All About the Yoto Card Swap I Hosted
Last year, I couldn’t stop thinking about hosting a Yoto card swap.
Finally, in the fall, I decided I was ready to make it happen.
A local toy store, Blickenstaffs, agreed to let us use their store to host the swap and we were off!
I set up tickets on Eventbrite and made them available to anyone in my audience who wanted to come (I set the price of tickets at $10 and then absorbed all the ticketing costs from Eventbrite – my goal wasn’t to make money on this event but I have seen over and over again that when tickets are free, people don’t value them that much and end up not showing up).
They sold out a week or so before the event.
I’ve been to a lot of influencer events and I wanted to make this feel as fun and special as many of those do, so I did swag bags – I bought these little gift bags on Amazon and then each bag included a set of 10 tabs and a ring for Yoto cards (my favorite way to store Yoto cards!), a gift certificate for a free audiobook of your choice from LibroFM (they emailed after I posted about this event and asked if they could provide an audiobook for each attendee which was super generous, plus their audiobooks can be made into Yoto cards so it was a perfect fit!), and a wallet from Thread.
I also have a lot of Yoto store credit, so I ordered enough Yoto cards that every person would get to pick one new card to take home (and I picked good cards – nothing super cheap or unappealing).
Basically, I wanted to ensure that – since I was charging for the tickets – every person would feel like they absolutely got their money’s worth even without the card swap part of the event!
My sister who lives nearby offered to help with the event (bless her!) and Jen on my team is local and she made all the treats and helped pull off this event!
Here’s the email I sent out to ticket holders:
“I’m so delighted you got a ticket for the Yoto Card Swap next week – it’s going to be a fun night and I can’t wait to see you!
A few things:
1) We’ll be holding this event at Blickenstaff’s at the Riverwoods – they’ve generously offered to host us and it’s such a fun toy shop!
2) We will start check-in, passing out swag bags (we have some FUN surprises for you!), and letting you choose your free card at 7 p.m. We’ll also be laying out all the cards to swap so you can browse before we actually start swapping!
3) You’re welcome to bring as many cards to swap as you’d like. (And it won’t hurt my feelings if you decide to swap your free card either!). We’ll also have space for you to buy or sell cards and Yoto accessories if you’d rather do that than swap!
4) This event is intended for adults. Please don’t bring children – it will be too chaotic to manage kids who are excited about the Yoto cards when we’ll have 85+ adults already trying to pick cards! If you bought a ticket for a child, please let me know.
5) There is a wait list for this event – if you can no longer come, please let me know so that I can pass that ticket along to someone else who would like to come.
If you have any questions about the event, please let me know – I’m happy to answer any questions and I’m excited for next week!
Here’s how the Yoto Card Swap worked!
Jen, Landen and I arrived early and cleared out a spot in the toy store and set up 3 folding tables for people to put their cards. We set out all the free Yoto cards on a display wall so people could choose their free card. Jen had made cookies and bought some chocolates and mini water bottles and napkins and we got that all set out too. We also printed out lists of everyone who had bought tickets so we could check people in.
When the event opened, we started working through the line checking people in and giving them raffle tickets for each Yoto card they’d brought.
Once you were checked in, you got your swag bag, put all your cards you wanted to trade on the tables, picked your free Yoto card from the display, and then you could visit and browse the cards for trading before the trading actually started.
After we’d checked everyone in and they’d had a couple of minutes to get everything taken care of, I welcomed everyone and explained how it would work.
Basically, you could take as many cards as you’d brought and we were all going to behave like kind adults who wouldn’t elbow everyone aside to get a card. Once you’d picked out your cards, you’d bring them back to Landen, Jen or me and we’d check you out by taking half of each raffle ticket for each card you were taking.
We put all those raffle tickets into a box to draw from because I had some prizes to give away at the end.
The actual swapping and checking out took maybe 20 minutes.
(I’d said in the email we’d have space to sell cards if you wanted and I pointed that out in the welcome, but I never saw anyone actually use it).
Once all the cards were gone (except for a few Crackling Fire and other cards no one seemed to want), I called everyone back to attention and drew tickets for the raffles.
I had some packs of cards (Harry Potter cards, Boxcar Children, Narwhal and Jelly, and other favorite sets), some items like my favorite book light, and two Yoto Mini players.
Happily, no one ended up winning twice, which was kind of surprising because some people had brought upwards of 20 cards and had 20 tickets in the raffle!
Afterward, we put away the tables and headed home – the whole event was only about an hour long (my perfect length for an event).
It was so fun to meet lots of fellow Yoto lovers and I felt like the whole thing was a big success and not very stressful to make happen!
The biggest question I got was “could I do this as an unpaid/community event” and I think absolutely!
I think it’d be really fun for libraries to host something like this (my library does a twice annual puzzle swap, which is what inspired this idea in the first place) or to arrange one in a homeschool group or PTA or neighborhood group.
You obviously wouldn’t need to do some of the extra things like a raffle, a free card for each attendee or swag bags!
Any other questions about how the Yoto Card swap worked? I’m happy to answer any questions!
This sounds so fun! I would love to attend something like this!
Once a Yoto card is used how do you share it..?
Once you add a card to your player, it’ll show up in your app. And disappear from their app