabal Sabharwal

Company founders of twomimi.com, Canada

Cheshta and Prabal Sabharwal are entrepreneurs. The couple lives in Toronto, Canada. "Our friends often complain that they can't find high-quality, fun, educational toys for their children," Cheshta explains. This inspired them to start their own business. At the Spielwarenmesse, they focus on quality wooden toys and beautiful board games. “Our target group is ages 5 to 99 — we want to bring families together.” Their online shop and website, twomimi.com, are still under construction, and they welcome partners. The entrepreneurial couple has allowed themselves five days to visit the fair.

Maria and Michaela Jahn

Owners of Porzellan Galerie, Germany

Maria and Michaela Jahn are typical examples of the traditional, owner-managed retail trade that has always been part of the Spielwarenmesse. And because their Porzelain Gallery is based in Amberg in the Upper Palatinate — 65 km east of Nuremberg — it’s easy to understand why they’ve been coming to the fair every year for the past ten years. Jewellery, gift items, gift inspiration and, above all, beautiful plush top the list of their favourites. “Of course we have appointments with established suppliers, but we’re also on the lookout for new potential contacts,” says company matriarch Michaela. Maria was already allowed to come to the fair at very young age, which strengthened her desire to continue the business.

Rubén Moreno und Mark Godrie

Chief Operation Officer at Friki Monkey, Spain

The smart business cards of Rubén Moreno and Mark Godrie always look brand-new. That’s because they keep them in transparent, sturdy protective sleeves — and that actually ties into their business: both Chief Operating Officers are focused on trading cards. “Card decks like Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh or Hello Kitty are no longer just for casual play. Among these beautifully designed cards there are valuable collectibles, and they should be well protected,” Mark explains. Sleeves, stands, albums and boxes are available from Friki Monkey, who also organise a Trading Card fair: 15–16 August 2026 in beautiful Alicante on Spain’s east coast.

Wanja und Monika Schniederjans 

Owners of Bunte Steinewelt, Germany

“It all started with Lego,” recalls Wanja Schniederjans, the owner of Bunte Steinewelt in Meppen. He collected Lego bricks since childhood and entered retail after completing his studies in 2020, first opening a small shop and then taking over a substantial 500-square-meter toy store. Today, his store offers all sorts of toys, board games, children’s books, Playmobil, and rare Lego sets. However, he says that selling large quantities of Lego bricks to collectors and model builders remains his main business, both in Meppen’s town center and online.

Sjaak Griffioen 
Owner of Griffioen Gameway, Netherlands

Sjaak (pronounced "Schaak") Griffioen is a regular at the Spielwarenmesse and has an author profile with the SAZ. He lives in Aerdenhout, a small coastal town between Haarlem and the beach resort Zandvoort. Considered one of the wealthiest towns in the Netherlands, Aerdenhout is situated in the dunes. His company is called Griffioen Gameway. As a game and toy designer, he attends the International Game Inventors’ Fair with a sample case full of prototypes. One of the computer scientist's specialties is gamification formats: These are games used for educational purposes in companies or for training. His three-dimensional puzzles are ingenious and always provide an "aha" moment. They are small sculptures, such as a circle of colorful pieces that fit together in one way only, or marbles that fit into a box. Regarded as a multitalent, Sjaak Griffioen has invented numerous board games for well-known publishers. He has also established himself as a corporate innovation consultant. On his website, he lists the following areas of work: consulting, development, design, processing, moderation, gamification, manufacturing, and research and testing. At Spielwarenmesse's Game Inventors' Day, he is well-known and is quickly surrounded by young inventors seeking advice or development help. "Being a mentor," he says, "is my favorite role."

Emily Rowbotham and Alvin Hussey

Consultants at SuperAwesome, United Kingdom

SuperAwesome provides digital solutions that protect children and young people in the online world. One thing that may be hard for a layperson to grasp is an attractive offering for many global companies. We meet Emily Rowbotham and Alvin Hussey by the entrance to Hasbro’s stand. Other brands among the consultancy’s clients include Mattel, Netflix, Nike, Nickelodeon, Kellogg’s, Unilever, and Warner Bros. “Our company insists on very strict values. It is built on the safety of children," Rowbotham explains. One hundred staff members work for the provider across multiple locations worldwide, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Singapore, and Sydney. The main objective is to create a digital infrastructure that enables brands to safely and compliantly interact with children and young people (under 16).

Julian Lindner, Stefan Schröder, Anna Lewen, Finja Otremba

Game inventors of Ghosttown, Germany

For the past three years, the International Game Inventors Convention has been held on every Spielwarenmesse Friday.  This is the place where small wishes can grow big, because scouts from the major game publishers mingle with inventors and their prototypes. Here we meet Julian Lindner, Stefan Schröder, Anna Lewen and Finja Otremba — all from the Bayreuth area. Their approach as game nerds is twofold: as members of the local club Brettspieltage Bindlach they advanced through several preliminary rounds to become European board game champions. As a group they have shown even greater perseverance: “It took ten years in total to develop Ghosttown, a board game with ghosts, a cemetery, an abandoned zoo and sinister ghost hunters. Now the upscale strategy game is finished,” beam the authors Stefan Schröder and Lindner. “The decisive momentum then came from the women who joined later, because they significantly advanced the game design and the illustration.” The team has now decided to take on production themselves. “We’re raising funds via Kickstarter and doing everything else ourselves,” Stefan explains.

The four’s favourite board games:
Anna Lewen: Munchkin
Finja Otremba: Memories of all kinds
Julian Lindner: Terraforming Mars
Stefan Schröder: On the Trail of Marco Polo

Tip: On 25 and 26 April 2026 the Brettspieltage Bindlach will take place again in the Bindlach Bärenhalle.
 

Giovanni Tubelli

Online shop and retail store for party supplies, Italy

As a child, Giovanni Tubelli, who was born and lives in Naples, was already passionate about juggling. Today, he is still fascinated by related disciplines such as magic and disguise. He is therefore a regular visitor to the Spielwarenmesse, where he can find new products. He runs his shop Festival Magia & Giocoleria with six employees, selling costumes, balloons, party supplies, juggling items, and magic goods. Italy’s largest magic show takes place in January in Naples at the Teatro Palapartenope.

Familie Müller mit Freunden

Spielwaren Schweiger, Deutschland

For 130 years, Spielwaren Schweiger has been the epitome of a toy store in Nuremberg. In 1896, brothers Hans and Georg Schweiger opened a store selling toys, model trains, steam engines, electronics, and bicycles. Senior partner Klaus Müller and his wife Marion have brought the fifth generation on board. Their son, Lars Müller, joined the business in 2025. The entire family represented the company at the Spielwarenmesse. Klaus Müller recounts, "Everyone used to say, 'Everyone meets in Nuremberg. In Nuremberg, you see everything.' That still holds true today." The Spielwarenmesse provides us retailers with valuable information about new products in the toy industry and related categories. With focal themes such as 'Kidults,' 'Sustainable Toys,' and 'AI Toys,' we learn about current and upcoming trends, including those from other markets."

For Klaus Müller, business is about more than just merchandise. "The supporting program is also becoming increasingly important to us. For example, there's the Toy Business Forum, which features interesting talks and discussions about retail trends and innovations that simplify our daily work. The get-togethers and exchanges with colleagues from retail are valuable, too. You meet up for lunch or at evening events like the Toy Night or the Red Night, where you have the chance to chat in depth away from the daily routine.”

The following anecdote from family history illustrates the changes in times and industry: "Back in the day, my father built a huge, successful model railway department in our toy shop. When I was young, I had to take the tram several times a day from the main station to the Spielwarenmesse exhibition center — which was still by the Stadtpark back then — to pick up boxes of the new model railway catalogs. Our regular customers were waiting in the shop for this 'hot stock' because they didn't have access to the fair. The new products were then hotly discussed and evaluated."

Up to the present, the Spielwarenmesse has remained the same as an information exchange. "Today, our regular customers often ask us what new products we saw at the Spielwarenmesse. Even in the digital age, the Spielwarenmesse has not lost its special fascination for people here."

About the author

Peter Budig studied Protestant theology, history and political science. He worked as a freelance journalist, headed up the editorial department of a large advertising paper in Nuremberg for ten years and was the editor of Nuremberg’s Abendzeitung newspaper. He has been freelancing again since 2014 as a journalist, book author and copywriter. Storytelling is absolutely his favourite form.