Singapore - The world's largest showcase - luxury watches

Tempus - The Temple of Time festival - This year's five-day, $2.5 million event with $150-million worth of watches , the world's largest showcase of luxury watches, starting on 6 Sept at the Raffles City Convention Centre. This consumer watch event was organised by home grown watch retailer The Hour Glass, featuring 54 world-renowned brands, compared to the inaugural event which held here three years ago had just 32.

Prestigious brands on show, to name some : Breguet, Audemars Piguet, Cartier, Harry Winston, Hublot, IWC & Patek Philippe. The most expensive & priciest piece, Planetarium Tellurium, costs $4-million, by French watchmaker Richard Mike, which took him seven years to develop, was among the prestigious brands on show. The masterpiece, made of titanium, brass, gold and silver, tracks the earth's rotation, phases of the moon, true time in relation to the sun and the orbit of the planets Mercury and Venus around the sun.

It was also a launch of the Museum of Contemporary Horological Art, the world's first and only watch and clock museum to showcase contemporary timepieces developed over the last three decades. This museum, which will be part of every TEMPUS featival, featured timepieces on loan from watch manufacturers such as Tag Heuer and Harry Winston.

This year, watch manufacturers, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Glashuttle conducted a hands-on watch-making workshops for watch enthusiasts to participate in. A gem appreication seminar by Chopard was also one of the many events.

Great event for elite, enthusiasts & newbies. Tempus is intented to be an educational force in the field of high-end watch-making so that it could become a "pastime for many."