Boys and their toys

Maybe it's because they normally feel too shame-faced to play with a slot-car set or fly a remote-controlled toy helicopter. But when he looks at the faces of the adult men in his toy shop, owner Heinz Lehmann sees nothing but happiness.

Up to five evenings a week, after the child customers have left, Lehmann turns over his mid-city toyshop in Germany to adults.

The evening for up to 52 paying guests features a tournament with table football, a slot-car race, a child-sized billiard table, and a rally over the floor with remote-controlled cars.

None of the men seems the least fazed to be playing between walls stuffed with shelves of dolls, bubble-blowing kits, pink and purple stuffed animals and Playmobil-brand construction sets. They are back in boyhood heaven.

“A game, some suspense and a beer – we guys don’t need more,” is how the 63-year-old shop owner explains his recipe for success.

It was about four years ago that he held his first Guys’ Evening, an event to support a charity cause.

The enthusiastic reception he got gave him the encouragement he needed to make giving the big boys a night out at the Idee+Spiel toyshop in Hanover a regular thing.

About a dozen other toy stores in Germany have copied his idea, for which Lehmann received a business innovation award.

The idea offers toy retailers a great money-making opportunity, the businessman says. He himself is feeling enormous competition from the online toy vendors. He plans now to convert his shop into a venue for toy events.

Especially in big German cities, classic toy stores are having a rough time. The internet and chain megastores in the shopping malls are undercutting the small family-run toy shops.

Retailers everywhere are having to scramble to find new approaches, reports Willy Fischel, managing director of the German Toy Retailers Confederation. Ideas like evenings for guys are great for winning over customers.

“The toy scene is becoming trendy once again, thanks to such events,” Fischel says. “After all, adults are no more than grown-up kids.”

Adults – especially men – are a major target group for toy sales. Whether it’s a Lego Technic bulldozer or a Star-Wars space ship, 15 per cent of the customers are men - buying the items for themselves, not for children, according to toymaker Lego. Since 2010, Lego has had an internet site specifically targeting adults.

On a recent evening in Lehmann’s shop, part of the Idee+Spiel franchise and cooperative, the atmosphere was like a mixture of children’s birthday party, a football stadium, and a bachelor party.

Most of the men were between 30 and 50 years of age.

At many games they’re boisterous, yelling and back-slapping, while the mood is one of quiet concentration at a poker table. Shop owner Lehmann can be seen going around, handing out warm pretzels to go with the guys’ beers.

One of the guests is UrsNatzchka, who is here as a present for his 45th birthday from his wife.

“I’m positively surprised by the relaxed, pleasant atmosphere,” says the father of four. “This place wakes up the child inside you.”

Ralph Sander came along with 11 of his friends. “It’s better than any computer game,” the car salesman says during a brief break between games.

The entrance tickets - 40 euros (Bt1,700) for four hours on a Saturday night - pay for the men’s evenings at the toy shop. 

There is no pressure to buy the toys, as happens at a Tupperware party.

But the guy parties do generate sales. Happy guys with wallets can get quite gooey-eyed when they see remote-controlled helicopters.

It’s a nice side effect for business, notes Matthias Wiedmann at his family’s toy store in Backnang, a town near Stuttgart. 

For the past year, he has staged a guys’ night once or twice a month.

“The greatest thing for me is seeing how men rediscover the child inside them,” Wiedmann says