Hopefully its in the low-mid market. The only way to grow as a community is to add new beginners. Those people who start at the beginning might eventually level up and want better stuff, but the number of high end yoyo players isn’t going to grow without growing the base.
If you have an influx of new players and make sure they know what the possibilities are, your high end market will never suffer.
Get the kids interested and we will never die!
This.
When you base your views on the community off of english Internet message boards (which only represent a small portion of mostly American throwers), you’re really not getting the big picture. Yoyoing is much more popular in other areas of the world than it is in the US; places like Asia Pacific countries.
The information that shapes our view of the community almost entirely comes from the Internet. However, most of the yoyoing world doesn’t happen on the Internet. Go to a contest and talk to some people; you’ll be amazed at how many new players there are, and how many people aren’t active on the Internet.
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I have to say I agree with this Steve. I see so many people who yoyo who are not on the forums. Including many children, adults and pro’s. I do wonder though what the % is of people who yoyo to those who yoyo and are involved in the forums. I would think the % on the forums whould be a lot smaller than most of us think. Steve I am also very interested in meet you at Worlds. I have heard so many stories about you and find you to be a very interesting guy. Especially seeing how long you have been involved in yoyoing.
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I think that yo-yoing has peaked in North America for now. I would anticipate a surge in about five years when the earnings and disposable income of the coming demographic boom of youngsters will create a whole new market for high-priced throws.
Clearly, the current growth market is in Asia and South America. In that respect, the market is surely growing. At the same time so are the foreign brands expanding and creating great products; especially in China. For every SPYY, there is a YoyoOfficer.
I think the growth or lack of growth in yoyoing is in our hands. If we just go online and yoyo at home and go to the occasional yoyo contest it will not grow. If we go out and we are active in our community and build groups and get together with people and share what we do it will grow. Its up to us to keep the sport growing and teaching the next generation of yoyoers. We should all take a look at what Jack from A2Z is doing in Northampton, MA. He has continually helped to teach new yoyoers for years by having weekly yoyo classes. So get out there and spread the word!!!
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I think this is very local thing. In Europe Czech Republic and Russia is growing, our contest are getting bigger and bigger, we have two mortar shops selling just premium yo-yos filled by kids all day. But than you look for example on Slovakia, there was small boom last year, but since than it’s getting smaller.
Biggest difference is in people leading community and taking care of it. Czech, Poland, Russia, there are big groups of people dedicated to promoting yo-yo and it really helps to bring in new people.
I never throw outside my own living room but I see more people throwing a yoyo in public with each passing year it seems. Certainly not a ton but it’s gone from like one a year to one every month or two the past 5 years. Depending on how exactly you pursue the hobby of yoyoing it can be pretty expensive (I would be just fine only owning the 888 I bought in 2008 but I have probably spent close to $10k since then) so seeing more people yoyoing on a yearly basis in what continues to be a pretty poor economic situation indicates that it is growing to me.
Companies certainly seem to be pushing out substantially more models and production runs of existing models than they did when I got back into the hobby 5 years ago as well.
Ever notice how conversations about the yoyo industry are never started by anyone IN the yoyo industry, and are rarely participated in by people in the yoyo industry?
Just a heads up, if you aren’t getting commentary from people who own a yoyo company, then just go ahead and assume that it’s 99% speculation with little to no facts behind it. No offense to anyone who just enjoys armchair speculation, it’s a fun little game for sure, but it should never be mistaken for an informed opinion.
There are a handful of people here who like to set themselves up as “experts” when really they are just players or enthusiasts who enjoy typing. Please, by all means, enjoy the conversation but lets not mistake any of this for actual fact, ok?
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So, perhaps a bit less condescension and more facts from industry participants would be better …?
Can you tell us more on this? What are the ways in which it’s growing?
What?
It’s self explanatory.
He is saying that the amount of throwers has increased.
Most industry participants don’t want any part of this mess. I’m trying to be helpful. 
- Greater retail exposure at the mass market and specialty level. (Specialty toy retailers who are non yoyo-specific)
- Significantly larger worldwide player base with a steady increase in contest participation over the past 5 years
- Greater interest in yoyo contest sponsorship from non-yoyo related companies
- (From what I’ve been able to track) Approximately 40% increase in articles about yoyoing from mass media sources (local and national)
- Increased efforts by specialty manufacturers towards lower priced yoyos with responsive options for casual players
Yoyos are traditionally considered a “seasonal” item by most mass-market retailers, and Toys R Us has had a dedicated end cap of yoyos from 4 different manufacturers for over a year now (maybe going on two, need to look back over my records). While it doesn’t sound like much, for any major retailer to completely change their entire buying and merchandising attitude towards an entire category of items is a seismic shift in attitude towards yoyoing.
Specialty retail chains like Learning Express are taking a larger interest in yoyos, and actively promoting them as a year-round item. Again, this is a huge shift in the way yoyos have traditionally been viewed at a retail level and breaks the bad habits set by most specialty retailers over the past decade.
With YoYoFactory’s continued movement towards mass-market and Yomega’s re-awakening and Star Wars licensing, not to mention Duncan’s new Disney/Marvel licensing & promotional frenzy, it’s clear from a manufacturing standpoint that there are larger in-roads being made towards putting quality playing yoyos in more hands and that there is a greater demand for yoyos from retailers who are always looking for a new SKU to replace whatever sold last month. Licensed merch is a nice segue, but if there isn’t demand for yoyos to begin with it falls flat quickly.
None of these begins to cover what’s happening in China and Russia, but suffice to say that yoyos are growing steadily worldwide, without falling into the trap of the “boom/bust” cycle that everyone used to, mystifyingly, look forward to.
But talking about how fast $165 yoyos are moving at YoYoExpert.com definitely isn’t the slightest indication of the larger industry, which is mostly what people tend to fixate on here. It’s a lot of work, really, to try and track and follow larger trends in worldwide retail, so I’m not surprised that people aren’t necessarily up on what’s going on. Frankly, I can see how it would actually be really dull to most people to pay attention to it at all! But every once in a while I see another “yoyos are dying” nugget here and I get a wild hair up my butt about trying to explain why you can’t view the goings-on at YoYoExpert as indicative of the industry as a whole.
Disclaimer: This is completely and totally irrelevant to 99% of you. Ha. 
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Thanks man. I appreciate you taking the time to answer.
I think that since the internet, that the boom/bust thing will no longer happen. The wealth of information continually grows and remains available to new players. The internet also makes Indie companies possible (how else would they/we be able to sell such specialty good?) and I think this has played a huge part in innovation of the gear. And in the same token the growth of art has exploded because of the ability to share videos with the global community.
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Agreed, I would say one of the biggest things helping to spread the hobby is YouTube. It has done more for not just yo-yo but for many other hobbies as well. I am basing this on watching my students excel in their hobbies of choice and my own son who loves Legos and Minecraft. He will go to youTube, watch a video where a user shows off their creation. He will then recreate it and ultimately he will put his own spin on it. The same is going for yo-yoing as well. We have all been to yo-yo clubs, how many young kids have come in and shown off a trick that they learned from watching a player on YouTube and then a week later come back with their own modifications on that trick they showed off the week before?
Growing. At least for me.
More and more often my mom tells me that somebody that I hardly know saw me yoyoing, and they want to get into it. Pretty cool actually.
I agree with da5id about the internet’s influence on the boom/bust cycle that has marked previous yoyo phenomenon. Perhaps the thread should be: “Is Yoyo-ing Growing or Stable?”
da5id should know as well as anyone considering how many yoyos One Drop has been producing and selling.
Maybe the disclaimer should’ve been that now we’re all imagining your wild butt hairs. :-\
No, no “we’re all” not… 