The watch industry’s famous fairs collapsed amid the shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic—will they ever come back?
As the Covid-19 pandemic swept its way through the world earlier this year, it knocked over giants and dominoes of all kinds; stores were shut, planes grounded, and events in the flesh all unceremoniously cancelled. The Watches & Wonders Geneva (formerly SIHH) and Baselworld watch fairs were, unfortunately, no exception. Their cancellation was particularly tragic this year, given that it would have been the first year that the two rival fairs coordinated to occur simultaneously in the spring.
Patrick Pruniaux, the chief executive officer of Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin, put it most aptly: “The cancellation of the two biggest trade events this year was an incredible shockwave.”
But even though the two fairs were first cancelled in late February, the bigger shockwave would come later in the year, with news that could mean Baselworld’s complete collapse.
Basel Boom and Bust
Under the uncertainty of the pandemic, Baselworld organisers MCH Basel announced its high-handed plan to postpone—yes, postpone—the fair to 2021. But only a portion of the fees paid for 2020 would be carried over; the rest would disappear into MCH’s pockets to cover overheads for Baselworld 2020 that would never take place.
This led major exhibitors Rolex, Tudor, Chopard, Chanel, and Patek Philippe to sound the death knell for Baselworld, withdrawing from the fair and creating a new as-yet-named watch fair to run alongside Watches & Wonders in April 2021. A week later, LVMH Group’s brands announced a similar withdrawal.
According to Su Jiaxian, a well-known industry insider who was among the first to report on the fairs’ developments on his platform watchesbySJX.com, the frustration with MCH had been brewing for quite some time. “I didn’t find [the brands’ withdrawal] surprising, given the way negotiations between the brands and fair organisers were going, where there was a huge mismatch of expectations.
"It’s highly likely Baselworld is finished. There is a small chance it could survive in a vastly-changed form. Perhaps smaller, and with an entirely new name, so it won’t really be Baselworld anymore.”
