Last year I took my son to Toys R Us Canada’s first minifigure swap meet and he really enjoyed himself. This year the event will have a Star Wars theme and while I have no idea what figures they will have to trade, I can at least give my account from the previous year. Each staff member is given a special name tag that can hold up to three minifigures and the mostly go about their business once the event starts. The figures last year were mostly random as well. I arrived about 10 minutes into the event last year and was able to find a staff member (near the back of the store) that had one of the original three they were given and my son was pleased to get the green ninja. After we were finished trading around the store and my son had three figures he really wanted, we went to talk to someone I know in the electronics department and his supervisor about the set up. They said the baggie they got seemed to have mostly basic figures like the CMF’s and a couple from various themes, but no licensed figs. However, this isn’t made to be an event for collectors and the kids all seemed to love it and the trading was fast and furious the entire time we were there. Also, the trading wasn’t limited to store staff and the kids began trading amongst themselves quickly. I really enjoyed watching these barters as negotiations between half pint traders with their fig filled sandwich baggies seemed to quickly go from very intense to giddy in a heartbeat and ended in happy dances more than once. The poker faces melt off quickly at that age. To my son’s delight he managed a trade for an Indiana Jones minifigure and he even hardballed the older kid because “it isn’t Indiana Jones if he doesn’t have the whip”. /pride
The event starts at 11am and ends at 1pm, by which point some kids will be happy and some store employees will be exhausted. They have a limit of one per customer this year and Express & Wonderlab locations are excluded. So grab that crappy old chrome C-3PO or your cloud city Boba Fett and see what you get!
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