Baselworld Planning More Price Cuts in 2020

indication the Swatch Group chief was expected to change his mind either.

“He will have to decide if he wants to return to Baselworld or not,” Loris-Melikoff said, “and he will decide when is the time for him to return.”

2020 and Beyond
What Baselworld will look like—and who it will attract—next year is the question that looms large as the 2019 edition of the show opens.

Loris-Melikoff said more details about Baselworld 2020 will be shared at the closing press conference, which is scheduled for next Tuesday.

What we do know based on comments made at Wednesday’s event is that exhibitors—or at least some exhibitors—still see value in Baselworld as a business-to-business trade show.

Organizers do too, and are working to repair relationships with current exhibitors while finding a way to appeal to watch collectors and other consumers and to enhance the show’s digital capabilities.

Baselworld took steps to knock down costs for both exhibitors and attendees, reducing the cost of exhibiting but also negotiating with local hotels and restaurants to ensure they don’t raise prices during the show.

Organizers also want to improve their relationships with jewelry brands, which, in the past, have complained of show organizers treating them like an afterthought.

The jewelry brands have been moved to Hall 1.2, where show organizers have installed a “Show Plaza” for multiple jewelry fashion shows to take place each day, a first for Baselworld.

How these will be received and what role jewelry brands will play in the show going forward remains as much a question mark as Baselworld’s future itself.

“I don’t know,” Picchiotti’s Giuseppe Picchiotti said from the stage Wednesday when asked if jewelry brands would benefit from the fashion shows. “It’s the first time ever that there’ll be a fashion show [at Baselworld] so it’s difficult to say what way it’s going to go.”

Changing Date Pattern
In addition to changing its format and lowering its prices, Baselworld 2020 is shifting from March to April 30-May 5, meaning it will wrap up less than a month before the Las Vegas jewelry trade shows kick off.

It will follow the other major Swiss watch trade show, SIHH, which is moving from January to April 26-29.

Those on stage in Basel Wednesday emphasized several times that there is currently no bad blood between the two trade shows. The decision to change dates was mutually agreed upon, and is seen as beneficial to both shows as well as to the watch and jewelry industry as a whole.

Loris-Melikoff also rejected the notion that organizers moved Baselworld because they feared the show would “disappear” otherwise.

The agreement between SIHH and Baselworld to hold their shows back-to-back extends through 2024.