The PopCulteer
March 12, 2021

ToyLanta, the Great Toy Show of The South, will take place next weekend. You may remember that last year’s show was cancelled right at the beginning of the Coronavirus Outbreak, and that resulted in what was one of the most difficult PopCulteer columns that I’d ever written.

The folks at the Cody Lane Memorial Foundation and ToyLanta are going to try to mount a show at their new location this year. Some people think it’s a bit early to be doing this, but they intend to enforce mask and social distancing protocols, and there was a risk of losing the venue if they delayed the show again, so they are soldiering on. Every effort will be made to hold a safe and healthy event.

I won’t be able to attend. I’m still waiting for my vaccination. A lot of the regular guests and attendees are unable to be there this year, but the show will have a full vendor’s room and several guests, and if you’re within driving distance of Atlanta and vaccinated, it’ll be hard to pass up. This is still the best toy show in the country for a lot of action figure collectors.

There will be lots of live-streaming happening at the show, and we’ll have links and more details next week.

For more information on attending the show, visit the ToyLanta website and check out the images below.

It was fifty-two weeks ago that I had prepared a huge preview of last year’s show in advance. Two days before I was to publish that post the dominos started to fall and the country began to shut down. I found myself revising the post all day Thursday and Friday, and was in the odd position of knowing that some guests were going to cancel before they’d had a chance to tell the event organizers. That’s how sudden the shutdown hit us all.

I think everybody knew that the show was not going to happen by Thursday evening. Atlanta was an early hotspot, and at that point, nobody had any clue how long the shutdown was going to last and how high the death total from the pandemic was going to rise. It took the organizers the better part of Friday to make sure they could pull the plug without violating any contracts with vendors and the venue, so I had to keep updating the post while being careful not to report any cancellations before the organizers knew about them.

The cancellation of last year’s show was a huge downer and a pretty rough time, even though the organizers managed to present a Virtual ToyLanta event that took some of the sting out of missing the in-person festivities. This year we find the country in a much more optimistic and hopeful place, and I hope this show is a big success and a harbinger of good things to come.

Over the next few days I’ll be sharing some videos of ToyLanta memories, and I’ll have an index post to all of our PopCult coverage sometime next week.

It’s great that the ToyLanta crew is keeping the show alive, and all signs point to next year being a triumphant return for yours truly and Mrs. PopCulteer. Last year was the first year that I didn’t go since I was invited down by Buddy Finethy in 2013. We’re looking forward to 2022 and sending our best wishes that they have a great show next week.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for our regular features and special ToyLanta memories.