An interview with Carlos Bravo Sánchez, founder of Friki Monkey and organizer of ICONS.
On 15 and 16 August 2026, the halls of IFA Alicante will host ICONS, a two day celebration of everything collectors love: trading cards, diecast, film props, figures, LEGO, comics and more, across roughly 30,000 square metres and two full pavilions. We sat down with the man behind it, Carlos Bravo Sánchez, founder of the Spanish collectibles brand Friki Monkey, to talk about how ICONS came to be, why he chose the Costa Blanca, what diecast and model car fans in particular can look forward to, and the remarkable roster of partners joining him on the floor.
Carlos, for readers meeting you for the first time, who are you and what is Friki Monkey?
Thank you for having me, Chris. I am Carlos Bravo, founder and CEO of Friki Monkey, a collectibles company based in the Alicante area in Spain. We live and breathe collectibles. To avoid any confusion, on the retail side we mainly sell the accessories that protect and display these collectibles, think card sleeves, toploaders, protective cases and display solutions for trading cards, diecast and figures, rather than the collectibles themselves. Our premium sub-brand, Goatward, makes protectors for graded cards, so we obsess over the details that matter to serious collectors.
But Friki Monkey has always been about more than selling product. It is a community. ICONS is the natural next step: instead of the community meeting us online or at a shop counter, we bring the whole of Europe’s collecting world under one roof for a weekend.
And I want to be clear that this is not a one man show. Behind Friki Monkey and ICONS there is now a team of almost twenty people, and without every single one of them an event on this scale would simply not be possible. When I say we, I mean them.
Where did the idea for ICONS come from?
It was not one lightning bolt, it grew on us. Over the years we took part in more and more shows across Europe, both as a brand and as collectors ourselves, and the same conversation kept coming up at the tables: how great it would be if someone built an event that brought the different collecting communities together under one roof, with the ambition and the reach you see in the United States. Everyone agreed it should exist. Nobody had been crazy enough to actually do it.
Then in September last year we launched our Mattel Hot Wheels products on the Hot Wheels Legends Tour in Madrid, and we turned it into a little team event. At one point we were sitting around a table, having a beer, letting our thoughts wander, and the idea came up yet again. This time we looked at each other and said, enough talking about it, let us just do it. That is how ICONS was born.
So we set out to build the show we always wanted to attend. Not a market with some decoration on top, but a proper experience: exhibitions, tournaments, live builds, exclusive products, and a real reason for people to travel. We are aiming for tens of thousands of visitors across the weekend, and everything is designed around that ambition.
You could have chosen Madrid or Barcelona. Why Alicante?
Because Alicante is one of Europe’s great secrets, and it happens to be the historic heart of the toy world. Let me start with the practical side. The venue, IFA Alicante, sits just minutes from Alicante airport, which is one of the best connected airports in Spain with direct flights from all over Europe, especially Germany, the UK, the Benelux and the Nordics. There are around five thousand parking spaces on site. For an international audience it is very easy to reach.
Then there is the place itself. Mid August on the Costa Blanca means sunshine, warm sea and long evenings. You can spend the day at ICONS and be on Postiguet beach or up at Santa Bárbara castle by the evening. The Explanada de España, the palm lined promenade, is right by the marina, and the old town, El Barrio, has some of the best nightlife on the Spanish coast. If you want a quieter day, the island of Tabarca is a short boat trip away. My pitch to collectors is simple: come for the show, stay for the holiday. Bring the family.
And the toy connection you mentioned?
This is the part that gives me goosebumps. Just up the road from Alicante is a town called Ibi. Ibi is, quite literally, the cradle of the Spanish toy industry. For over a century its economy has been built on making toys, and it is still the most important toy manufacturing town in the country. There is a wonderful Valencian Toy Museum, the Museo Valenciano del Juguete, in Ibi that tells that whole story, from tin toys to modern day and is based in the factory building of the first toy company in Ibi, Paya.
Other Ibi brands were Guisval, Mira, Pilen and SlotWings.
So when I say ICONS belongs in Alicante, I mean it literally. We are holding the most ambitious collectibles show in Europe in the region that has been making the objects of that passion for generations. For a diecast or model car collector especially, there is real poetry in that. You can visit a town that has been producing toys since the early twentieth century, then come to a modern hall and see where the hobby is going next.
Paint a picture of the venue. What will a visitor actually walk into?
Two pavilions, roughly 27,000 to 30,000 square floor space. When you come through the entrance you are met immediately by spectacle, not stalls. We are placing a row of more than twenty classic American muscle cars right at the entrance zone, so the first thing you see is chrome and horsepower.
From there the show opens into zones: a huge trading card area, a dedicated diecast and model car section, figures and dolls, manga and comics, sports cards, plus special exhibition spaces that are really the soul of ICONS. Around the trading floor we run tournaments, live streams, signings and stage giveaways all weekend. The idea is that even if you never buy a single card, the weekend is worth the ticket just for what you get to see and do.
Your interview is going out to the Model Car Hall of Fame audience, so let’s talk diecast. What is waiting for them?
This is close to my heart, so I have made sure the diecast program is genuinely special. There are several things I would point your readers to.
First, the exclusives. Together with Toms Modelauto’s, and in particular with Christian, its managing director and someone we work very closely with, we are producing two exclusive ICONS 2026 diecast models: an RWB 993 and a BMW E30. Both are being made in a bare Zamac finish, so the polished metal body is left unpainted and sealed under a clear protective coat. It is a premium, raw look that serious diecast collectors really appreciate, and these are ICONS event exclusives.
Second, the competition. Andrew is the driving force behind the Model Car Hall of Fame, and together with the Hall of Fame we are running the first MCHOF x ICONS custom diecast competition. Builders show their custom work in front of tens of thousands of people on site, and hundreds of thousands more via the live stream, and compete for prizes. For the custom diecast scene this is a real stage.
Third, the community. Hot Wheels sits under Mattel, one of our headline partners, so the diecast presence runs from collector grade models all the way to the pocket money cars that got most of us started. Around that we have built a strong diecast community: our exclusive models partner Toms Modelauto’s, the German retro toy fair Toyplosion, the American Cars and Bikes association, and event friends such as Diecast Con Madrid, the Belgium Hot Wheels Convention and Seven Diecast. We are also in close contact with a lot of diecast content creators and influencers, among them Akro Diecast and The Monster Nuts, with more to come. For a model car fan, this corner of ICONS is going to feel like home.
There is also a film car angle, isn’t there?
Yes, and it is worth being precise, because these are two different things. The Movie Cars exhibition is about full size replicas of the most famous cars from film and television, think of the DeLorean or KITT, the ones you can walk up to and photograph. Separately, right at the entrance, we host the Muscle Cars Association with more than twenty classic American muscle cars. Those are not movie cars, they are real motoring jewels, the V8s that defined a generation. For anyone who collects the 1:64 or 1:18 versions of these machines, standing next to the full size original is a special moment.
Trading cards are the biggest engine in the hobby right now. What’s the TCG programme?
The trading card floor is enormous, covering Pokémon, Magic, One Piece, Lorcana, Riftbound and sports cards. The competitive side is run by Victory Road, who bring professional judges and a proper tournament structure. We have official Opens across the weekend for Pokémon, One Piece, Disney Lorcana and Riftbound, each with sealed product prizes and a guaranteed welcome pack for every player.
On top of that we have live card breaking and on site grading with our partners, exclusive event trading cards produced with SV Collectibles, and vouchers from Cardmarket for attendees. It is a complete trading card weekend, whether you are a competitor, an investor or someone who just loves opening packs.
You keep mentioning exhibitions. What are the highlights beyond cars and cards?
The special exhibitions are where ICONS stops being a fair and becomes an experience. A few I am especially excited about:
Tesoros de Hollywood, or Hollywood Treasures, curated by Tesoros de Hollywood, brings around seventy unique, authenticated film pieces from private collections, many signed by the stars themselves. Think Indiana Jones’ fedora, Rocky’s gloves, Star Wars lightsabers and Darth Vader’s mask, with genuine signatures from names like Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Michael J. Fox and Sylvester Stallone. These are museum grade pieces you normally never get to stand next to.
Kryptonia Collectibles brings a large exhibition of hyper realistic pop culture sculptures in resin, more than 150 square meters of it. One of its partners is the well known sculptor Daniel Bel, though the exhibition as a whole is the work of the wider Kryptonia team.
And it is not only for LEGO fans. We have dioramas for LEGO, Playmobil and Funko Pop collectors, each exhibition running between 150 and 300 square metres. The LEGO dioramas are built by the Alicante association Terretabricks across more than twenty tables, and we are flying in the Polish LEGO mosaic master known as Lord of the Bricks, Patryk Bejnarowicz.
Timeless Investments anchors our VIP zone with a high value exhibition. It is one of the real highlights of the show and a big reason to go VIP.
And, quite separately, there is live art: the tattoo artist Vinicius, working with Nerdy Core XP, will be creating tattoos live on the floor. There is genuinely something to stop you in your tracks in every direction.
Mattel is a headline partner. What does that bring?
Mattel is huge for us, and it anchors three whole worlds at ICONS. First, Barbie, with the doll collecting community, which is passionate and often underserved at general collectibles shows. Second, Hot Wheels, which as we said connects straight into the diecast floor. And third, Masters of the Universe, which is going to have a very, very strong presence with us. Having Mattel across all three signals the level we are operating at.
Alongside Mattel we have Universal Pictures on the entertainment side, and the figures and dolls zone brings together everything from anime figures to high end collectible statues. It rounds out the show so that whatever corner of the hobby you love, there is a home for it here.
There is a serious industry side to this too. Tell us about the partners and the B2B programme.
We are lucky to have a genuinely strong group of partners, and I want them named, because ICONS is built with them, not merely sponsored by them. Our event partners include Universal Pictures, Mattel, Domino’s Pizza, Toms Modelauto’s, Toys R Us and the media outlet HuffPost, alongside Collectr, Cardmarket, Timeless Investments, HobbyDB, Toyplosion, American Cars and Bikes, the Model Car Hall of Fame, Lama Cards, SC Cards, SLAP, Victory Road, Kickstarter, and, newest of all, Dodo Collection and Catawiki. On top of that a wonderful circle of community friends supports us, from Diecast Con Madrid and the Belgium Hot Wheels Convention to Argon Breaks, ECF Sports Cards and AM Cards.
On the strictly professional side, we run a structured B2B speed networking session, so brands, distributors, shops, platforms and creators can each meet a dozen relevant contacts in under an hour, without the chaos of trying to network on a busy show floor. That is where a lot of next year’s deals will start.
And the Trade Night, what is that?
The Trade Night is our Friday night kickoff, on 14 August, the evening before the two main days. I should be clear that despite the name it is a public, ticketed event for collectors, not a closed trade session, produced together with Trade Night Barcelona. It is the relaxed, buzzing warm up where the community comes together before the show proper begins.
Let’s make it easy for readers. Dates, tickets, the essentials?
ICONS runs Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 August 2026 at IFA Alicante in Elche, just minutes from Alicante airport. Weekend tickets are 20 Euros standard, with early bird tickets at 14 Euros, and both cover the full weekend. There is a daily pass at 12.50 Euros, kids under six are free, and a young collector rate of 10 Euros for ages seven to sixteen. And do not forget the Trade Night on Friday 14 August, the evening before, for 10 euros.
For collectors who want the full treatment there is a VIP weekend pass. It costs 270 Euros and is only sold together with a weekend ticket, so all in it comes to around 299 Euros, and it gives you early entry and access to the premium zones. Everything is available through our site at frikimonkey.com.
A couple of practical tips. If you are coming with friends, an Airbnb is a great option. You do not have to be right on the beach, and split between a few people it can still be very affordable, even at this stage. And a little insider tip: rent a car. There are several very cheap rental providers at Alicante airport, and it makes moving around easy, before, during and after ICONS.
And is there already a next ICONS?
We are already planning it. There is no final date yet, but it will most likely be in the summer again, probably not August this time, and we will share more very soon. Either way, 2026 is the one that sets the standard, so come to the first one and be part of the story from the beginning.
Final question. If you had to convince a collector in Europe, the UK or the US in one sentence, what would you say?
Fly into Alicante, spend a weekend surrounded by exclusive models, film cars, custom builds and thousands of people who love this hobby as much as you do, and then go swim in the Mediterranean. There is no other collectibles show in Europe that offers all of that in one place!
ICONS 2026 takes place 15 to 16 August 2026 at IFA Alicante, Spain. You can buy Tickets or find the up-to-date program here.
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