Is UKREiiF the new MIPIM UK – or even MIPIM Cannes?

“What do you think of it?” is a question I’ve been asked repeatedly over the past week about UKREiiF, both by people who attended this year’s event at the Royal Armouries in Leeds and those who didn’t.

Most either loved it or had a serious case of FOMO and vowed to attend next year, which is a ringing endorsement for an event only in its second year. So will UKREiiF become an annual fixture in the calendar? Is it the new MIPIM UK? Could it even be the new MIPIM Cannes?

There was a lot to recommend it. For one, the 7,000-plus delegates and speakers hailed from across the built environment and there was good representation from the public as well as private sector. As MIPIM attendees will attest, the public sector presence was conspicuous by its absence from that event. The optics weren’t right. In Leeds, in the heart of levelling up land, they couldn’t be more right.

A host of local authorities had a presence there and if they weren’t taking the opportunity to put out news announcements, big regional developers were, or Homes England was. Indeed, the government’s housing and regeneration agency seemed to be announcing a huge new JV every day and also chose last week to unveil its new five-year Strategic Plan (chair Peter Freeman elaborates on the five key planks of the strategy in an exclusive interview with BE News).

The presence of council leaders and regional bigwigs certainly added some bite to the dinner debate I chaired on ‘How to win the town centre regeneration game’ (many thanks, by the way, to our sponsor, Davitt Jones Bould, and all our guests) and spiced up the breakfast debate on digital inclusion, chaired by our head of content Simon Creasey and sponsored by Swish Fibre (thanks again to all those who joined us).

The strong public sector and broader industry representation also added an important dimension to the conference programme. I had the privilege of chairing three very different sessions: one on ‘social value and skills for life’ for Caddick Developments and Moda; one on ‘reviving industrial heartlands’, sponsored by NHBC; and another on ‘To ESG or not to ESG?’ for LSH.

I attended a few great sessions, too. My pick of the bunch was the discussion hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart. But such was the level of interest in this session that several people told me they couldn’t get in, and that was one of the few criticisms I heard during the conference – there wasn’t even standing room left in some sessions.

I had a few other quibbles. While the private sector was well represented – and many companies had upped their numbers from last year – some of the biggest figures from commercial property and agency worlds were not there, particularly the London-based ones. The strong Northern and Midlands bias was refreshing, but if UKREiiF is to become a national – or international – event, the organisers have some work to do.

They’ll need to rethink the food offer as well. The street food trucks were cute and served decent grub, but at times of peak demand they couldn’t cope. On the first day, the toasted cheese sandwich truck ran out of bread.

The organisers rode their luck with the weather, too. Rain threatened a few times during the three days. If the heavens had opened, it would have been a very different experience. If the organisers do grow the event next year, which they reportedly plan to, they’d have no chance of accommodating everyone under cover.

They are also, I hear, planning to introduce an international element. That really would be sticking it to MIPIM Cannes. But Leeds is not Cannes and, more importantly, it is not London. My advice is: sort out the niggly issues first and think national rather than international. Be the success that MIPIM UK was not. Then take a view on whether to take on the public sector bereft but still mighty MIPIM Cannes.