{"id":963821,"date":"2026-05-16T12:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963821\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T12:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:38:16","slug":"trafford-centre-shop-forced-to-close-amid-reports-of-crowds-rushing-and-huge-queues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/963821\/","title":{"rendered":"Trafford Centre shop forced to close amid reports of crowds rushing and huge queues"},"content":{"rendered":"

People had queued outside of the Swatch shop ahead of a new launch<\/p>\n

12:10, 16 May 2026Updated 12:12, 16 May 2026<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The shop inside the Trafford Centre has had to close(Image: MEN)<\/p>\n

A shop in the Trafford Centre was forced to close today reports of huge queues and crowds rushing inside.<\/p>\n

People had reportedly queued outside the Swatch store in the shopping centre ahead of the release of the brand’s new Royal Pop collection. When the store opened its doors this morning (Saturday, May 16), crowds of prospective buyers were then reported to have rushed inside.<\/p>\n

The shop was then forced to close. A spokesperson for the Trafford<\/a> Centre said the store will remain shut throughout the day with bosses remaining in ‘close contact’ with the brand.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a statement, the Trafford Centre spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the Swatch AP event at Trafford Centre has been cancelled and that the Swatch store is closed today. We remain in close contact with the brand and will share any updates in due course.”<\/p>\n

Similar scenes were reported at the Liverpool One shopping centre this morning with the Swatch store on Paradise Street forced to keep its doors shut, the Liverpool Echo reports.<\/a> Police were called in to surround the front of the queue and help manage the crowds of hundreds of people.<\/p>\n

Crowds gathered for the release of the Royal Pop collection, a collaboration between Swatch and Audemars Piguet. The collection is only available in-store, with a limit of one watch per person per day. The \u00a3335 watch is already being pre-sold on websites such as eBay for quadruple the price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People had queued outside of the Swatch shop ahead of a new launch 12:10, 16 May 2026Updated 12:12,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":963822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,8880,1289,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-963821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-the-trafford-centre","13":"tag-trafford","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116584297701950722","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}