With close to a hundred brands unveiling their new products from March 28 to April 5 in Geneva, there was no shortage of excitement and emotion during the Spring fairs. Here's why.
Rendez-vous in Geneva
The Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie initiated the in-person exhibition Watches and Wonders (formerly known as the SIHH) this year, bringing together some 40 brands, including the heavyweights of the sector (except for Swatch Group). For the first time, the historical brands of the SIHH were exhibited alongside those whose stands were previously held at the defunct Baselworld: Chanel, Chopard, Grand Seiko, Hublot, Patek Philippe, Rolex, TAG Heuer, Tudor, and Zenith. Together, they attracted 22,000 visitors, mainly professionals (retailers and media), who for the most part, approved of the new formula. Our editorial team was present in force with eight colleagues pacing the corridors, all of whom praised the quality of the organization and the comfortable working conditions on-site.
At the same time, the first edition of a new exhibition, Time to Watches, was held at the Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design (HEAD), also bringing together some 40 brands such as Chronoswiss, Corum, Perrelet, and Reservoir to name a few. Its more compact and affordable format convinced the majority of exhibitors and visitors present. In addition, a good 20 brands chose to receive their customers, retailers, and journalists on the sidelines of the event in a tailor-made environment, whether they were major brands such as Breitling, Bulgari, or Gucci, or niche brands such as De Bethune, Urwerk, Genus or Jacob & Co. What did all these exhibition venues have in common? Enthusiasm – with visitors adoring the new products and exhibitors highly appreciating the sales results. With our team of eight, we were running from one event to the other.
Over 500 New Products Tried and Tested by our Editors
Congratulations to my whole team who mobilized like never before to share our passion as efficiently as possible and with the largest number of readers. I am not only talking about WorldTempus, but also that of GMT magazine, and our new collectors’ club, The Fine Watch Club.
In total, we had more than 400 presentations and meetings, took over 600 wrist shots, spent more than 800 hours in the field, tried on more than 500 watches, and uttered the word “wow” over 20,000 times! Many of the new releases were relayed daily on WorldTempus’ social networks, where our managing editor Jordy Bellido took the microphone to share all the watch news like a star television reporter!
Not content with just attending the show, our editorial director, Sophie Furley, was also driving and interviewing charismatic leaders such as Jean-Claude Biver and his son Pierre, Patrick Pruniaux, Julien Tornare, Serge Michel and Claude Greisler to the fair each morning. Thanks to Pegasus Automobile in Nyon, she also had the pleasure to borrow a Rolls-Royce Black Badge Ghost and an Aston Martin DBX. The videos have been viewed tens of thousands of times and are waiting for you on WorldTempus, on our app, and on our YouTube channel, if you haven’t seen them already. I would also like to congratulate our digital team, without whom this editorial coverage would never have had the same impact, and say a special thanks to the head of the team, Cyrille Ouanich, who put together a web app just in time for the opening of the show that highlights all our videos and articles with new audio versions of our work.
A 50% Increase in our Audience
The enormous teamwork and our proximity to the watchmaking world have seduced our audience and our community. During the show alone, more than 120,000 people read our articles, consulting nearly 800,000 pages, with an average reading time of over five minutes. This is an increase of half compared to last year when Watches and Wonders took place in an entirely digital format. This passion for the beautiful watch stories that we write about and film fills us with joy and pride, and I would like to thank both those who enjoy them, and of course my entire team for creating them.
The growing appetite for our content can be seen outside the trade show floor too. Since January, more than one million different people have visited WorldTempus, generating nearly 6.5 million page views. Watches make us dream more and more, and we thank the watchmakers for continuing to put so much energy and passion into creating them. In fact, the final word has to go to Patek Philippe, which presented a great novelty the day after the last day of Watches and Wonders in a video conference: The Reference 5480, a magnificent single-pusher chronograph with a sporty look and precision to the 10th of a second, making the excitement for watches last just that little bit longer!
