Why MIPIM still matters, despite its mini turnout

COMMENT: Everything about this week’s MIPIM is different – and necessarily, often intentionally, so. Despite taking a late decision to come, my flight out of City airport on Monday is quiet and inexpensive. My hotel room is a cut above the norm. I know it’s going to be a very different show when the taxi driver asks me which event I’m here for. That’s never happened before. This is a compact, continental show. Berlin, Paris and Barcelona stands are present and correct; there’s no UK equivalent at, to give it its proper title, MIPIM 2021 September Edition. Oh, and there’s no bunker or marquees, either. This time the beach restaurants are, well, beach restaurants, not branded pavilions.  Yes, there are more boats than usual, but that’s thanks to the Cannes Yachting Festival, not charters by lawyers, investors and mid-sized agents. With perhaps 4,000 visitors – there were 26,500 in 2019 – of course this is a show with a very different feel. Brits account for no more than one in 10 so the chances of bumping into someone are low. (Bumping into someone on the Croisette is MIPIM’s equivalent of the office water cooler moment, so it’s not just in Cannes were those often valuable, chance encounters have been in short supply.) The techerati are here, giving the show a more youthful, casual feel as investors like Faisal Butt and Aaron Block circulate. It can’t be a coincidence that most of the higher profile Brits on the programme – Urban Splash’s Tom Bloxham, Homes England’s Peter Freeman, IWG’s Mark Dixon – have homes nearby. Restaurants aren’t packed, but they are busy – mainly with locals and with yachties. Caffe Roma isn’t the scrum it, sadly, often is. Pulling up a chair there is a more relaxed experience than usual. Putting real estate to one side, it’s also comforting to be somewhere where Covid-19 rules are so rigorously enforced. I’m asked for my vaccination certificate much more than I am for my delegate pass over the two days of my trip. But for all that was different, this is still MIPIM. I manage a coffee with someone I have been trying to meet in London for some time. I sit next to someone else at a dinner who I had never met before but whose conversation sparks an idea that may lead somewhere substantial. And one meeting advances a potential collaboration that would have taken so much more time over e-mail and Teams. So I’m glad I’ve come. I’ll be back in the spring for sure, and with colleagues too. I’ve missed face-to-face events and I know from EG’s own experience that committing several months out to put on a show in an uncertain environment shouldn’t be underestimated. If, as we must all hope, the impact of the pandemic recedes and, as seems likely, more agents, investors and cities commit to March, the importance of MIPIM’s place on the real estate calendar will be reaffirmed. I probably won’t have the luxury of a not-wall-to-wall schedule then, but I won’t complain either. And I won’t pretend that two days in the south of France as summer comes to an end in the UK wasn’t part of the appeal this week. No big event is going to completely recover lost ground within 12 months. But, other environmental considerations being equal, my bet is that MIPIM will return strongly in 2022. To send feedback, e-mail damian.wild@eg.co.uk or tweet @DamianWild or @EGPropertyNews