Dubai Watch Week 2023 – a Retrospective

Of all the events around the world which populate the global watch calendar, there is one which always seems to be the most popular – Dubai Watch Week. Organised by luxury retail group Ahmed Seddiqui & Sons, the first Dubai Watch Week event was held in 2015, with 2500 visitors attending and 14 brands exhibiting.

Since then, it has gone from strength to strength: for their fifth event in 2021, Dubai Watch Week had grown such that it welcomed 16,397 visitors and had 50 brands exhibiting, and whilst official attendance numbers haven’t been announced at the time of writing for this year, I heard mention of upwards of 4,000 visitors each of the 5 days attending Dubai Watch Week 2023 where there were 63 brands that were exhibiting.

Such is the success of Dubai Watch Week, the event even won a Special Jury Prize at the 2021 GPHG Awards!

But what exactly is it about Dubai Watch Week that has led to it winning such acclaim? Well, this year has been a bit of a crazy year behind the scenes here, and so we decided (much like our visit to Geneva in 2019!) that we would make a trip of it – another half watch-tourism half “normal-tourism” trip, and our first ever visit to Dubai (at least outside of DXB!)

Dubai Watch Week 2023

After a 7 hour flight into Dubai on the Wednesday evening we headed straight to the hotel. The event was held at the Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC), and we had booked a hotel a short walk from the venue. It turned out we were the wrong end of the venue but nevertheless it was only a short 15 minute walk from the hotel to the event.

Whilst the event started on the Thursday, we spent the first day being tourists down by the Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest building at an incredible 829.8 metres tall – as well as exploring the Dubai Mall (and, of course, the Cheesecake Factory’s menu).

Rather unexpectedly though, we, and everyone else in Dubai, woke to a surprise on Friday morning in that there had been torrential rain overnight – I even had a safety alert message on my phone received from the Dubai Police!

This rain had caused substantial flooding on the roads in Dubai (given the location these roads aren’t really designed for drainage, so when it does rain it can cause some issues). This led to the announcements from Dubai Watch Week that they were going to have to temporarily suspend the event for safety reasons. It transpired that the rain had even damaged some of the exhibitors outside of the main central area! However, after a colossal effort from the Dubai Watch Week team, the event reopened the same day from 2pm.

Within the first few minutes of arriving, I had spotted the likes of Rexhep Rexhepi, Jean-Claude Biver, Tim Mosso, and Ludovic Ballouard to name but a few. Not bad!

But the best part of all was that the setup of the event means that anyone and everyone is able to walk up and say hello, see watches that you may otherwise never get to see, and better still, try them on.

I have never seen a Genus watch in person before, but their innovative way of displaying time has always appealed to me and I’ve always wanted to learn more. Genus watches don’t have the tradition hands you see on most watches – instead, the hours rotate around the periphery of the dial, with the current hour indicated by a small arrow at the 9 o’clock position. The tens of minutes are shown in the middle of the dial with 2 small circles, the top showing 10, 50 and 60, with the bottom showing 20, 30 and 40. Snaking its way around these two circles in a figure-of-eight motion is what looks like a small chain of segments, where the leading segment (named the ‘Genus’) indicated the tens of minutes, with the exact minute read-off on another smaller sub-dial at the 3 o’clock position.

It was fascinating learning about the brand, their innovative way of displaying time and the movement they have created to do so, and even more so being able to try several of their watches on myself, with a so-called rainbow gem-set version, as well as a few different references where the chain of segments for the tens of minutes had been decorated as an ornate dragon.

Throughout the rest of the week there were a great many other similar watch-based encounters – we were able to try out watches from Greubel Forsey, De Bethune, Biver, Rexhep Rexhepi, Moser, MB&F, Arnold & Son, Laurent Ferrier, Konstantin Chaykin… the list goes on and on and on. Some of the stand-out pieces for me are below:

As is often said, whilst the watches are of course an important facet of this hobby, the most important is by far and away the people. And I think this is where Dubai Watch Week comes into its own.

First and foremost, this is an event that is created for enthusiasts – not businesses.

Dubai Watch Week is free to enter, you only need register your details and scan your pass every time you arrive, and the entire fair is accessible (save a few exhibitors which are appointment only). That means you don’t need to be an industry insider with scheduled appointments to be able to walk up to exhibitors like Jean-Claude Biver, Max Büsser and Rexhep Rexhepi, but Dubai Watch Week also draws the likes of Philippe and Daniella Dufour, Tim Grönefeld, countless YouTube and podcast creators, and even Hollywood actor Aldis Hodge!

There is no commercial or B2B angle, a far cry from the former Baselworld, or Watches & Wonders – it is a totally relaxed vibe, with people chatting to one another whether they have been friends for years or not. It’s like a great leveller for everyone, breaking down “industry silos”.

Thanks to this setup, I was able to speak to Max Büsser and thank him in person for being the first interview I ever did on this site (he said he even remembered our chat, and we spoke about how difficult it can be interviewing someone as he himself has started doing this on recent podcasts), as well as brief chats with Jean-Claude Biver, Christian Ferrier, Philippe Dufour and Stephen McDonnell.

One of the other facets of Dubai Watch Week is the schedule of Horology Forums and activities available, including Masterclass sessions, panel debates, WOSTEP school stand with the chance to try your hand at watchmaking, and even a table football!

The schedule is jam packed, and we attended several Horology Forum discussions and talks over the course of the week. The talk delivered by Stephen McDonnell (the genius behind MB&F’s Legacy Machine Perpetual Calendar and Legacy Machine Sequential Evo Chronograph) deserves special mention.

Stephen McDonnell’s presentation was without doubt one of the absolute highlights of the entire week for me, and I feel so very fortunate to have been in the room to see it in person.

He spoke openly and candidly, but also very accessibly about the details of his craft, describing both the good and bad aspects of his obsession with detail. His passion for and dedication to his work was utterly contagious; you could have heard a pin drop in the room.

It cannot be often that a talk about watches receives a standing ovation… but Stephen deservedly received just that which I think says it all.

To be able to speak to Stephen afterwards and congratulate him on his presentation and speak with him for a few minutes was a brilliant opportunity, and just another example of the chance encounters that Dubai Watch Week makes possible.

I cannot recommend highly enough that you make the time to watch his talk here:

In Summary

Firstly, a huge thank you must go to the Seddiqui family and the Dubai Watch Week team for putting on such a fantastic event. And a huge thank you to the people that we spent our time with during the show and also out and about in Dubai – you know who you are, and we’re incredibly grateful to you for your kindness, friendship and hospitality.

Dubai Watch Week 2023 was a truly fantastic and engaging experience, but also pretty exhausting! Depending on how you choose to spend your day it can be quite an intense experience even in such a relaxed atmosphere, given you’re almost constantly talking to people, on your feet, learning about watches and brands and trying your hardest to soak everything in. I dread to think how tiring it must be from an exhibitor’s perspective, especially for one so much in demand and/or one which has prepared a new watch release to announce at Dubai Watch Week!

There really is something for everyone to enjoy, and it is easy to see why it has become so popular amongst the watch community, drawing visitors from around the globe. It is entirely designed as an event for enthusiasts, with a B2C approach rather than B2B at its core. That said, the accessibility of the show being as great as it is, did lend to it getting quite busy at times, and I think if you wanted to plan your visit to avoid these busy times, you can take into account working and non-working days, and working hours – i.e. attend on working days during working hours as it certainly picks up later afternoon and into the evenings.

After such a fantastic experience I have no doubt that Dubai Watch Week will continue to grow, and I would certainly consider heading back to Dubai for the next event in (presumably) 2025. Who knows, maybe it will need to be in an alternative location as I’m not sure how many more brands and visitors the setup for Dubai Watch Week 2023 could reasonably accommodate!

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• Laurent Ferrier Manufacture Visit
• In Conversation with Max Büsser
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