What really goes on at MIPIM

By Stuart Pemble on Mar 6, 08 12:37 PM in Commercial Property

There's a glossy insert in today's Post full of the fantastic regeneration opportunities which Brum and the wider West Midlands will be "showcasing...to the world" at the MIPIM property festival in Cannes next week.

However, look in this week's copy of Estate's Gazette, a key journal for the property industry, and you read that "chesty ladies from Cheshire" who "charge £250 per hour - or part thereof" will be "providing comfort" for, with apologies for the pun, hard-pressed delegates.

Speak to Karen in the marketing department at Mills & Reeve, the sorely-put-upon-bunch-of lawyers who have to put up with me as a colleague, and she will want evidence that those of us heading for the south of France next week are actually going to achieve something over and above spending the entire marketing budget in four days of partying.

So what's the truth? Speaking with all the authority I can muster from having lost my MIPIM virginity last year (I appreciate that's an unfortunate turn of phrase, but it had nothing to do with the ladies from Cheshire), the answer is probably somewhere in the middle of these extremes.

MIPIM splits itself into two - formal stands and presentations within a hideous concrete bunker called the Palais des Festivals (think the NIA without the NIA's..err..charm) on the one hand, and a whole lot of networking on the other. The formal stands are the stuff highlighted in the Post supplement, but these will not be seen by most of the approximately 30,000 people who'll be visiting. That's because passes to the bunker cost more than the GDP of some small countries. The real importance of MIPIM is the networking that goes on outside of the Palais.

And this can be fun: I already have two drinks receptions, one party in a villa overlooking the Med, an afternoon on a yacht and a slap-up lunch in a chi-chi French restaurant to look forward to. However, and dear reader I can sense your sympathy welling up as I type, there is quite a lot of hard work as well. The property business is all about who you know. The whole reason for going is to meet clients (current and prospective) and contacts, to discuss their business needs and (hopefully) to win work.

I'll let you know next week how I got on. And I will try not to assume the worst if I meet any well-endowed ladies from the north west of England.