Surviving MIPIM

Top 10 Tips from Assembly’s 10 year MIPIM veterans Richard Conner and Matt Fairman

1. A first class return train ticket from Kings Cross – Cannes is the same price as cramming onto any of the budget airlines (unless you booked 3 months ago…) – more pleasant and not much longer door to door – plus the last 2 hrs down is glorious as the track follows the Riviera and gets you in the mood and you can brush up on your Franglais.

2. Be organised, have meetings pre-booked but allow enough time in between for random encounters and recovery – try to fill lunch and dinner slots ahead of getting there – however lunch is often a good recovery period so be flexible on this.

3. Talk to everyone you know before you go and try and trade events, functions and party invites to maximise your options – turning up with no invites puts you on the back foot and bear in mind it is just as useful for you to be able to bring someone along to something as you attending yourself (for them, for you and the host of the event in most cases) – Try to get invited to Hang the DJ on Thursday evening and turn up to when the mayor rocks up to the London Stand for maximum draw.

4. Gents - 2 pairs of shoes. Alternate days. 16 hrs in the same shoes, day after day makes day 2 grim let alone day 4… If you are on a stand, with a load of time standing, take a clean pair of socks and change into them at 1700 if you are not heading home to freshen up pre-evening shift. This tip has been passed down from MIPIM generations via Paul Finch MBE and I swear by it.

5. Unless you need to refer to the big manual while you are there, don’t load up with your MIPIM bag on the first day until the end of the week (you can use your pass to pick one up at any time) – it’s big and heavy and the marketing team back home needs it – you certainly don’t want to carry it about and nothing else is of value, including the opening cocktail party pass....

6. Keep your ears pinned back and your eyes peeled, various events last year were orchestrated through social media channels, facebook, linked-in, twitter, etc. Follow #MIPIM on twitter and www.twitter.com/twipim as this was one of the better, informative, unbiased live information feeds and is often quite entertaining too.

7. Get your rounds in early and then head to The Carlton Hotel and Martinez Hotel Bars on the Croisette (pricey) - later at night can be filled with very senior players that you wouldn’t normally get access to let alone assist back to their feet.

8. Don’t peak too early and pick wine ahead of beer and don’t drink it until at least 5pm, that way, you have a full drink in your hand but you stay sharp enough to make friends and influence people.

9. Despite the ridiculous temptation to justify it to yourself, drinking and socialising past midnight /1AM virtually never converts or brings as much benefit as you think so if you are going to do it, know that’s what you are doing, and that you will bring much pain to yourself and your next 8AM meeting for very little upside (unless of course the god of hangovers is truly benevolent towards you…) – be disciplined, go to bed by 1 until Thursday night – you’ll have a more productive time and your voice stands a fighting chance of making it until Friday.

10. IMPORTANT – if point 9 is ignored – this can be countered somewhat by remembering a) to take some resolve with you and b) drinking it before you fall asleep as it is twice as effective as a pre-emptive strike as it stops the headache before it happens – put it out, ready dissolved in your water glass, before you head out in the evening, ready for your return so you don’t forget – you won’t forget…