By Tom Snee, director
MIPIM – the global property industry’s annual soiree – is over for another year, but does it still carry the same sparkle it used to shine with in days gone by? Tom Snee has seen the event unfold for the last four editions, and gives his lowdown on what the team saw and heard out in Cannes last week.
Having clocked up the best part of 30 miles walking over four days and seen more blue-suit-and-gilet combinations than we’d care to count, our team returned to the UK last Thursday with a renewed sense of optimism, albeit with a level of world-weariness thrown in.
MIPIM 2024 was our 15th as a business, and the event has changed markedly in that decade and a half.
Here are five things we learned during this year’s event.
1. DO I NEED A PASS FOR MIPIM? IT DEPENDS
A key question our clients asked us in the leadup to the event is “have you got a pass for the bunker?” MIPIM passes cost the proverbial arm and a leg, and the reality is that ever-fewer businesses are channelling their budget for the week into ensuring their delegates have full access to the Palais de Festivals.
Ollie Sargent from our team spent a good amount of time during the week “behind the curtain”, particularly on the London stand. While there were some interesting speaking spots – notably the Arup-sponsored “Innovation in the Property Sector” session – general feedback on the London presence was that it was fairly underwhelming, particularly in comparison to other major UK cities.
As always, it’s horses for courses. For some clients, getting involved in the city and regional delegations is a major reason for attending MIPIM in the first place, so the price of a pass may well be your best investment of the week. However, the fringes can be a fertile hunting ground for the private sector in particular.
2. “CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM” IS THE NAME OF THE GAME
Lots of those conversations around the long beachfront restaurant tables of Vegaluna and L’Annex centred around the funding landscape. Cartwright director Annie Brafield hosted a couple of lunches for our clients and their guests, and one phrase that kept cropping up in conversation was “cautious optimism”.
The general feeling from these conversations is that the funding landscape has changed as a natural result of the economic turbulence of the last couple of years, and it is incumbent on those looking for that funding to package themselves in the way that gives them the best chance of success.
As Matt Hannah, managing director of commercial property agent Innes England, said in his interview with us on La Croisette, there are lots of people looking for money, but not many looking to give it away, referencing the famous “show me the money” line delivered by Jerry Maguire in the eponymous movie.
3. VIDEO IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER AT EVENTS
Speaking of interviews, my main job of the week was pulling together more than a dozen – filmed, edited and turned around in the same day. It’s a hectic schedule, but the results for clients have spoken for themselves. The aforementioned Innes England piece garnered twice as much interaction as their business as usual posts, while our interview with CPMG’s Chris White – who gets better each time we stick a camera in his face – is already one of the architecture practice’s most viewed of the last year, surpassing last year’s clip and a similar one from UKREiiF.
MIPIM isn’t an outlier in this sense – we’re finding this kind of video gets a lot of cut through on social media, regardless of what the event is.
4. IF YOU’RE HOSTING A DINNER, DO IT IN CANNES
Move over 90s fashion and Sophie Ellis-Bextor – the most unexpected comeback of 2024 has been the “big dinner” at MIPIM.
Hiring out a cavernous restaurant for 100 plus guests looked to have died out post-pandemic. Many of the local authorities that used to host such shindigs have scaled back their presence (or abandoned the event entirely), while consultants and contractors had seemingly pivoted to smaller, private dinners.
However, you could barely move for them this year. Annie and I had an excellent evening at SLR’s dinner on the Tuesday, which boasted the presidents of RIBA and the Royal Town Planning Institute as guests. Such events give you a great opportunity to have high-level conversations in a relaxed environment – something that simply doesn’t happen to the same extent anywhere else.
As an aside, it was great to be at a dinner for so many people that offered excellent food en masse – with four(!) options for each course. Having been used to a diet of overcooked chicken and undercooked vegetables at similar sized events in the UK, it was an eye-opening experience.
5. SELF-AWARENESS IS STILL QUESTIONABLE
So, with all that said, is MIPIM still a festival of grotesque opulence? It may depend on where you’re sitting, but it feels like the tide is turning. For the first time this year, homelessness and Europe’s assorted housing crises were high on the agenda within the bunker, although the irony of those conversations happening within earshot of the corks of €350 bottles of G.H. Mumm being popped wasn’t lost on most.
However, for its flaws, MIPIM remains an important bellwether for the built environment. The conversations we’ve had over the last week will resonate throughout the year, not least into May and the event’s biggest rival, UKREiiF – where the Cartwright team will once again be out in force.
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