BASELWORLD: IN MEMORIAM

How did a watch fair that survived for more than a century finally die, was it just a case of an incurable virus? Or was there more to it than meets the eye? And what will be the new normal once the dust settles? We find out

ONCE HAILED AS THE LARGEST WATCHES AND JEWELLERY SHOW ON THE PLANET, Baselworld has finally closed its doors for the last time in 2019. This is a fair that has a history spanning more than a century and even survived two World Wars. But in 2020, the MCH Group, the organisation behind Baselworld, called it quits and declared Baselworld “put to rest”. For a fair that at one point attracted around 150,000 visitors (in 2013) it is now just a collection of empty halls and a website filled with broken video links.

One might think that this is nothing more than the ravages of a global pandemic, an inevitable fate due to the uncontrollable virus ‒ SARS-CoV-2 ‒ that causes COVID-19. However, even though it may seem as such, industry pundits argue that COVID-19 was just the final nail in the coffin, the demise of Baselworld was a long time coming and sadly, was of their own accord.

With the dust finally settling over the drama that was the end of Baselworld, we think it’s time to take a retrospective look at the fair. What went wrong? Could anything have been done to save it? And where does the MCH Group go from here? This last question may not be so important with a global pandemic showing only