New York Watch Week 2026 – Has It Gotten Too Big? – Episode 98

0:00 The wind-up guys could certainly charge for tickets or require people to pre-register, but that changes the complexion of the event. So they're sort of damned if they do, damned if they don't. This is Open Work, a look inside the watch industry. It's a podcast from Collective Horology. I'm Gabe Riley, co-founder of Collective, and I'm Blake Bettner. Blake Bettner. Well, guess what, Blake? In case you didn't know, Collective Horology is an independent watch retailer based in Ventura, California, but today we're in New York City.

0:31 More about that in a moment. We carry a wide range of independent brands including Czapek, Viers, Resonance, Singer Reimagined, Armin Strom, Ming, and more. My god, that was a mouthful. To learn more about us and check out our available inventory, visit collectivehorology.com, or you could just come see us— or you could have just come see us, I guess, here at Watch Time New York. That's because we are at Gotham Hall in New York City, in Manhattan, in Midtown here. I guess— are we in the— is this the garment district?

1:03 Are Are we Herald Square, Koreatown adjacent? I think all of those— yeah, there's a, there's a lot of gray areas between some of these zones. Who knows where, where exactly we are, but we're, we're here obviously for Watch Time, but there's so much more going on in New York this week. We've been at Watch Time.

1:22 All the brands I mentioned are here at Watch Time with us, and we've been specifically at the Ming booth. We've been staffing the Ming booth, and that has been incredible. I've mostly been chained here to Gotham Hall, though I've done a few other things which we can, we can chat about. But Blake, you are the man on the ground in Manhattan. You have been everywhere this week. Yeah, I've tried to get in as much as I could for the most part. And the one thing that I didn't make, I was able to kind of chat with a few people that were a part of it. So I do feel like I've got a pretty good sense. And of course, this has been a part of New York now, this New York Watch Week, for quite a while now. I mean, you know, back I remember, you know, wind-ups in Chelsea Market

2:02 Yeah. Which, which were great. And, and watch time was maybe the weekend after or 2 weekends after. And eventually they got kind of synced up. Yeah. And then it really kind of allowed it to blossom, which I think was a good thing for, for everybody, honestly, because now, you know, now it's like an easy thing to— you meet a lot of people that come in from all over the country, all over the world, and, and are able to kind of make it into all of these events, which is, which is fantastic for you know, for all of them, because then they all get to kind of reap the benefits of the whole kind of watch community descending upon, upon the city to make the most of it. So, but yeah, Indies NYC, I was there. Check.

2:40 Yeah, the— let's see, Wind Up, I was on a panel there with the Gray— with our friends at the Gray NATO. And, and of course, here at Watch Time in Gotham Hall has been great. Don't forget our The Independent event that we did together with Jean Rousseau, which is different. That was a different kind of event. We'll talk about that and why, why we did it. But yes, there's another event, and if you haven't heard of it, that's okay. There, there, there's a reason why I think we decided the week didn't need yet another watch event or another watch event kind of geared toward collectors. But the thing that I'm noticing— and tell me, tell me what, what you're seeing— and again, like, I'm mostly chained to

3:20 the Ming booth here, which is fun, so I'm meeting a lot of people. I remember the first time I we did Wind Up years ago, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, together with Fears. It seemed like most of— and it was in a different venue then, really cool venue downtown. It seemed like— yeah, the Carriage House. That place was awesome. It seemed then that most of the people who were coming, there were people who came from out of town, but by and large it was people sort of from the greater New York metro area, the tri-state area. Now, odds are when I meet someone at the booth here, they're likely from out of town. The number of people just staying in the, in the hotel I'm staying in who are here for the event is absolutely wild. So it

4:08 really has become this, this national event, which I think, one, is great for the event itself, but two, it kind of aligns with this bigger thing going on within the watch industry. I was talking to a couple of brands and media folks who were not from the US, so people from outside the US who were talking about the growing reliance of the Swiss watch industry in particular on the American market. And we've talked a great deal on the podcast in the past about the challenges that other regions of the world are having, whether Europe is generally rocky or flat or Asia is way down. There are other signs of growth in India and Latin America, but there have been so many headwinds in the major watch

4:54 markets, yet the US consumer shows no sign of slowing down, and the brands have really trained and focused their attention on the American market. And that's happening coincident with more and more collectors showing up in New York, which is turning this thing into an absolutely insane event in terms of its scale. In addition to the fairs we mentioned, there's also another event called The Hype, which has grown year over year. So a number of brands we carry are there.

5:25 Holth& Rick's, Artory Billard, Carl Suchey is there, a bunch, bunch of other brands. So the number of brands showing up and events growing, it's not just Wind-Up when the growth of that has been, has been insane. It's, it's really kind of wild. But there's a, there's a downside, isn't there, to some of that, to some of that growth? Yeah. So you mentioned to me, and I experience it myself, the line for Wind-Up, at least when I went on, on Friday day was around the block. It had fully snaked entirely around the block. And anyone who's been in Midtown Manhattan knows not, not how, just how long the blocks are going east to west.

6:07 These are long blocks and the, the line snaked all the way around the block back onto itself. Yeah. You know, I think it's obviously a side effect of, of growth and, you know, building codes, fire codes, are what they are and, you know, unstoppable force meets immovable objects, you know, something like that. And, and you end up with something like this. So, yeah, I think it obviously kind of speaks to the growing and changing complexion of, of the watch enthusiast space as a whole. You know, this is no longer kind of like a small group of nerds getting together to geek out on watches.

6:40 And, you know, Windup, I think, has turned into a very diverse event. And I think they've got things programming going on in there that, you know, it's very different from, you know, if you've only been to like, you know, the old Chelsea Market or even the Carriage House. You know, they've got like eBay in there doing like live auctions on a screen. You know, there's a lot of like high-energy things kind of going on. Live auction area. Yeah, we were waiting to get up on the, on the stage. The eBay people were up there. They had like watches and a camera on it and somebody was bidding like live and, you know, a lot of yelling and all this. Wow. It was like a real, real scene in there. And, you know,

7:17 even when we were up on, on the panel itself, there's a whole general kind of motion. So you can just tell it's not like a singular thing. You know, there's multiple floors, there's different areas of the floor. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You could get turned around in there pretty easily. Definitely. And it's, so it's, there's all kinds of different things for people to get engaged in, you know, which, which, you know, some people might prefer the old way. Some people might like that, you know, there's certainly kind of like a new generation of consumers coming into this though, that they're, that they're able to cater to. So. You know, which, which they've obviously done a great job of doing given, given the lines

7:50 outside. Yeah. You got to imagine, like, as long— and I heard this from a few people— as long as that line was, the people who were in that line waited in that line and eventually got in, presumably. But there are also a large number of people I spoke to who just didn't go and were like, well, I'll wait till Saturday or maybe Sunday when it dies down. So you have to imagine, you know, there's the line and then there's the people who decided they didn't want to wait in the line. So it's, it's, it ends up being quite a lot of people.

8:16 And I, and unfortunately, I know a number of people who decided to skip out. And even more unfortunately, I've seen a lot of complaining online about, about the line and the wait to get in. And I get, I get that, like, this is a hobby, this is supposed to be fun. We don't want to have to wait in line. No one likes gatekeeping of any variety in, in the hobby. On the other hand, I'm, you know, I'm like, one, great for, for Worn and Wound. I mean, they built this thing from nothing into what is now really a national watch event, not just because it happens across the country, but the New York event in particular really is this national and almost global event. It's, you know, I think they, they say it's the largest watch fair

8:59 in, in the world, and good for them. That's remarkable. They built it from nothing, and they had the vision, and they put in the work. To do it, and it's been often imitated, but nothing has been done at that scale. So they certainly deserve all of the success, and they make a point of having it be free and completely open to the public. You know, we're at Watch Time, and Watch Time has tickets, so you don't have to wait in a line that snakes around the block.

9:29 They control the capacity in here in a way that doesn't happen at— and you have to pay for the privilege, and people you know, can make a decision about whether or not that's worth it to them. But the wind-up guys could certainly charge for tickets or require people to preregister, but that changes the complexion of the event. So they're sort of damned if they do, damned if, if, if they don't. Yeah, it's a tough spot for them to be in.

9:56 And, you know, I, I personally know, you know, how, how much they want to keep it a free and open thing and how important that is to them. You know, I mean, you mentioned how much it would change the complexion. It would. And I would say that the other things that they've done have also changed, like, you know, know, not to keep going back to the Chelsea Market days of Wind-Up, but if you compare that to what it is now, it's, it's, it itself is also because of those changes are, you know, it's a very different feeling inside of there. You know, obviously Chelsea Market has this kind of charm and character to it. Yeah. Carriage House did as well. Yes. You know, and getting bigger, it's just kind of,

10:31 you know, well, where, where are you going to make the compromises? And of course you need a bigger space. So maybe it doesn't have as much character as some of those other places, but it can fit all these other things. And, you know, one thing that I heard a lot of people say to me over there was, you know, when I would ask people about what are you seeing over there that's interesting, what are the watches that you're excited about, what are the brands that you wanted to go see, a lot of the people kind of had this response of, well, I mostly just go to see the people, to like meet my friends there and talk to people that I know. Maybe some of those people are at the brands, or maybe they're just a group of enthusiasts there. And so it was kind

11:04 of hard to kind of tease out like, well, what, you know, what watches are you excited about? And I know the complexion of brands has also changed over at Wind-Up a little bit. And I didn't get a chance to walk the full kind of floor, you know. And I realized like I did the same thing. Like I went and said hi to Cat Shoulders and people that I know at the brands and didn't really like, oh, I have to go see that watch or this. Well, I made, I made my rounds at Windup.

11:29 I saw— what did you see that had you excited? Some cool— so 2 things. One is it was mostly a social hour for sure, but I was blown away by the, I mean, the The Worn& Wound guys and the team there, the events team has just year after year upped the production value of and the way they execute it. It's really, it's very impressive.

11:52 We do an event ourselves, Open House, and I know just how hard it is to execute this thing. And it's, it's not at the scale that Windup is at. And I was blown away. There were some very creative booths there. You know, I think you close your eyes and you imagine Windup and you think back to Chelsea Market or the Carriage House or some of the other cities where they execute. And it's like, you know, you imagine like the stand with the sign behind it and the brand with watches. I mean, the build-out— you mentioned Kat Shoulders, who's now at Brew— the build-out for the Brew space was so cool and so creative.

12:27 It was all New York City taxicab themed. That was one of the cooler watches I saw there, the Brewmetrics sort of taxicab edition for the fair. But they had sort of built out this whole space with these vitrines that were themed in taxicab colors, and it was really well, really well executed. Bulova, their booth sort of recreated the inside of a subway car, which was really kind of cool because it's, you know, an American brand originally, New York-based brand. And there were some, some really impressive build-outs that made me feel like I was almost at like Watches and Wonders in terms of like, you know, the level of production value that it was, that it was approaching. Certainly eclipses anything you see at like Geneva Watch

13:09 Days. So that, that was really really interesting in terms of the watches I saw. I loved the blue, the Brewmetric, the taxicab edition. I bought my wife— yeah, you can't leave Wind-Up without buying something— bought my wife a Brewmetric. The surprise will— it's a surprise now, but that will be revealed, of course. I got an ad from, from Nick at Ad Patina, always a wonderful time to see him. Yeah, I was, I was really impressed with a few things. I saw an Arken Alterum for the first time. I was gonna say, we got to give Ken a shout-out. And Arken, I always love seeing their watches in he is a stand-up human being. Yeah, good dude. What was your— what was your impression?

13:47 I had never— I'd only ever seen them online for whatever reason. I don't know anyone who owns one, and I've never gone hands-on. I was blown away with the originality of the design, the ergonomics of the— of the case, and the quality of the watch for its price. I was— I was You know, there's sometimes these watches that you hear about that have like lore in collector circles, and you kind of wonder, will they be as good? And, you know, don't meet your heroes kind of thing. I was just— I was, I was blown away. I was wowed by the, the execution on those. I saw the guys from Monta. They've been there from the beginning.

14:27 They're still there. The new Triumph I saw, so it's their field watch. I was really impressed that their stuff is always good in hand and well-made. Finish of their watches has always been pretty top-notch. Yeah, shout out to the St. Louis guys there from Manta. Yeah, I saw a bunch of stuff. I saw the Formex guys and I saw their integrated bracelet sports watch with the micro rotor movement. I mean, the thing— the case is really ergonomic, the bracelet is great, it's incredibly thin.

14:57 It's just an impressive achievement for Formex or for anyone. Really well-executed watch. So that was a highlight as well. But there were a lot of cool watches. But yeah, I was mostly just distracted by, by saying, by saying hi to people. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, that's a good summation. And those are a lot of the watches that I, you know, have been fond of over the years. And obviously Arken has kind of a devoted following online, and rightfully so, because the watches, I think, as you mentioned, kind of, they don't disappoint in person. I'd also shout out the titanium GSAR from Marathon.

15:30 Oh cool, it was pretty cool. They were a fellow Harrison from Marathon was on the stage with us talking about titanium, the history of titanium watches and all that kind of stuff. There'll be a Grenado episode with, with, with, with the full talk on it. But he was releasing a titanium version of their GSAR that will be available later this year. And, you know, those are kind of big, chunky, thick watches. So in titanium, it like kind of made a big difference, which I like. But it was, it was not to get too down in the weeds here, but it was kind of like had this polished finish. So it looked a little bit like steel, which so it was a little weird to kind of hold it and it feels like titanium. But oh, interesting. It's kind of like this

16:03 weird dichotomy. And it got me thinking of like, you know, one of the things that I like about titanium is that kind of like usually it's like this bead blasted finish or satin finish and it's got this like kind of gray warm tone. And I like that. There's some brands that do a stealthy titanium watch, like Speak Marin. All of— if it's not precious metal, all of their watches are in titanium, grade 5 titanium.

16:25 But they're— though they're finished to almost look like a steel watch. You wouldn't know it's titanium unless you really checked the caseback or, or knew what, knew what you were handling. Yeah, which is a smart move because of the case and lug structure that was very important for him and very like, it was like a cornerstone of the brand, right?

16:43 That Piccadilly case, which is, you know, quite tall and quite substantial. Yeah, that's a good point. Like, it's, it's, it's much easier on the wrist in titanium. It was a smart move. But you can do like it, that's always such like a trip because there are so many interesting things you can do with titanium in terms of finishing and even getting some different kind color out of it, like what Resonance does with black titanium, or Singer has done with the Caballero, where they get this almost like charcoal color out of the titanium when they bead blast it, they media blast it. So, and, or a black polish. I mean, it's, it's, it— yeah.

17:20 So listen to the, the Gray NATO episode on titanium, titanium watches. Let's, let's shift gears. Let's go a day before to Indies NYC, because there are a lot of events that have popped up in New York outside of watch shows, whether it's collector get-togethers or a Red Bar Global meetup or boutiques having events or the GPHG doing a thing or whatever it might be. FHH this year showed up and did a series of panels, but Indies NYC has carved out a real space for itself. I think they're in their second or maybe it's their third year now doing it. Yeah, and it's just a single day. Yeah, this was the event that probably had the most excitement, like walking into the room. This was Thursday. This was Thursday. Yep. And it

18:10 really had, you know, a vibe, a feeling, or something like it was— there was a real excitement about a lot of the watches that were, that were there and the people that were there. And I saw some really cool stuff there and stuff that I, that I didn't know. You know, I mean, that's, that's a spot where I walk in and I see, you know, a handful of people that I know right away. I'm like, what do I need to see here? And and, you know, they all go see this guy, go see that.

18:31 And this is the place you see the freaky unusual watches. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And, and of course, yeah, I put a story up that, that Holtenrich's watch with that gnarly kind of rubber and steel bracelet— like, yeah, the armadillo bracelet. It's wild. That's what I'm calling it. It was like, it's awesome. The Oakley sunglasses from the '90s, which, which was, which was great. Stéphane Pierre, I believe, was, was, was another one that I was really taken by and impressed. Wako was there with his brand, Lagare, which which— so we saw the— we ran into him in Geneva and saw one at dinner, which I was really impressed by. And he is— so I got to see the other version here, which has the kind of traditional— the

19:13 striping that was on the pocket watch that the design itself was based on. I'm still just massively impressed with those watches as well. Let's see here, what else was there? And then of course, like, the watches that you see on the wrists of all the people are really— yeah, I bet that was the place for wristwatch spotting. Yeah, your stories were replete with cool watches. That bracelet is not like— I've seen the watch and I've even hung out with him. He's a great guy as well. It's like a gem-set watch. Well, it's the bracelet itself, which has these— which are kind of like these like octagonal pieces. Yeah, I'm trying to think of the name of that board game where you have all the— they're like kind of octagons that

19:50 fit together and you're taking over territory. Like, it looks like that, but it all— they all kind of fit together in this. Wow. And it articulates in a really beautiful way. So that was like a huge treat to see. But that was the one— I mean, there was a lot of— it was packed and you know, that thing has some legs. That was in a very unassuming location.

20:09 And yeah, so where exactly is it? Well, they wanted to keep it under— like, they explicitly said don't tell anyone. It's like Rolly Fest. Well, yes, they're adding to the lore. Yeah, kind of in the Flatiron area is where it was. And yeah, all the watches that I saw there though were absolutely fantastic. And that was one, you know, if I could go back and get there earlier before it got like really filled up, I would definitely do that. But yeah, fantastic little event. I look forward to seeing how that even evolves and grows. Hey, it's Gabe, and no, I'm not gonna ask you to buy a watch. Instead, if you're enjoying this podcast, please take a moment, if you would, to give it a rate and review on your podcast player of choice.

20:49 I know we ask for this all the time, but there's a reason we do. You know, it's pretty incredible. Open Work has quickly risen to become one of the top watch podcasts in terms of downloads, but we still trail many other watch podcasts in terms of ratings and reviews on places like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So if you take a moment to give us a rating and review, we would really appreciate it. It goes a long way to helping other people who would enjoy this content find it themselves. Back to the show. This is a great— I mean, some of the brands out here, many I don't know and love, which is the one reason I'd love to go check out. So in transparency, they don't allow retailers to

21:32 go This is why they sent me. They try to keep it either collectors only, or they do open it to media and creators. So you were able to go under those auspices. You were the Trojan horse. But yes, I mean, Artur Akhmayev, so he's an incredible watchmaker and engraver. He works with Josh Shapiro. He's got his own brand. I mean, the— what he does is mental. I saw him yesterday as well, and yeah, absolutely fantastic stuff. Stuff. Yes, Felipe Piccola, Garrick, Lagar, as you mentioned, Marco Tedeschi, who does absolutely wild chronographs, tourbillons. We've spoken about him. Holzenrich, Sarpaneva.

22:12 Yeah, man. Wow. Taos, they do incredible work with enameling and gem setting, things like that. Oh, Zeitwinkel. So a really fascinating lineup of interesting up-and-coming and some established independent brands. If you're independent curious, they've sort of carved out this event as the thing to do. So, so who's in the room there and how does the complexion of the folks, let's say, at Indies NYC different from people who are coming out to something like, you know, Watch Time? There's probably a little more overlap with some of the people at Watch Time. You know, when I walked into the Indies thing, though, I knew a lot of the people there and they were kind of like industry— like Ben Clymer walked in while I

22:53 was there. Oh, who's who? Waitlisted, you know, James and in the cadre of kind of just independent collectors, from like drop names, but like, like, like people that you would recognize on Instagram. People who are sort of hardcore into the indie world. Yes. The same people you might see walking around the streets of Geneva during Geneva Watch Days kind of thing. Yes.

23:15 Like, or maybe they're because they were invited by a brand or something like that. Got it. Interesting. Along the journey, I'm trying to think of the Instagram names of the people. Yeah. You know, people of that. So all lovely people and well-known collectors in, in the, in the space here in New York in particular. So, so that was great to see. And obviously some of the media creators that you know and love on, on Instagram or TikToks or whatever you follow, you know, you see those kind of people there running around with their cameras and then doing their interviews and stuff like that. So yeah, it was a vibe in there for sure. Interesting.

23:49 Now, now we did an event as well. So of course we participated here at Watch Time, but we did an event on Friday. I didn't make it because I was setting up for, for Watch Time. I remember Ming, but you were there, Asher was there, Ellie. Was Jeff there? He might've been with— Jeff was there. Yeah. Okay. So we did an event called The Independence with Collective and Jean Rousseau. So it was hosted by Jean Rousseau at their atelier here in Manhattan. And we brought a handful of our brands. So we had folks from Armin Strom, Chapek, Singer Reimagined, Resonance, and maybe a couple other brands.

24:26 But the purpose of this event— so, you know, we've struggled for years, to be candid, about what to do in New York. And it's complicated in a couple of ways. One, behind the scenes, there's a lot of territoriality with retailers and brands. And obviously, in some cases, our territory is sort of defined by where we are geographically in the LA area, Southern California. Some cases, we may be the only retailer for a brand in the United States or even in the world in some cases.

24:57 But a lot of the brands we carry have retailers in New York. So we have to, not just out of any sort of rules of engagement, but also out of deference. We wouldn't want a retailer coming to Los Angeles and entertaining clients here and showing them watches from, from our brand. So there's an understanding among retailers that we need to sort of respect one another's territory when, when that makes sense.

25:24 You know, a lot of times that's, that's surprising to collectors. We get asked all the time like, hey, why don't you guys come to work, you know, whatever city we're in and do an event with our watch club or what group of collectors, or, you know, do your own event here? And well, the reason is there's a lot of issues around, around territory, so we had to be mindful of that. So what we did was an event where we didn't bring collectors together, because the other thing, and the bigger issue really, just practically speaking, is there are enough watch events in New York this week.

25:55 Every boutique is doing something, every collector group is having a happy hour, brands are taking clients out to dinner dinners and doing events and all that sort of stuff. And like trying to compete with that is absolutely insane. So we put an event together that was actually geared toward the media. So we had journalists there, we had stylists there, we had content creators there. We had people from, for instance, CBS News. We had people from People magazine.

26:22 We had stylists who styled celebrities and we had watch content creators. Miss GMT, Watch Miss GMT was there. So it— the idea was to get independent watches in front of media who are here in New York who don't normally get to see this kind of thing. And, you know, that benefits the brands. And even if you're a retailer here in New York, you're probably glad that even if you carry one of the brands that was at this event we put on, they're putting their stuff in front of stylists and reporters and media and things like that. And so the spotlight was really on the brands though. Themselves. And a huge thank you to Jean Rousseau. Of course, we are a Jean Rousseau retailer. We have a partnership with them. They opened up their space to us, which was incredibly

27:12 gracious. And of course, they do— it's not just a store or retail store for straps. Like, they make the straps there. And so people were able to see not just the watchmaking from the brands who showed up and participated, but the craftsmanship of Jean Rousseau strap making and what and how that all works. So The idea was to get a different group of media into the room to see independent watches rather than trying to do yet another watch event. And I'm curious from your perspective, you were, you were there. How do you think that sort of format works? Is that, is that different enough for Watch Week? Yeah, I love this and I love the opportunity or seeing people get the opportunity to experience a watch like a Ressence, a Czapek,

27:56 an Armin Strom for the first time. And these are people who maybe don't think about watches a whole ton in their like day-to-day life, but they're there, they get to come across something like this that, you know, must be like, you know, if you're used to seeing regular cars, like coming across spaceship or something and like, what's, what's going on here? So to see them kind of be able to discover these things for the first time, it's always a huge treat. And, you know, Benoit showed up and got to talk to people about the new Type 10 that they just introduced coming into this, into the show. There's a lot of really— there was a lot of really awesome some watches there actually that were really fun. Armin Strom had the Tribute 3 with

28:32 the full gold plate, which is fantastic. Some of these people like really connect with some of the watches and pick them up and get to speak to the brands directly about them, I think was fantastic and really kind of put some context around this is what makes, you know, a small sample of what makes New York Watch Week so special kind of at the core.

28:50 But yes, there's a community, there's the big events, there's the cocktails, there's all this kind of stuff. But like, this is the— this is what's going on underneath all of that. And to see these people kind of be able put all that together, like, to me, that's the— that spoke volumes. And I liked that it was in the middle of the day, so it wasn't, you know, some hoity-toity evening, like, kind of thing. It was really just kind of a personal thing. And hey, this is what it's all about at the end of the day. So yeah, I thought it was fantastic. All right. Well, cool. Thank you. And, you know, the idea was to do something different and not have the usual suspects.

29:21 So huge thank you to Jean Rousseau. And thanks, of course, to Armstrong, Chapek, Ming, Resonance, and Singer Reimagined. For participating and bringing the horological heat. Horological heat, yeah. So I guess, you know, in transparency, we can talk about just what's gone on with, with Collective here. Obviously, we were at the Watch Time, at the Ming booth.

29:43 We did this event, the Independence, with Jean Rousseau. We've also done a lot of client entertainment. We have clients who come from the LA area, from California, all across the country here, and this is one of the few times of year we get to see, to see them. In some cases, it's the the only time of year we get to see some of our clients in person as well.

30:04 So we spend time with them. We did a dinner on Friday night after the opening party for Watch Time with a small group of clients who were here in town visiting, and it was great to catch up with them. It's become something of a tradition, and in that sense, like, these are clients that we only get to sort of break bread with once a year, so it's a nice tradition to be able to do that. We're also running around prepping for events, shooting content. You're making sure you're getting everywhere, seeing everything. You recorded a video actually with, with Benoit from Resonance at, at the Independence event that we did. We're recording this podcast. So we are just going on all gears here. And, uh, you know, when we,

30:52 when we pack things up tonight, we'll do a, we'll do a final dinner with the Ming team and then we're, we're on our way back to California or in your case, back across the Brooklyn Bridge. And then that'll be it. But it is just all gas, no brakes for 5 days. Yeah. A lot of cool stuff in the works, you know, so keep an eye on YouTube, social media, all that kind of stuff for all that as it comes out. And yeah, I think there's a lot to kind of capture and try and give a sense of what it's like to be in the room and to talk to these people.

31:24 If you weren't able to make the trip, you know, hopefully we can provide a little bit of that, what it felt like be here. Yeah, yeah, you're— Blake is gonna put together a bunch of content that, you know, showing off some of the watches both on people's wrists and some of the unusual horological treats we saw. There, there were many. I guess the final question I have here about this is organically we've seen this thing grow just year after year after year, and we see the importance of the American watch market grow year after year. And so consumers or collectors are focusing on New York Watch Week as a thing.

32:00 The brands are investing and expanding their investments. Wind-Up has grown and moved venues. I guess the question is, does the— does this event need to scale up? Because it feels like with Watch Time, which itself is constrained not just because it's a ticketed event, but it's in Gotham Hall and there's literally nowhere else to put brands. And Wind-Up, I don't know if they plan to move venues but they may need to.

32:29 Is this the sort of thing where it's like, isn't there that thing with like goldfish or plants where they'll only get as big as like the bowl or the pot that they're in kind of thing? Like, is there an opportunity for this thing to go even, even bigger? Yeah, I think it's, it's, it's, it's really kind of striking the balance that we talked about before. You know, on, on my last podcast, we were talking about the Comic-Con and the Javits Center and— Yeah, the Javits Center. And, you know, kind of pondering like, I don't know, Would that be, that would just feel a little, I don't know, something would change. Like we would lose something if we all just kind of like jammed into the Javits and had

33:06 the, like a convention hall or something like that. Yeah, I like the Gotham Hall has its own personality and it's really interesting to be in here. And you know, there's just kind of a hard limit on how many brands can be in here. And they've obviously hit that. Now because of that, it's, that's why we have like the Indies thing and these other events, kind of satellite events that are popping up because those are brands that, you know, for one reason or other just didn't have a space here or weren't able to exhibit here, so they've got their own thing going on. And, you know, I think it's either going to— the future of it will be more of that if they're going to hang on to these kinds of spaces. So I think we have to kind of ask ourselves, how important is

33:44 it for, for us to have these events in this kind of a space? Or is that secondary? Does that not matter at all? I think you're right. No, it would lose its charm because if I think about Watches and Wonders versus Geneva Watch Days— Watches and Wonders, the official event is at the Palexpo. There are satellite events and things like that, but The reason Geneva Watch Days has so much more charm and is more fun, for a whole bunch of reasons— part of it is who shows up, it's more collector-focused— is because it's spread out, it's less formal. And so maybe the more organic thing is, is part of it. Maybe it does lose its soul if it, if it moves to the Javits Center or Madison Square Garden or wherever it might be. Yeah,

34:22 I would prefer it in the garden if they were going to go that route. Yeah, it's good enough for Taylor, it's good enough for us. Exactly. It's, it's, you know, another part of it, you know, selfishly, it's just kind of a pain in the rear to get over to the, to the Javits and that part of town and all that kind of stuff. I kind of like when the events are just kind of like organically woven into the city in areas that we would all be kind of like hanging out and having dinner and doing stuff like that in anyways. That kind of makes it fun for me.

34:46 You know, I think Geneva Watch Days, it's getting to be something similar because there are all these other events that are happening kind of in Geneva proper, in like the city proper, you know, and thinking back to Basel, you know, I really enjoyed kind of just being in that town and wandering around the town, but the event itself was in this gigantic hall area that was kind of bereft of personality in really any really kind of like meaningful way. So it was, it was kind of its own separate thing. I don't know. I think there's something unique about this being, as I said, kind of woven into New York City in the areas that we would all be hanging out in. So I like the idea of, look, we, it's important for us to have it in these kinds of spaces.

35:29 There is a cap, yes. And once it hits that, then another potential satellite will, and it will kind of further focus like what certain enthusiasts, certain brands, certain, all that kind of like we've already seen online, kind of a segmentation of all this stuff. I think we'll just kind of see a physical manifestation of that and how events are placed around here. Well, there's another solution which isn't just a bigger venue, it's technology. And I met, I know a really sweet guy named Reed who is a guy who works in the tech industry and he's now built an app for New York Watch Week. So nywatchweek.app is really cool. It basically organizes all of the shows. So he has every sort of show or event

36:17 indexed, the days and the hours of the events indexed. All of the brands participating indexed. And you can not only see on any given day what's happening, you know, in New York and what all of— what all the events are, what time they are, where they are, that and the brands participating. You can even build your own calendar. You can even go in if you've been to one of the events and rate like the brands you've seen, the watches you liked, and all that sort of stuff so that other people can get the feedback on it. It's really cool, really impressive. He's, he's open to feedback. So obviously it's too late to take advantage of the nywatchweek.app app this year, but I'm sure it will be back next year. And it's actually a

37:00 fantastic tool for making sure, one, you have your arms around everything that's happening. And 2, at just a couple of taps or even a search, you can figure out if there's a brand you're curious about is even here, where exactly they even are. So this makes it a lot easier to navigate the week. So shout out. So shout out to Reed. Very cool, very impressive, and very helpful, and is the kind of thing that can help this event scale as it remains decentralized and maybe continues to be spread across, across venues and things like that.

37:35 There's a Nomos open house happening right now. Yeah. Antiquorum New York live auction. Did you know? I had no idea. Yeah, exactly. This is really, it's comprehensive. The only thing he needs are wait times for windup. Yeah. You know, like, like at Disney World or whatever, if you can see what the wait time is to get in, that would be pretty sweet. So Reed asked for some feedback.

37:58 You can— he has his Instagram handle on the app. You can DM him there. But yeah, maybe, maybe that the wind-up wait time number would be helpful. Yeah. And you can also type that newyorkwatchweek.app into a browser. Yeah. And it will just come up in a browser. That's what I just did. As you said, I'd never heard of this before.

38:16 This is handy. I wish this had been around. So check it out. And I'm sure it'll still be up when this podcast releases. But nywatchweek.app. Shout out Reed, and, and thank you. Tremendous, tremendous service. So with that, Blake, should we leave it there? We can let— do you want to do— is there any watches that you want to talk about?

38:36 Anything that stuck out to you? Well, you're gonna do— you'll do a— you'll do a watches recap of some of the coolest watches. I think Asher and I will, will do one as well. We'll talk about some of the killer stuff we saw, the hardware itself. Yeah, and I would also add that, you know, standing behind the booth there when I jump in to fill in a little bit.

38:54 I love it when somebody comes and they take their watch off and they set it there. Like, oh wow, that's good. And you see all kinds of watches, from Anordaines to Patek Philippes and literally everything in between. And then, you know, you ask them about it, like, oh, you check it? And then that opens up like this whole great conversation about who they are, what they're collecting, all that. That's like my favorite part. Easiest social lubricant.

39:14 Well, tell me about your watch. It's great. And I, I'm, I'm not a salesman. I'm, you know, I I don't know about anything in that world. So, but I loved kind of just chatting about watches and chatting with people about their watches. So that's, that's been, you know, probably the highlight of my, of my weekend is getting to do that. Yep. When in doubt, we can always talk about the watches. Hear, hear.

39:34 All right, well, thank you so much for listening and for your watches. We love seeing them. This, of course, is Open Work. It is a production of Collective Horology. You can find us online at collectivehorology.com. Horology.com, where you'll find dozens of independent watches. Maybe even the watch on your wrist came from collectivehorology.com.

39:54 So if you'd like to get in touch, give us your feedback, your suggestions, tell us about your watches, you can do that by emailing podcast@collectivehorology.com. Yeah, well, I'm such an idiot. One time I recorded an entire episode with the microphone off.