I’ve spent the last few weeks writing about the Royal Pop – seeking out every leak, watching the hype build on Instagram, tracking the rumours, and somewhere along the way, I got properly swept up in it.
I love an unusual watch, and there’s something about a collaboration this unlikely, Swatch and Audemars Piguet making a multi-coloured pocket watch, that got under my skin. So I did something I’ve never done before – I camped out in front of a store.
Here’s exactly how it went…
Friday – 5pm: Covent Garden is already a write-off
I walked down to the Covent Garden store at 5pm the evening before launch to find 300 people already snaking around the block. It was chaos, with no official line or structure. I asked a shop assistant how much stock they’d be getting, and they had absolutely no idea.
I walked over to Carnaby Street, which looked a little quieter, and made a decision: I wasn’t desperate enough to sleep on a pavement all night. I booked a cheap pod hotel nearby and set my alarm for 2am.
Saturday – 2am: Carnaby Street queue is long
When I arrived at the Carnaby Street store just after 2am, there were already 300 people in the queue. I had a chat with the security guards – they were very friendly, but completely in the dark about ticketing or stock numbers or any kind of plan. They weren’t doing wristbands, they weren’t doing tickets, and nobody could tell me anything useful.
After a while deliberating, I decided to try Westfield. Its not a location I saw many people talking about online, so I thought it would be quieter.
Saturday – 2.30am: The night bus, and always be prepared
God bless London’s night buses. I got on one and rode it for 30 minutes to Shepherds Bush, which gave me time to appreciate the fact that I had, at least, come prepared (just like my Scout training taught me).
I had a camping chair, a tablet loaded with downloaded films and several episodes of Taskmaster, two battery banks, two pairs of wireless earbuds, a bag of sweets, and a Red Bull.
Westfield was much quieter when I arrived, and there was a faint smell of weed in the air. I must have been about 150th in the queue and was feeling pretty positive.
Saturday – 4.30am: The sun comes up, the cold sets in
People kept joining the queue throughout the night, a steady trickle of bleary-eyed hopefuls filtering in, and by the time the sky started to lighten around 4.30 it had got properly cold. The line had also somehow split into two – a main queue and a pirate queue hovering by the door.
The main topic of conversation, besides the cold, was stock numbers. One person said 100. Another said 100 of each colourway. Someone else was confidently telling people it’d be 300 total. And almost everyone was claiming their information came directly from a Swatch store employee.
As far as I could tell, and I later spoke to the Swatch UK PR manager about this, the stores don’t actually know how much stock they’re receiving until they open the boxes before the doors open. Whatever people were hearing, it wasn’t coming from anyone who actually knew.
Saturday – 5am: Communal spirit
What I hadn’t expected was how much I’d enjoy the people around me. I started talking to the group nearby – mostly 20-year-olds, some of whom had been at college the day before, and it turned into one of the better conversations I’ve had in a while.
We talked why we were in the queue, about jobs and backgrounds, brain rot, and what colour Royal Pop they were hoping to get.
The queue was full of diverse people – one lady had brought a parrot on their shoulder, like a pirate. A couple behind us had brought their infant baby.
It was genuinely fun, chatting with a bunch of people and hearing their stories.
We were all scrolling Reddit threads and TikTok videos to get a picture of what was happening.
5.30am: The rumours start in the queue
Things were looking promising until around 5.30am, when word rippled through the queue that people had broken into Westfield through the car park and were lining up outside the actual Swatch store (inside the shopping centre), rather than in the official exterior queue.
The police were called, but the people inside refused to leave.
6.30am: It’s cancelled
At 6.30, security came around and told everyone the Westfield launch was cancelled. The store wouldn’t be opening at all today.
A lot of people stuck around in disbelief, but I left at 7.30, and there were still about 50 people outside when I did, waiting around to see if anything would change.
Back to Covent Garden
It was still early, so I got on a bus and went back to Covent Garden, where the queue was still around the block but not massively long.
Everything looked pretty civilised, so I joined the queue.
At this point, I should say there was a lot of private security, hired by Swatch, standing around, both at Carnaby Street and Covent Garden… but they weren’t very effective (to put it politely).
After a few hours of waiting, at 9.50am, the police closed the store due to unsafe conditions. A few Royal Pops were sold, but people started crowding the entrance. So it was shut down.
People were, understandably, not happy, particularly at security for failing to manage the queue before it reached that point.
I stuck around for a while, but it was clear the situation wasn’t improving, so I headed back to the hotel, had a rest, caught up on emails, and had a wash.
One last attempt…
I stayed out all night and I didn’t want to miss out, so I went back to Westfield one last time to see if anything had changed.
It was much quieter by then, maybe 40 people waiting inside the shopping centre itself rather than outside. I spent some time doing a bit of shopping before checking Instagram…
And that’s when all hope was gone – Swatch UK had posted that all stores were going to be closed for the rest of the day due to security concerns.
So, what did I actually learn?
Do I regret staying out all night? Honestly, no, it was a genuinely fun experience, even if I came home Royal Pop-less. Would I do it again? Absolutely not.
But here’s what Swatch needs to understand: the physical-only launch doesn’t work. It didn’t work four years ago with the MoonSwatch and it didn’t work here.
The demand and interest is very real for these pieces, but the infrastructure simply isn’t there to handle it safely or fairly. The result is closed stores and frustrated queuers going home empty-handed.
The fix is complicated, but there must be some sort of high-tech solution. Could there be a digital queueing system? Could you book a time slot online before the launch?
Maybe Swatch needs to launch these hype pieces online simultaneously with the in-store drop (or online first), to take the pressure off the stores.
The Royal Pop is a genuinely exciting watch – I hope I’ll be able to walk into a store and buy one soon.
Swatch has said this isn’t a limited edition, but hasn’t confirmed how long they’ll be available for.
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