Coronavirus cancellations reach Europe: Watches & Wonders Geneva and Spain's Mobile World Congress are axed in 2020 – will Tokyo Olympics be next?
While many big international events have been cancelled, Baselworld has chosen to continue – despite key brands including Bulgari, Seiko, Breitling, Corum, Raymond Weil and the Swatch Group pulling out of the leading watch summit
The coronavirus, known as Covid-19, has spread globally and is wreaking havoc, forcing dozens of international events, trade fairs and entertainment happenings to be cancelled or postponed. Here’s the latest.
Watches & Wonders Geneva cancels its upcoming edition, initially planned from April 25 to 29
In a news release on February 27, the organisers of Watches & Wonders Geneva confirmed it will not be carrying on with the show, as well as its In The City program, due to the worldwide spread of the coronavirus. Cases have surged to 400 in Italy, currently the worst-hit country in Europe. Austria, Croatia, Greece, Norway, Switzerland, Georgia and North Macedonia have also reported first cases of the virus.
Moving forward, the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie will focus on the 2021 edition.
Luxury watch enthusiasts and industry professionals who had been patiently waiting for the Swatch Group’s 2020 launches will have to wait a little longer. In a formal letter distributed via email to its attendees all over the world, the Group announced that its Time To Move watch summit would be cancelled in light of the coronavirus outbreak.
It would have been the second edition of the Swatch Group’s Time To Move summit. The first one in 2019 was a resounding success, conducted at each of the brands’ manufactures across various parts of Switzerland, with the exception of Glashütte Original which staged an interactive exhibition at the Starling Hotel Genève.
Without this platform, which was due to take place between March 4 and 6 in Zurich, all of its six luxury brands will be considering regional presentations at key markets carried out on a smaller scale at a later date. Brands represented at Time To Move include Breguet, Blancpain, Omega, Jaquet Droz, Harry Winston and Glashütte Original.
But Time To Move by the Swatch Group wasn’t the only cancellation in the watch enthusiast’s calendar of events.
A string of cancellations
Japanese luxury watch brand Grand Seiko on February 12 announced its annual Tokyo Summit will also be canned, citing government-advised cancellation. The company, along with sister brand Seiko, withdrew from Baselworld in November 2019 because the new dates were deemed too late in the year for its product launches, and 2020 is expected to be a milestone year for Grand Seiko.