My colleague Matt Hannah and I were on stand-by for a potential early morning interview on Radio Nottingham yesterday. I wasn’t that keen as it’s always an early start for me – especially as my body is still slightly confused as to the time of day!
Team Nottingham 2014
We were told late on Monday that we weren’t required.
You can listen to the piece on Radio Nottingham ‘listen again’ here – but only for the next few days. You need to fast forward to 2 hrs 06 minutes in – just after the 8am news.
MIPIM is a difficult concept for people to understand. And it doesn’t help when you have an introduction that paints Cannes as a famed film festival, sunny, stunning beach resort! A place for a great holiday.
The interview was off to a bad start by Robert Oxley from The Taxpayers Alliance – who trotted out a fairly familiar – ‘waste of public money’ message. A message that remains wide of the mark. And a miserable misunderstanding of what MIPIM is about!
But the worst was still to come – when Andy Whittaker started on Nick McDonald – pushing on detail which really missed the point.
We have asked Radio Nottingham for a chance to put the private sector side of the story – but they have refused. I’m not sure where the balance is there?
But just to clarify:
£80,000 is being contributed by the private sector – £45,000 by Nottingham City Council. £20,000 is coming from Central Government to push our Enterprise zones.
There are four major events – a dinner, a breakfast, a drinks party (funded entirely by the private sector and not included in the budget) and a cricket event with Derek Randall from Notts Cricket Club. There will be other events arranged on an ad-hoc basis from the Team Nottingham base.
The total team is now around 25 people – all with a message to promote Nottingham to developers and investors.
There is an ‘App’ with details of the sites we are promoting. In addition there is a film being made.
It’s a shame Radio Nottingham don’t want to share this information – focusing more on ‘what class of travel’ are the councillors travelling on!
Wrestling pigs springs to mind?
By the way – it’s not “Cans” – it’s “Canne”. Just saying.
UPDATE 12 Feb 14
There was a right to reply and my client Jackie Sadek spoke on behalf of the private sector on Alan Clifford’s show tonight on Radio Nottingham. You can hear Jackie starting at 1.19.00 here.
If you were to major on the benefits that could be wrought from MIPIM, perhaps that would encourage people to view it more as a necessity than a burden :)
Hi Andy – I thought I had outlined the benefits. In my firms case we have won tens of thousands of pounds worth of business. If we didn’t we wouldn’t go! As for the wider City – the Specsavers deal was sealed at MIPIM a few years ago, as was the E.On land deal. Two years ago we were introduced to UKR – now a major client of the firm…
Hi Tim – That’s great. I just couldn’t see it in the blog. It therefore wasn’t obvious to me having not seen it elsewhere. Definitely seems to be worth going then :)
Andy, it is always difficult to get people to understand the outcomes – as very often the MIPIM trip / exhibition is one of many marketing initiatives that you need to do if you want to punch with the big boys. We did get a right to reply tonight and my client Jackie Sadek appeared on Alan Clifford’s show setting out whey she goes and why she came to Nottingham!