Buyers patiently waited outside the Bullring shopping centre to get to the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop pocket watch from Friday (May 15) into Saturday (May 16).<\/p>\n
But when the shop opened at 9am there were reports of fights and trouble, with the police being called and said to have had \u2018bottles thrown at them\u2019.<\/p>\n
Read more: Driver smashes into multiple cars leaving trail of destruction<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The collaboration between the two Swiss watch firms to create the Royal Pop watch has led to surge of interest, with the watches going on sale across the UK and the USA on Saturday, including the Birmingham Bullring store at 9am.<\/p>\n There were eight different watches on sale with an octagonal bezel, with six versions priced at \u00a3335 and two at \u00a3350.<\/p>\n But the shop was closed not long after sales started, with one buyer reporting the shop only had some 40 watches with hundreds of people queuing for them.<\/p>\n Police officers are seen outside the Bullring urging people to ‘please move back’ and saying ‘there are no more watches’.<\/p>\n People were queuing overnight at the Bullring for the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop watch release(Image: The Pawn Shop, Augusta Street )<\/p>\n The owner of The Pawn Shop, based in Augusta Street in the Jewellery Quarter, queued up from 4pm on Friday, for 17 hours, and was fourth in the queue.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cThere were 400 people in the queue and only 40 watches got sold.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rest got turned away.<\/p>\n \u201cThroughout the night someone broke their leg.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were two fights and somebody had a knife in the queue as well. It was crazy. \u201c<\/p>\n Read more: Huge sinkhole causes main road closure and ‘pandemonium’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n He continued: \u201cSo the hype on these watches come from the chance of finally being able to have an Audemars Piguet.<\/p>\n \u201cThere have been talks of straps being made, which we\u2019re investing in and other ways to wear the watch.<\/p>\n \u201cAll in all everybody and their nan wants an AP and why not at such a good price.\u201d<\/p>\n A police officer urges the crowd to ‘please move back’ outside the Bullring as people try to get hold of a Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop pocket watch and adds ‘there are no more watches'(Image: The Pawn Shop, Augusta Street )<\/p>\n The shop owner, who did not wanted to be named said: \u201cThe organisation of the event was awful with kids being crushed people doing drugs and someone\u2019s leg being broken.”<\/p>\n Read more: Mecca Bingo to close Birmingham outlet for good<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The shopkeeper queued with seven colleagues, so they could buy one of each of the colours.<\/p>\n They are now on sale on the Pawn Shop\u2019s website for \u00a33,000 each, with one of the eight already sold.<\/p>\n Pre the sales, Swatch said: \u201cSwatch celebrates Audemars Piguet\u2019s iconic Royal Oak with a collection of eight cheerful and colorful Bioceramic models in a pocket watch format inspired by the Swatch POP.<\/p>\n \u201cAudemars Piguet and Swatch unveil the Royal Pop, a ground-breaking watch collection that combines joyful boldness and positive provocation with fine watchmaking.<\/p>\n \u201cThis collection, titled Royal Pop, draws inspiration from Pop Art, an artistic movement that transforms everyday pop culture imagery into vibrant, colorful and energetic works of art.<\/p>\n \u201cAudemars Piguet and Swatch have decided to blend some of their hallmark features into a disruptive pocket watch available in eight models and designed to be worn in a multitude of different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n It said: \u201cThis collection will change the way we wear watches.\u201d<\/p>\n The eight sought-after Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop pocket watches(Image: Swatch )<\/p>\n The early closure in Birmingham was mirrored at other UK shops, including in Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Sheffield.<\/p>\n The firm posted on its Facebook page, in three separate posts with similar wording, about the closures and said: \u201cIn light of safety considerations for both customers and our staff all our London stores and in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,, Glasgow and Cardiff will be closed for the day.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you for your understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n A West Midlands Police<\/a> spokesman said: \u201cIn the early hours of this morning (Saturday, May 16), we were called to Swatch store in Birmingham city centre<\/a> to deal with disorder.<\/p>\n \u201cA dispersal order was put in place and one stop and search was carried out as officers dealt with the incident. There were no reported injuries and no-one was arrested.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are continuing to liaise with store staff and our partners at the Bullring.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reports of fights, knives, drug taking and someone breaking their leg, at an exclusive launch at a shopping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":965761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,983,748,9316,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-965760","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-centre","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-bullring","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116587648059235527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965760","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=965760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1_Swatch-queu-at-night.jpg\")
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