by Ian Skellern
Dear Mr. Babin,
When I first read the news last week, just days after the cancellation of Watches & Wonders and Baselworld 2020 due to the continuing spread of coronavirus, that you had organized Geneva Watch Days and it would run April 26 – 29, 2020, I thought, “great!” Plucky, upstart, “distributed” exhibition shows gloom and doom the middle finger, allowing us (journalists, photographers, collectors, aficionados, and retailers) to make use of our already booked and paid-for travel and accommodation.
And rather than a mind-and-body draining two weeks of back-to-back Watches & Wonders/Baselworld, a few days in Geneva handling fantastic watches was alluring, and I’m morally weak (one of the many reasons I’m not running a large company).
I’m slow, but it didn’t take long before my feelings about Geneva Watch Days turned about face, as it became ever more apparent to all that holding an international fair, even a small distributed fair, while the whole world was trying to minimize travel and personal contact, was wrong. See Geneva Watch Days 2020 Is On: Good News Or *Covid-19 Cough* Desperate, Short-Sighted, Money Grab?
But despite feeling that Geneva Watch Days was wrong, hope, stupidity, and self-interest prevailed enough to cause me to hold off on canceling my Airbnb in Geneva (just in case).
But the continuing spread of Covid-19 over the last few days — now Italy has shut down (and may quarantine) 16 million people in the industrial, money-earning north of the country, i.e., the bit bordering Switzerland (and not far from Geneva) — has extinguished that hope. I’ve canceled my trip to Geneva Watch Days.
I was hoping that you would cancel the event first and take the decision and uncertainty out of my hands. But you didn’t.
Now’s the (well overdue) time to say bye-bye to Geneva Watch Days 2020.
Regards, Ian Skellern
P.S. If it’s any consolation, from a business decision I think that Geneva Watch Days 2020 was probably worth the Hail Mary pass. Morally though, . . .
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I respect all opinions. You’re right that Covid19 is peaking now as we speak in Europe. It’s true to that Chinese government has tamed it in just 4 weeks. So you’re right our Geneva Watch Days could be cancelled. But they might not be either. And the concept is to flexible and adaptive that betting on optimism will always be better than on pessimism. I’m in charge of 7000 colleagues and serve 100.000 ds of clients and my mission is to move on unless it is impossible. Today it’s not. Whether you like it or not our workshops will run tomorow from Valenza to Roma, Firenze or Saignelegier and we’ll fight for optimism as much as operationally against Covid19 with our Spallanzani Hospital support in Roma. Yours respectfully. JC. Babin
Thank you for taking the time for a thoughtful comment, Mr. Babin. We are both hoping for the same result.
If Geneva Watch Week 2020 runs, I will bring you a bottle of chilled (and sterilized) champagne 🙂
Regards, Ian
Please child. You’re late in coming to the conclusion that these watch industrialists are nothing, if not immoral. Their arrogance shields them from taking into account anyone or anything but themselves. That a virus that could cause harm to people, even their customers, might get in the way of their own selfish interests? Really? It’s taken you this long?
Oops, I can see by your reply to Babin that you still don’t get it. How easily you are willing to close your eyes. Too bad. It only serves to further give permission to Babin’s and others like him, their arrogance.
But we all go with our selfish interests, it’s only where that line is drawn that changes. And people (including myself) are bad at judging risk: that’s why quarantines, and wearing crash helmets and seat belts, all have to be enforced.
Regards, Ian
16 million people in Northern Italy on lockdown to contain coronavirus and you say you’re bad at judging g risk.
There are 16 million people on lockdown in northern Italy because we (people in general) do not act prudently, e.g. stop traveling, unless forced to. We see what’s happening to others but think it will not happen to us.
Regards, Ian
Dear mr.Babin and Ian,
I have the mixed blessing of being both in Sales for my daytime job, and being a watch journalist for klokkeriet.no and my own youtube channel Wristwatchism. I’m based in secure Norway, but my wife is from Milano and went there two weeks ago… so while I am cautious I am by nature a salesman so 100% optimistic at all times. I sincerely feel that we need to keep going, and yes Virus notwithstanding still am agreeing with JC that the Geneva Watch Days is a strong alternative and flexible enough to work. When I wrote about this new alternative I was even bold enough to suggest that this might even be the New Future of Baselworld, as many big brands that left even before the Virus….
Hi Thor,
Geneva Watch Days can never be a template for Baselworld/SIHH because it is distributed. The reason fairs are centralized is that’s much more efficient for a lot of visitors and a lot of exhibitors. With a distributed fair everyone spends half the time traveling between appointments. Smaller fairs may well be the answer, but any serious fair will be centralized.
Regards, Ian
My take is this: events that have been scheduled long in advance are being cancelled. Many major organizations and corporations are shutting down travel. The CDC currently advises against non-essential travel to Italy. The number of cases in Switzerland, Germany, and France continues to rise.
In light of this, is it responsible management to promote a new event on the schedule, that calls for extensive travel into a region that is NOT stabilized? Is it responsible to try to create an event when more restrictions are being implemented, meaning that it is quite plausible that it will be shut down?
Until we’ve got a much stronger set of indicators that the outbreak is, in fact, solidly declining, your event is, IMO, premature.
Hi Thor,
Geneva Watch Days can never be a template for Baselworld/SIHH because it is distributed. The reason fairs are centralized is that’s much more efficient for a lot of visitors and a lot of exhibitors. With a distributed fair everyone spends half the time traveling between appointments. Smaller fairs may well be the answer, but any serious fair will be centralized.
Regards, Ian
I agree, Craig, not only is there zero evidence things are getting better, there is plenty of evidence coming in hourly that it’s it is getting worse.
Regards, Ian
You should have written a private letter to Mr Babin. All you’ve done is add to the sensationalism & panic while trying to show how virtuous you are.
You misunderstand my intention, Mike.
I wasn’t writing a private letter for Mr. Babin, I was writing a public letter for you. I’ve been called many things (most true) before, but not “virtuous.” Especially as I already admitted that I didn’t rush to cancel my own Geneva Watch Days until I thought that the case against was overwhelming.
Regards, Ian
that’s modern “journalism” to you, mr Mike. sensationalism and clickbait takes precedence before everything else. the damage the media are making with this virus outbreak will ultimately be far greater than the virus itself. as “immoral” these huge business owners are, all things considered, particularly considering what the job is supposed to be about, modern “journalists” are FAR more immoral
Just now, the BNP Paribas Open…a 10 day tennis tournament that’s a Masters 1000 for the ATP (top level below the slams) and similar for the women, with IIRC 96 player draws…is called off. It was to start TOMORROW. That means everyone’s got their tickets, the players are already there, the qualifiers have all played their matches. Bye-bye. The Riverside County health service declared a public health emergency; they had no choice.
This is southern California. It’s only got isolated cases…but the CLEAR intent now is to *keep things* at isolated cases, to try to avoid the widespread, massively disruptive measures that are in place in Italy, and to a lesser degree in Washington state. You might think the Riverside County authorities are overreacting to a degree; that may well be. But the weight of the evidence and the increasingly clear message from organizations is that it’s not.
I guess I will weigh in on this. The question is the following: do what is politically correct and what appears to be ever so sensitive? Or approach with some common sense and logic? There are different answers depending on how those two questions are answered. The politically correct and safe answer (ignoring economic harm) is cancel. Logic and common sense go in a different direction. Corona is a flu virus. Every year millions of people catch the flu and tens of thousands die. Death rate depending on the year is somewhere in the range of .1 to .2%. We all live with this. The numbers on Corona are not well known. Unfortunately the published figures have been hugely exaggerated. Death rate numbers have been published showing around 2-3%. However, these calculations are based upon the number of CONFIRMED DIAGNOSES. That skews the result because the number of confirmed diagnosed cases leaves out huge numbers of people who are assumed to have the regular flu or whose symptoms are very mild. It is not unreasonable to assume that the death rate falls into the range of the normal flu. The level of hysteria and panic that we see is totally out of proportion. This has been fueled by politicians who what to show how sensitive, reactive, and engaged they are and by media (where too many have IQs in the single digits). So do we want to live rationally or emotionally? How much economic harm do we want to inflict so that we cana feel good?
Indeed! The current calculated DR of Covid19 is ~0.7% and will be dropping as diagnoses get better. and that’s without any semblance of a vaccine. the media’s hysteria is incredible (in a bad way)
I agree with you 100%, Jeff. While the coronavirus seems more deadly and contagious than the regular flu, it’s not by a factor of 10 worse, yet we brush off the flu because it’s more familiar.
It does come down to an economic trade-off against how many deaths (and who) against economic harm, which will no doubt in itself lead to more deaths.
1. There’s no doubt that having a fair or gathering of any kind late April will, not might, spread the virus and cause harm.
2. There’s no doubt that not having a fair or gathering of any kind late April will, not might, and cause harm.
Everyone will be weighing these two differently.
Regards, Ian
p.s. I haven’t seen hysteria in the main European press as in the USA.
Hi Ian, In a world where climate change is rapidly affecting everything we do and changing established norms, one thing which is becoming more certain every day, is that we must learn to live in a world of uncertainty. So if Mr. Babin would like to prove that “the concept is to remain flexible”, then instead of a discussion as to whether Watch Days 2020 should or should not take place at all this year, why not agree that we take the decision to postpone it until June, July or August for the time being? There is no longer any reason for it to coincide with Baselworld and Watches and Wonders. So this distributed fair can take advantage of this fact and actually BE as flexible as Mr. Babin suggests. Surely hotels and venues will consider postponement as a more favourable alternative to cancellation? And if within 2-3 months we have still not come out the other side of the Covid-19 outbreak then Watch Days can be finally cancelled with more knowledge and information leading to that decision. As the Chinese say, there is always opportunity in crisis.
Hi Carol,
A good but unfortunately flawed idea: “Surely hotels and venues will consider postponement as a more favorable alternative to cancellation?” Ar you kidding? The fact that Swiss hotels are not flexible is likely to be one of the most significant factors in not cancelling Geneva Days 2020: why would an expensive Geneva hotel reschedule when, in case of cancellation, they can both keep the money and possibly sell the rooms again later. And how much later? Longer than 6 months we may as wait for next year?
I agree with you in that I also hope that, when the virus has past we see a few alternate GTGs.
Regards, Ian
Yes, I guess it was naive of me. I was assuming that Hotels in Geneva took into consideration ” “force majeure” events– after all, it is a French term! It might be worth looking into the fine print, especially with the larger hotel chains. I agree a 6 month delay would be too long, but I still believe that with a bit of diplomacy, a two or three month delay could be negotiated with the hotels/venues.
What 2-3 month delay, Carol? How realistic do you think that is? Try telling a serious hotel you want to reschedule, but have no idea when.
China has begun to see a decline in Covid-19 cases and that trend has been downward since once week. If we can take this as an indication, then all epidemic areas should also begin to see a decline after 2 months (the length of the China outbreak). So (in my humble opinion) Watch Days has nothing to lose by setting a firm new date 2 or 3 months from now (for arguments sake, let’s just say 3 months) and negotiate with the hotels/venues to postpone the event until that date. If the epidemic is not over or in decline by then, the event can be permanently cancelled and no one is worse off than they are today. Just saying…
Mr. Babin also brought up the 2 months it seems (for now) to have taken China to reduce the growth rate of the contamination, not stop it. How long before people will be comfortable flying to Wuhan again? Bear in mind that China imposed, and strongly enforced, a very quick and, by our standards, draconian, quarantine. Switzerland didn’t even close its border when neighboring Italy shut down. And I suspect it will be much harder to keep Americans shut down.
Dear discussants, as far as I can see it, and as a layperson I can’t see that much, my appeal is to not see the topic individually and personally but collectively. And I ask to act responsible. This means to distinguish between 1. large and 2. small events and a. system-relevant and b. non-system-relevant events. As a consequence, at the moment only small (under 1,000 people) and system-relevant events should be held (2. and a.). Put individual self-interest aside.
In the coming weeks the persons working in the health-care sector will have to concentrate on helping people who are affected by a disease or the virus or who will be at risk (e.g. elderly people). We should not hold events that are not absolutely necessary (1. and b.) and which, if they go wrong, will bind enormous energy of the health care system.
Additional problems are the consequences of poor decisions.
Kind regards, Thomas