Talk about the Odds (Part 1)

Up until this year, exhibitors and buyers attending what has probably become the most important venue for watch and jewelry exhibitions in the United States—Las Vegas—had a difficult enough choice to make: which show to attend (there are multiple) and where to exhibit within that show (choices range from the show floor to suites to villas). Now, as the JCK Las Vegas shows and the Couture Show have come to a close, exhibitors—and by extension buyers—are faced with new choices as the JCK Las Vegas Show and its numerous extensions pull out of the Venetian Hotel and Sands Convention Center in time for the 2011 relocation to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

Knowing where to exhibit and shop in Vegas is much like any good game of cards or craps; understanding what to do and how to proceed depends first on breaking down the game and its components. The JCK Las Vegas Show consists of the Luxury show, which takes place a couple of days before the JCK Las Vegas show and has until now been held upstairs in the ballrooms of the Venetian. It runs head-to-head with Couture in terms of dates and is predominantly filled with jewelry designers. The JCK Las Vegas Show and its coinciding Swiss Watch by JCK are the shows of importance for watch exhibitors. Most watch exhibitors display their wares on the floor of the JCK Las Vegas show in the section designated the Hall of Time, although a few also show in other sections. They exhibit with anything from a four-foot showcase to a large open-air booth with private tables for doing business. Exhibitors in the Hall of Time run the gamut from young companies such as Officina Del Tempo and IceLink to more established brands such as Ernst Benz, Luminox, Mondaine and Ball Watch. The show runs for four days, with some exhibitors only leaving the grounds on Saturday for religious reasons.

“It is important for us to be on the show floor here in Vegas,” says Alexis Sarkissian of IceLink. “The big emphasis for us is Basel. This is like a painting: it is the finishing touch where we see our American clients who didn't go to Basel and use the show as an opportunity to meet those retailers.”

Officina Del Tempo, distributed in North America by Divino, found the show floor to be incredibly important to the brand's business. At the close of the second-to-last day of the show, the brand opened an important retail chain in Mexico with 15 stores—demonstrating the power of being on the show floor. “We were enthusiastic to meet this retailer. It enabled us to open up distribution in Mexico, and we would not have done so if we hadn't been on the floor,” says Yanir Gvirtzman, CEO of Divino.