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.

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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.

Grand Seiko had big plans to celebrate its 60th anniversary at the summit. But amid fears and uncertainty related to the coronavirus outbreak, which has yet to show signs of containment, it had little choice but to cancel the show.

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Meanwhile on February 12, the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona cancelled after key exhibitors such as Nokia, Amazon, Cisco, LG and Sony pulled out of the show. Major Chinese exposition, the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, which expects more than 25,000 exhibitors and about 200,000 buyers twice a year, has also been suspended until further notice. The art world’s premiere event, Art Basel, also cancelled its Hong Kong edition for the same reasons.

Many more concerts, performances and sporting events around the world have been shelved.

But even for the shows that do go on, the outlook remains grim. Exhibitor withdrawals continue to plague event organisers across all industries.

The Singapore Air Show carried on as planned from February 11 to 16, even as more than 70 exhibitors including major players Lockheed Martin and Bombardier pulled out just days before the show began.

Baselworld

Baselworld, the world’s biggest watch and jewellery event, is also sticking to schedule even though it has much more to overcome than the deadly coronavirus. Its latest blow came on February 11 when Bulgari, worried by the impact of the epidemic, decided to sit out the 2020 edition. After all, it had already presented its 2020 collection at the inaugural LVMH Watch Week, hosted in Dubai in January.

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The rest of the LVMH brands – Hublot, Zenith and Tag Heuer – chose to remain at Baselworld. Along with Rolex, Patek Philippe, Chopard, Chanel and Bell & Ross, they are set to take up prime location at Hall 1.0.

Other key luxury brands that have stopped exhibiting at Baselworld include Seiko and Grand Seiko, Breitling, Corum, Raymond Weil and, of course, the Swatch Group. Citizen and Bulova have also pulled out.

But the game is not quite over for Baselworld. The 2020 edition promises to be more than just a trade show for industry insiders. Listening to the market and taking pointers from January’s 2020 Dubai Watch Week, Baselworld’s managing director Michel Loris-Melikoff pledged to revitalise the event with new features.

For the first time, Baselworld welcomes auction house Phillips in association with Bacs & Russo, which will curate a selection of vintage timepieces and extraordinary watches for a special mini-exhibition.

The Time Aeon Foundation will also be given an open space in the heart of Hall 1.0 dedicated to showcasing the art of traditional watchmaking. Workshops on watch decoration will also be held and led by master watchmaker Michel Boulanger, who made a prototype timepiece with Greubel Forsey and Philippe Dufour for the foundation.

For events such as the Geneva Motor Show in March and even the Tokyo Olympics in July, visitor numbers will be the next challenge.

Since China increased its stake in the luxury market, the shows have welcomed increasing numbers of Chinese retailers, customers and media each year. But for 2020, their numbers are expected to decrease sharply as a result of travel restrictions imposed by governments worldwide.

If the situation doesn’t improve, the exhibition organisers should consider alternative platforms to reach Chinese audiences. Promotions via Weibo and WeChat, and live product presentations could help take watch fairs to the next level.

With less than two months until the shows begin, organisers have to react quickly if they want to find the right solutions, so it’s full-on crisis mode now. But there is much hope yet, because if there’s one thing the Swiss watch industry knows apart from creating beautiful timepieces, it’s how to weather a crisis.

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