A free-entry international convention for collectible designer toys opens Saturday in Cali, marking the first time the niche market event has reached Colombia's third-largest city. Art Toy Con runs August 8 and 9 at Comfandi Campus E Centro, bringing limited-edition figures and live artist demonstrations to a venue in the city's commercial center.
The convention operates from noon to 8 p.m. both days at Calle 8 #6-23. Registration is required online before arrival, though there's no admission charge.
The Market
Art toys are collectible design pieces that blend contemporary art, pop culture and illustration into three-dimensional form. They're typically hand-finished, produced in small batches and sold as numbered editions. The category emerged from Hong Kong's vinyl scene in the 1990s and has since spread to cities from Tokyo to São Paulo, creating a global secondary market where rare colorways and sold-out collaborations command premium prices.
Iván Darío Espinel's Artefacto Inc has organized Art Toy Con in Colombia since 2016. For the Cali debut, the company partnered with El Sótano Fanzine, a local collective that understands the city's creative networks.
The scene draws illustrators, sculptors, graffiti artists and graphic designers who translate their visual work into collectible objects. A single figure might reference a classic cartoon, a street-art character or an abstract shape. Collectors describe the hunt as addictive, with the thrill comparable to tracking down limited sneaker releases or first-edition prints.
Building on Local Foundations
Cali already had infrastructure in place before the international convention arrived. The city's homegrown Toy Melo fair has staged free editions in the San Antonio neighborhood since 2024, now in its third year. That grassroots festival built the collector base and artist network that Art Toy Con now taps into, using San Antonio's colonial houses and independent cafés as its backdrop.
The two events operate separately but serve the same growing market. Toy Melo established demand; Art Toy Con brings scale and international connections.
Comfandi Campus E Centro provides the venue, a cultural and events space in central Cali. The two-day format allows visitors to browse exhibitor tables, watch artists work and return to pieces they're considering. Items range from palm-sized vinyl characters to larger resin statement pieces, with prices determined by the artist's profile, edition size and sculpt complexity.
Economic Diversification
Cali has built its international reputation on salsa, but its creative economy is expanding into new categories. Events like Art Toy Con add commercial dimension to the city's cultural identity while connecting local artists to global design trends and distribution networks.
The convention also strengthens the corridor between Colombia's creative hubs. Artists who exhibit in Cali often appear later at events in Bogotá or Medellín, creating a circuit that supports full-time creative careers and builds Colombia's position in the international designer toy market.
Why This Matters:
The arrival of an established international convention signals Cali's emergence as a viable market for niche creative goods, not just a cultural destination. The designer toy sector operates on scarcity and direct artist-to-collector sales, creating revenue streams that don't require government subsidy or institutional support. By building on the grassroots Toy Melo foundation rather than replacing it, Art Toy Con demonstrates how commercial events can scale local entrepreneurship without displacing it. The convention also connects Cali's independent artists to international distribution networks and collector bases, strengthening the city's creative economy through market mechanisms rather than cultural policy. For a city historically dependent on a single cultural export, this diversification reduces economic concentration and creates new pathways for individual artists to build sustainable businesses.