Industry all of a stew in Cannes

I'm writing this in Cannes. I'm at MIPIM. Although I've yet to find anyone who remembers what MIPIM actually stands for – it's the place where high rollers gather every year to do property deals and the rest of us come to meet them.

With over 15,000 registered delegates and about the same number of schmoozers, it's the ultimate networking place.

Everyone you know or want to know in the property world is here. In a day you can meet all the people it takes a year of diary juggling to get to see back home.

The problem is that a day here lasts 20 hours and many of us are so raddled by wine and food that I often wonder if meeting people serves any purpose.

Either I'm so incoherent that they don't know what I'm talking about, or they've slid so far off the radar screen that one may as well recite a Nursery Rhyme as to expound finely reasoned views vital to the property world's wellbeing.

This is the place where our clients work hard. The UK stands are some way ahead of the others. True, some exhibitors are from places so obscure that Groucho Marx might once have played their Ambassador.

However, the great cities of 67 countries, are also here – but this is something the Brits do best.

  For many the UK's centrepiece is the London Stand. At its heart is a 10m x 6m model extending roughly from Mid Town to the eastern fringes of the City.

(I'm sure it's been bigger in the past – the West End seems to have been dropped this year).

The model shows recent and upcoming developments in close detail and, (observe, Hubert and Manfred), they're lit up.

MIPIM reminds me of a school outward bound course – being dropped as ad hoc groups in unfamiliar territory to face toil, but with some good pubs along the way.

The model probably cost a fortune but is certainly worth every penny.

I picture prospective investors, perhaps en route elsewhere, held mesmerised by the model like stoats caught in headlights, when before the spell breaks, they are pounced on by the London developers, wheeled off to their stands and pinned down with brass tacks.

If needed, designers are on hand there, ranged around the model in front of display panels the size of toy blackboards.

The lawyers, bankers and agents are nearby too in more capacious pavilions or on gin-palaces moored in the adjacent marina.

I imagine the, (now probable), investor eventually leaving – troubled about how he's going to tell his Board that he's bought into a patch of London when their plan was to set up in Dusseldorf. Rule Britannia.

Alas, developers tell me, even for them, MIPIM is more about networking and showcasing products than clinching deals. They're just doing the same as the rest of us!

MIPIM is an expensive place for a design consultant – so what's the pay off?

Perhaps the only way of measuring the value of being here is by considering the loss of not being. If you purport to be a player then your absence will be noticed.

MIPIM reminds me of a school outward-bound course – being 'dropped' as ad hoc groups in unfamiliar territory, to face an amount of toil but with some good pubs along the way.

As then, here you mix it with the prefects and 'bloods' as a fairly seamless community.