INDUSTRY MATTERS: Baselworld is dead, long live Basilia!

It’s the great comeback that no-one saw coming. In June of this year, a new watch and jewellery trade fair in Basel was announced — ‘Basilia.’ From the same organisers as the iconic Baselworld show, the event aims to fill a void left behind by the demise of the old event in 2020, in particular appealing to the higher volume end of the market. Roman Imgrüth, CEO of events & exhibitions at co-organiser MCH Group, tells Watch Insider’s Daniel Malins why now is the time for the phoenix to rise from the ashes. 

Watch Insider: Were you or any of your team involved in Baselworld back in the day? 

Roman Imgrüth: No, no-one is left through all the ranks of the organisation, actually. I joined in October 2019 when the last edition was already over. I think it was very clear to me at that time that that product was just not going to survive. Seven years have passed, and we have focused on stabilising the company. And I think that we achieved that despite having Covid as an extra challenge thrown our way. We’ve stabilised and now we have entered into this phase of growth, which is why we’re making investments again in things that we believe have a merit in Switzerland.

WI: Whilst we’re talking about the wider company, how well has Art Basel performed in the years since 2019? Because a strong Art Basel presumably helps with launches like this.

RI: Art Basel remained the Group’s strongest earnings pillar and central growth driver. Since 2019, we have expanded to two new locations, first to Paris and then to Doha, which we did for the first time this year. With Art Basel Qatar, we added a new, profitable event that took our marketplace into an important growth area for the Art market.

WI: So, to bring it back to Basilia — why now? If it’s a great idea, then why wasn’t it a great idea two years ago, for instance?

RI: Of course, that is one of the obvious questions. In terms of the rationale, we took our time. After the closing of that very important product for the company [Baselworld], no one really wanted to engage in opportunities that could arise from that. It was a time to move on, it was a new team, and it was a very painful past, as you can imagine. Then we went through this stabilisation phase and after Covid my team and I started to look at areas of growth, which we do as an exhibition company always from an industry perspective, because we can play wherever there are buyer and seller relationships. So, we asked the questions: “What’s the gap? Is there a gap that Baselworld has left?”

That was the ongoing question and the answer we came up with, as part of the analysis, was that there actually is a gap. When Watches and Wonders started, there was anticipation as to what it was going to become. Was it going to become a Baselworld or was it going to become something different? And it turned out to be something different. It’s a very well-positioned fair that caters to a large part of the market volume, but a small part of actual companies. The broader backbone — the entry segment — hasn’t really found a home. Yes, there’s the Beau-Rivage [hotel in Geneva] and smaller events around, but the main thing is Watches and Wonders. To us, it was really important from the watch side to say: “Okay, we believe that it’s our duty to provide a platform for this part of the market that is also struggling at the moment.”

Then we started to engage with potential customers, with associations, with people close to the industry. And the sentiment that we got is that the gap is real and it hasn’t been served by anyone. We were missing a platform where the broader industry comes together and so this is why we said: “We have something here,” and then we started engaging with Informa Markets, which is the biggest exhibition organiser in the world and has the biggest jewellery portfolio.

And why now? Why not two years ago? We weren’t ready two years ago, in terms of understanding the market and maybe also the market wouldn’t have been ready. 

International buyers, they’re coming to Switzerland for Watches and Wonders and they’re not necessarily going to come to Switzerland twice, or even to Europe twice. Maybe some of them are, but a lot of them aren’t, and that’s sort of what we see now post-launch.

WI: Your dates [8–11 April] deliberately overlap with Watches and Wonders’ [5–11 April]. Are you relying on people to have faith in your show being worth visiting and paying for an extra train or an extra flight, or are there things you’re doing with some VIP buyers to shuttle them from Geneva to Basel?

RI: We’re not relying on people to just check us out because they’re in Switzerland. We have dedicated programmes in place to actively mobilise buyers and bring them to Basel. Some of the buyers attending Geneva will find Basilia relevant to their business — though not all of them will, and that’s fine. At the same time, there’s a whole segment of buyers who aren’t going to Geneva at all, and it’s precisely this group that we’re mobilising specifically for Basilia.

WI: In terms of the scale of the show, where did the number 400 number come from, which is the number of exhibitors that you mentioned you’re aiming for at your press conference? Where do you see this number getting to in five years?

RI: It’s a good question. It’s the result of potential that we assess we can mobilise in the first edition, together with our partner [Informa Markets]. We do exhibitions in many different industries and our partner does them in even more, and there’s always a launch psychology to markets that you’re entering in. Granted, there used to be a watch and jewellery fair here, but the concept was completely different, the scale was completely different, the pricing was completely different. For us, this is a completely new product that we’re launching. Based on the potential that we looked at and assessed, we believe that we can mobilise 400 companies.

In terms of the scale going forward, we believe that within three years we can grow it to maybe 700. But, at the end of the day, the scale, while it is important, is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that we believe this is a place for the upper-medium and mid-market segment for watches and jewellery and there needs to be value for these communities to come, whether that’s through 700, 500, 400, or 200 exhibitors. That’s the way it can then be sustained, because we don’t do this to aim for three years, we do it to go for 10, 15 years — that’s always the perspective we have.

WI: How long-term is your plan? I’d have thought you’d have to burn through some cash to get relevance and some market share for the first two or three years. Is that loosely accurate, or do you want to make money in year one?

RI: From a general perspective when it comes to exhibitions, the psychology is always the same. If you have a big enough buyer and seller group that you believe has a need to connect then your launch cycle — depending on the industry, the traction and the timing — will typically commercially make sense after one or two years. I’m not saying that it has to be super profitable and it still depends on how quickly you can ramp up, and that is now something that we’re curious to see.

The market response from the initial launch was very positive, and we’ve done launches where it was more difficult in the first few weeks to talk to customers. But, from an overall perspective in the exhibition industry, if you do a new launch you typically need a ramp up of one or two editions. Now, of course, if you have some heritage as we have here then maybe it will be a bit quicker, but what’s important is that we need to invest in the product, making sure that the buyers are there and making sure that the concept is there, which typically takes one or two editions.

There are different ways to do it, which is why we focus on a core that we have now and we are very diligent in terms of how we build that up. Of course, this could go into something more, which then needs more resources and more investments and so forth. But in exhibitions, I think that a prudent and step-by-step approach is always better because you essentially only know once you do it, and that’s the risk you have to take. So, we see a clear need now in a certain segment and that’s what we’re focusing on and we’re taking prudent actions in order to make that work, which is why the scale that we announce is a good scale, but nothing compared to Watches and Wonders or what the old fair [Baselworld] looked like.

WI: How big would Basilia have to get before you spill over into the iconic Hall 1?

RI: I’m born and raised in Basel and my great-grandfather was an engineer that built Hall 2, so I have a different perspective. I actually believe Hall 2 is the iconic hall that we have, but that remains to be debated! Hall 2 has 45,000 gross square metres over three floors, so that’s how big it would have to be. We really believe that the current concept is perfect for Hall 2. Art Basel is also in that Hall 2, and the reason is that everything radiates from the middle out, and so you have this round visitor flow which you cannot really replicate if you are in a more box shape fair. That really fits our concept, which is why we decided to go in Hall 2.

WI: There were many issues with Baselworld, one of which was the price gouging that goes on in the town, which was out of your control. But is there anything you can do to stop that? More generally, how do you address the visitor experience, which was also fairly dreadful at Baselworld?

RI: This is a topic we take very seriously, and one where the city itself, particularly hoteliers and restaurateurs, has also drawn important lessons from that period, given how significant Baselworld once was to their annual revenues.

We can point to Art Basel as a clear precedent. While we cannot set prices in the city, we can establish clear principles with our hospitality partners around fair conduct during our events, and we have done exactly that for Art Basel. Those principles are respected, and, as a result, this is simply not an issue we have to manage anymore. We intend to apply the same approach and the same standard to Basilia.

In terms of the visitor experience, I think even there Basel has learned. Ever since Baselworld went away, we had some key moments — we hosted the Eurovision Song Contest, where we had half a million people and my team was in charge of everything that happened in the city together with the tourism agency. 

I can assure you that visitors will find a genuine diversity of food and dining options at the new fair. At the end of the day, while we are exhibition organisers, we see ourselves equally as hosts, and that role matters just as much as the organisation itself. Basel takes pride in being a great host, and this is something we hear consistently from people in the industry: Basel remains a fond memory for many, and visitors continue to share which bars and restaurants they came to love here.

We’re proud of that legacy, and we welcome this opportunity to show that we’ve missed our guests and that the experience will be different this time.

WI: I understand that with media and with events, you can have all the best ideas in the world, but you need a few people to say yes and then you get momentum. So, once you get X brand in, then Y brand says yes, and so on. Where are you on that journey from a timeline perspective? How quickly do these things tend to happen?

RI: Pre-launch and post-launch we’ve had a lot of conversations already and there’s lots of interest. I don’t know if this is so well known but on the day we launched there was also a show in Hong Kong, which our partner organises, so we already secured a lot of interest. There’s a lot of demand from that side, and even here there’s a lot of demand. Now, it’s a question of having them convert, but the majority we will convert in fall. That’s what I would expect for a fair that happens in April. Then, depending on how far we are, there may be a second rush just because of people knowing: “Okay, well this brand is there and that brand is there.”

This article was first published in the July 2026 edition of Watch Insider.