WatchTime New York is preparing its next trade show

Watches and Wonders Geneva proved one thing earlier this spring when it attracted 43,000 visitors, almost double the number of visitors in 2022: the watch fair is back.

Many in the industry had expressed doubts that such costly events were worth the investment, even before the disruption of the pandemic. But opinions seem to have changed, and the rest of the 2023 calendar is littered with the likes of Singapore Watch Week, Geneva Watch Days and Mexico City’s Salón Internacional Alta Relojería.

In Manhattan, organizers of WatchTime New York, scheduled for Oct. 20-22 at Gotham Hall, said they expect the event’s longstanding focus on watch enthusiasts to draw even more attendees this year, compared to last year’s total of 2,000.

“Theoretically, if you go to Watches and Wonders as an ordinary person, you can see the display cases, you can walk into the booths, but you don’t go behind the scenes and sit down with the watch president or the watchmaker,” said Sara Orlando, the publisher of WatchTime, the New York-based print and online publication that has hosted the fair since 2015. general public.”

Marc André Deschoux, founder of both Watches TV and Horopedia, the online watchmaking encyclopedia, said such interaction is typical. “Small trade shows can offer something important: attendees can speak directly to the makers of the watch,” he said. “It creates a human bond between the customer and the watchmaker.”

The fair had 32 exhibitors last year, ranging from big brands like Breguet and Seiko to popular independent brands like Greubel Forsey and Kari Voutilainen.

Parmigiani Fleurier joined the selection in 2022. “This event is important because North America is a central market for us,” CEO Guido Terreni wrote in an email. “In addition, WatchTime New York has now gained a lot of credibility and has become a major event for collectors in the market.”

The fair provides quality information, said Ms. Orlando. “We do our best to develop topics for the panels that are of interest to every level of attendees,” she said. “People who have been collecting for 20 years will be entertained and happy, and people who are recent watch enthusiasts will get information that is easy to understand.”

Ms. Orlando, 44, said she knows firsthand how intimidating watches can be. She worked in the home furnishings industry until 2008, when WatchTime hired her as advertising director; she became a publisher in 2015. “The watch industry was obviously a big step for me,” she said.

She recalled being blown away in 2009 when she attended her first watch fair, Baselworld – an event that had helped brands shape the global perception of the watch and jewelry industry for more than 100 years, until the pandemic forced its cancellation in 2009. 2020 forced and finally collapsed. .

“It was on such a large scale,” she said. “The Rolex booth, the Swatch booth – they were huge and so grand. Thank God I had a really good mentor in Joe Thompson, who was the editor-in-chief” of WatchTime. “He introduced me to everyone in the industry. After the first year I felt I belonged.” (Mr. Thompson left the publication in 2017; Roger Ruegger is now editor-in-chief.)

WatchTime began its public events in 2006 with a roadshow of watch brands that traveled across the United States, hosted by Jeffrey Kingston, a well-known watch collector.

But “brands stopped wanting to travel and it was expensive to move the showcases and staff around the country,” Ms. Orlando said. “Joe Thompson had the idea to do a bigger show in town. Minda Larsen, our event director, and I created WatchTime New York.

“We chose New York because of its access to the European market. We wanted both European collectors and smaller independent brands to come to New York.”

Michael Hickcox, an American longtime watch collector living in London, said he considers visiting WatchTime New York as important as attending European watch shows.

“I’ve been going to WatchTime New York for about five years,” Mr. Hickcox wrote in an email. “It’s a great event. They attract great brands and independent watchmakers, so it’s a great place to try on watches that you often can’t find in stores.”

And, he added: “The networking is first class, both for meeting new people and catching up with old friends. You learn so much from other collectors; they are a great source of wisdom.”