As you will be aware, Reed MIDEM has today announced that this year’s edition of MIPIM has been cancelled in the interests of the health, wellbeing and safety of all of those involved.
Given the severity of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the team at Marketing Manchester fully support this decision and are relieved that there is now clarity following what has been a very difficult period assessing the situation and the views, opinions and individual priorities of our partners.
MIPIM will therefore no longer take place 2-5 June 2020; however, Reed MIDEM are planning to launch a digital platform from April that will be free of charge to all MIPIM 2020 participants as well as a Paris-based Real Estate Summit in September. Further details will be announced by Reed MIDEM in due course. At this time Manchester is not committing to the event.
The Manchester at MIPIM team now need time to work through the financial and logistical implications of the cancellation.
Like many cities at MIPIM, we rely on the contractual terms and decisions of Reed MIDEM. At present it is unclear what proportion of costs paid to participate at MIPIM as part of the Manchester at MIPIM Partnership will be recoverable and refundable. The delivery budget is complex and involves paying substantial costs in advance of the event and not all suppliers are connected to Reed MIDEM.
The process of negotiation with Reed MIDEM and supplier network could take several weeks to resolve; however, the team will aim to seek maximum compensation where possible. We hope that you will be supportive of this approach and will be assured that we will do everything we can to move this along as quickly as possible as we are fully aware of the considerable cost and inconvenience that this situation has already created.
If you have not already done so we recommend that all partners look in detail at the options available to them under the provisions of any travel insurance policies taken out. This could allow you to recover some smaller costs associated with, for example, travel and accommodation. Individual policies’ terms and conditions vary, so please speak directly to your insurance provider.
We will be in contact with all partners over the coming week to have a conversation about the impact of cancellation. In the meantime, we would like to ask for your patience and continued support. However, if you have any queries at this stage or would like to comment, it would be appreciated it if you can email Clair.Hewitson@marketingmanchester.com in the first instance so that we can collate responses and come back to you collectively around key issues or specific queries.