The official figures are not out yet and it is generally difficult to estimate the worth of business deals conducted and signed over the 3-days at MIPIM. For the novices who asked MIPIM stands for Marché International des Professionnels de l’IMmobilier (the annual largest property event in the world).
The city of Cannes of population 73,603 (wikipedia) is flocked by additional 25-30,000 people for the duration of over 3 days in March. It is the brutal efficiency the event is inviting all it’s participants to join event which take place over two locations : the main hall called ‘The bunker’ due to its’ closed exterior and the Fringe. Over the course of the three days thousands of events are happening within a square mile. This year’s warm and sunny weather helped immensely smoothen the deals and offered great opportunities for people to network and have al fresco lunch and dinner and seep coffees and drinks under the beautiful spring sun. The personal highlights were from Monday : the RIBA dinner with three presidents present at the dinner: the former president Stephen Hodder, current president Jane Duncan, and president elect Ben Derbyshire. It was a fantastic opportunity to see the established name of the British architecture and a few rising stars around one table.
On Tuesday the prime event is hosted by Kingston Smith on the seaside. Wednesday – Icon Connect hosted a lunch, which was closely followed by Heyne Tillett Steel structural engineers. Malcolm Hollis hosted a networking event on a yacht.
Thursday – Trowers & Hamlins hosted their regular brunch which attracted a wide range of professionals across the industry. The main topic of conversation was the housing shortage in the capital. TH issued their thoroughly investigated housing brochure.
MIPIM Ladies kindly sponsored by bptw partnership, Faithful & Gould, Plowman Craven, GEZE, Hilsen Moran. Founding members: Kirk Saunders, Kier Gropu and David Miller Architects.
A closing event we were looking forward to is the Chicks with Bricks which attracts a remarkable selection of diverse and high quality individuals.
NAWIC members were attending both MIPIM ladies and Chicks with Bricks in full support of the diversity agenda.
