MIPIM 2009 (by Vaughan Burnand)
Thursday, March 19th, 2009
I wasn’t wrong when I made my prediction for this year’s MIPIM. This is property and construction and I was actually half right!
I said numbers would up despite everyone saying they wouldn’t be going. Well, they were down but venues were still surprisingly busy at times. The alcoholic bell weather, Caffe Roma, was as busy ever at times. Restaurants were difficult to get into early in the week but eased off by Thursday evening which historically used to be the busiest day of the week.
There was a lack of developers, a shortage of funders, a dearth of actual clients and (now struggling for collective names) a complete absence of deals. This is what happens when the concept of value is attacked.
RDAs and local authorities were putting a brave face on it and even cooperating with each other and Sir Bob was attempting a world record on the number of MIPIM speaking engagements in one day (but there again he has to build 3 million homes all of which are still falling in value long before they are built!).
Leeds loved Bradford, Luton is a gateway, London is the only game in town (as long as you have a blue card), Leicester is the place to be, the Manchester stand was the place for peace and quiet, Birmingham stand was flashy, never saw anyone on the Liverpool stand, all I saw from Coventry and Wales were hanging banners.
I was there to try and get a feel for the keenness to cooperate and deliver projects in a collaborative way as well as influence people to keep the faith and an eye on the prize.
With few deals to be done at MIPIM this was the one where people who believed in the event made the effort to come and actually spent time with new friends trying to understand them. All that work by Michael Latham and Sir John Egan was all about working closely with all parts of the supply chain and you can’t do that with people you don’t know.
This year’s MIPIM was more in line with that than ever before. When the deals come, as they will, I hope these new best friends will remember.
As for me I twittered like there was no tomorrow and I am likely to continue to be a fan of twittering just as I am of the annual pilgrimage to the Cotes D’Azur. I will be back.