Events
Watches & Wonders Announces Shanghai Event and Baselworld Re-emerges as “HourUniverse”
Watches & Wonders announced a new event to be held in Shanghai later this year at the same time that Baselworld has re-emerged with a new show “HourUniverse.”
It’s been a strange year for watch show organizers.
First Baselworld world announced its 2020 show would be “postponed” until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Next, TAG Heuer, Hublot, Bvlgari, and Zenith joined the exodus and also chose to leave Baselworld 2021.
A month later, the inevitable happened, and Baselworld 2021 was canceled all together with event organizers left searching for a new way to take the show forward.
Meanwhile, Watches & Wonder also canceled their 2020 event amidst COVID-19 governmental and travel restrictions but then pivoted to debut a brand new “digital” event held at the same time the original physical show was scheduled.
Brands like A. Lange & Söhne, Cartier, Christophe Claret, Bovet, Hermes, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, MB&F, Panerai, Piaget, Roger Dubuis, and Ulysse Nardin all joined the digital event to debut some of the first new watch designs of the year.
Having re-capped all of that, you could be forgiven for thinking that the remainder of this year would be rather quiet with the only physical watch show being the Geneva Watch Days, held later this year from August 26-29.
And yet, in less than 24 hours, both Watches & Wonders and the organizers of Baselworld have come forth with new events…
First, Watches & Wonders announced they would be expanding their reach with a new event to be held this year in Shanghai September 9-13.
Held at the West Bund Art Centre, Watches & Wonders Shanghai will be an invitation-only event with expert panels, workshops, and product launches from eleven brands, including A. Lange & Söhne, Cartier, Vacheron Constantin, Panerai, Parmigiani Fleurier, Piaget, Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC and Roger Dubuis.
The second unexpected announcement came from the organizers of Baselworld, who announced a re-brand to “HOURUNIVERSE” and dates for a new business/consumer-focused event to be held in April next year to align with Watches & Wonders Geneva.
Show organizers, The MCH Group, have shared that the “new platform named HOURUNIVERSE is a B2B2C meeting point that places the customers of the brands and exhibitors at the heart of its focus, reversing the order of the past. The entire platform is conceived and designed around them.”
The new “HOURUNIVERSE” format will include a digital platform that will provide watch and jewelry information for the community throughout the year and be supported by an annual live event in Basel for live product launches and networking.
It remains to be seen how the new HourUniverse compares to the format of previous Baselworld’s, but in the meantime, we’ll be left musing on the new watch shows slogan…
HourUniverse: It’s We Time!