After “Time To Move” and “Watches & Wonders Geneva” have already cancelled their fairs, today, also the board of direction at MCH has announced the cancelation of “Baselworld” fair 2020 due to concerns related to Coronavirus. The start of construction in the halls and of the stands was scheduled to commence next week (start of March).
Decisive for the decision was the bans of large-scale public and private events with more than 1000 people issued today by the Swiss federal and cantonal authorities.
Baselworld was to be held from April 30th to May 5th, 2020, and will now be postponed to Thursday 28th January to Tuesday 2nd February 2021.
Quotes from the Officials:
Michel Loris-Melikoff, Managing Director of Baselworld said:
“We deeply regret having had to postpone the event as planned due to the coronavirus, in full consideration of the needs of the watch and jewellery industry to be able to benefit from the platform to develop their business. This decision has been all the more difficult in view of all the positives that have been achieved through listening and dialogue over the last few months, which resulted in new concepts and new solutions, that have attracted exhibitors to return and new ones to sign on. We registered encouraging growth in all sectors; watchmaking, jewellery, the gemstone and pearl trade, as well as in the technical branch.
Bernd Stadlwieser, Group CEO of MCH said:
“Within the process of the last weeks, I was very impressed by the involvement and trust of all our customers, partners, stakeholders and team, to pro-actively find the very best solution in the interests of the industries. By communicating intensively all together, we were able to work on different scenarios and to jointly decide on the very best one. I would like to thank everybody for their belief in and commitment to our platform.”
