The Mysteries of MIPIM

How can an event attended by over 20,000 people from all over the world be a thing of mystery?

But to the uninitiated and to the vast majority who have no interest in things “property”, it is. I’ve been exploring this mysterious world now for upward of 18 years.

As a change from the grey and damp of the UK in March there’s much to recommend a trip to Cannes. There’s always some sun and usually a little warmth.

The logic for coming to this, the networking event to end all networking events is incontrovertible but flawed.

Gathering together a host of the people who you do or want to do business with for an intense three or four days of business development is a great plan. The plan then really comes together because everyone knows the reason they are here. There’s no mystery. We are all here to make more business. Calls are returned, meetings are arranged, conversations are had. Some of the relationships that I have started here have continued, fruitfully, for many years.

If there is a flaw it is that the meetings that we have here could be had more efficiently, more cheaply and without trashing the environment, back at home. But the point is, they probably wouldn’t. The day job would get in the way, diaries would get too full and the can would get kicked down the road.

There isn’t usually a queue forming to hear a lawyer selling the virtues of his or her firm but in Cannes with the sun shining and a general air of “bonhomie” maybe, just maybe, someone will find us interesting!