Can you guys get in?"
"Only me, the video froze?"
'The link does not work, it gives me Error 403'...
These are just some of the messages that travelled in chats with colleagues between 7 April and today.
The first two days of the digital edition of Watches and Wonders put my relationship with technology to the test. But especially with a web platform that proved, unfortunately, to be lacking on the very front that had been most publicised: that of interactivity. There were many, too many, live appointments that malfunctioned, even though the website simply referred to common videoconferencing applications, of which Zoom was the most used.
This is true of the press conferences, which, limited in duration, had the defect of giving little space to questions, anticipated as they were by videos that could very well have been made available at other times. Videos, in many cases well made, but which did not invite interaction and made the use of tools created for direct communication between people completely useless.
The Swiss industry's tendency to entrench itself in trade fair stands, as pointed out by many enthusiasts who have attended watch fairs in the past, has been perfectly transposed online. Well done to those who, on the other hand, used the time devoted to presentations to freely exchange questions, answers, comments and opinions with journalists. Something that could just as well have been organised with enthusiasts, without chasing after a fictitious exclusivity and, on the contrary, giving a broader scope to the event.
I do not want to insist on the technical problems, I would instead like to emphasise the fact that the first major virtual event in the sector has made everyone realise, even the most sceptical, that the live experience cannot yet be replaced. As far as I am concerned, this has been demonstrated to me by the fact that the watches that I have been able to view in person, on the occasions when the pieces were available in Milan, are the only ones that have aroused an emotion in me. And writing about them has a whole other flavour.
