Buy your kids (and yourself) some cool collectibles at the Tucson Toy Show

“We held it the first weekend in March,” said Phoenix-based show promoter Neil Kotler, who, with his business partners, took over the toy show from the Tucson Miniature Auto Club in 2019. “A week later, things started to hit.”

Now, two years later, as COVID numbers drop across the country, the Tucson Toy Show is set to make its return to the Tucson Expo Center, Sunday, March 6.

Kotler, who runs several shows in Arizona, including Arizona Toy Con in Glendale, said organizing the event has been a rollercoaster.

“We usually start planning the show over the summer,” Kotler said. “But who the heck knew what would happen back then? Two months ago, people were wondering if omicron would be bad or not. Now, everybody and their sister has had it. We had many meetings where we would ask, ‘Should we commit?’ “

Kotler and his team are cautiously optimistic about the Tucson Toy Show as the omicron wave has subsided and numbers remain, for the time being, relatively low. He said plans for this show have been coming along better than expected. Around 430 tables have been reserved. In 2019, they had more than 500, but Kotler expects there to be a last minute surge in sign-ups.