A Weekend In New York For The 2007 Online Watch Enthusiast Gathering
The Main Saturday Night Event, May 19th 2007
Saturday night finally arrived, and it was time for the main event – the 2007 NYC GTG! The event which had been heavily promoted for months by WATCH TALK FORUMS (http://www.watchtalkforums.info/) and Timezone had finally come! Those that had registered with the event’s organizer (Milos “Watchfan1”) received an email with the event’s location – Connolly’s Pub & Restaurant (http://connollyspubandrestaurant.com/). Many thanks to Steve for suggesting the location! Karen and I made it to Connolly’s by about 3:45pm, and the event was in full swing! Here’s a shot of our host and hostess for the evening, Milos and Eveta:
All the attendees owe a great debt of thanks to Milos for all the hard work and planning it took to make this event happen!
Fortunately many of the guys brought their wives and girlfriends along so there were plenty of ladies that Karen could talk to as I went about the room taking photos for the article I’m doing about the event which will appear in CHRONOS magazine.
Everyone enjoyed the opportunity to socialize and talk about their favorite topic – WATCHES!
Most of the guys who showed up to the event were Rolex and Patek Philippe guys, but guys were there with Omega’s, Seiko’s, Jaeger LeCoultre’s, Panerai’s….you name it!
Here’s a photo of Harry, Steve, and Charles doing the Rolex salute – it was so great to meet these guys that I’ve corresponded with and spoken to on the phone – Charles and Harry came over from England!
The infamous Stephanie “Diamond Girl” from Tampa also made it wearing her ladies Yacht-Master, and a men’s GMT Master II:
TZ Moderator Mike Margolis (blue shirt and glasses in the below photo) made it to the event as well – super nice guy! I had assumed that any TZ mod who met me in person would have instructions to “shoot to kill” but I was pleasantly surprised. Mike also brought a stunning collection of watches supplied by Hublot!
I also got to meet NY York Fashion photographer, Rolex collector and all around nice guy, Chung Lee! Chung Lee has participated on Watch Talk Forums for quite some time now, and is a great guy! Talk about a guy with a dream job!
The facility was pricey but the service and food was good. Appetizers were available at the begining of the evening, and later a dinner buffet was served:
After a couple of hours of socializing, Milos addressed the group and thanked everyone for attending the gathering:
Being the masterful event promoter that he is, Milos lined up some impressive support from watch dealers and manufacturers (most notably Patek Philippe and Ball Watch) and some GREAT door prizes were made available to the attendees:
My wife played “Vanna White” for Milos and helped draw the ticket numbers of the lucky winners:
Here are some photos of some of the folks whose ticket numbers were drawn and won prizes! The “Sweedish Meatball” Jocke was an early winner of a Hublot duffle bag:
Here’s a shot of Milton accepting his prize:
Larry won a Patek money clip….he claimed he didn’t have anything to put inside of it (which got quite a laugh from the crowd)….we know better:
Chung Lee shows his exuberance for winning his Hublot duffle bag:
Harry won one of the highly coveted and very chic Patek ties….the jerk…errrr I mean….congratulations Harry!
At the end of the drawing, the evening’s most coveted prize was awarded – an actual Ball watch presented by the manufacturer representatives in attendance:
Here’s the traditional “group watch shot” which is taken at these sorts of events….don’t even ask me how much money is sitting on the table:
We got a good photo of all the people in attendance too…it’s not all about the watches after all…
Overall, this NYC GTG was an incredible success. To anyone in the online watch community, I would say please do consider attending the next event. To the manufacturing and dealer community, these events are a fantastic way to directly reach your core audience of collectors – contact Milos at watchfan1@hotmail.com if your are interested in attending or supporting a future GTG. Thanks Milos!
*All text and images contained in this review are the original work of the author, John B. Holbrook, II and are copyright protected. Use of any of the information or images without the permission of the author is prohibited.
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