UKREiiF - To network or to learn?

As the ‘newest’ UK-wide event on the scene I think it’s fair to say UKREiiF is already surpassing Reed MIDEM’s attempts to recreate the Cote D’Azur on our own shores. Apparently 7,000 people descended on Leeds over the course of 3 days, and hung around for more than the session they were a panellist on. Unquestionably a seismic improvement on MIPIM UK, and I thought it was worth reflecting on why.

Location and set-up has a huge part to play in this. Leeds is far enough away from the lure of the office and pressing work commitments for the majority of attendees, to encourage make more than a transient appearance. Taking it slightly out of the city centre also helped keep us all in the 'event zone' for longer each day, and in turn give us maximum opportunity to bump into each other and gain the real conversations and benefits we’re all hoping for.

So much of our good BD and networking happens on the fringes of events like these. In the passing conversations with the person on the train next to you, the chat to your neighbour in a coffee queue ( Christopher Warren , Peter Skates , Philip Nell , Richmal Wigglesworth ), the people you bump into as you’re trying to have a 30minute planned catch up and leave you with 5 minutes of snatched chat (sorry Matthew Battle ), the familiar face that helps you escape the 15 minute protestors outside the entrance on ?the day (thank you Julian Seymour !), the people you share starvation with at a drinks reception who then join you for dinner (thank you Gerraint Oakley , Erin Rigg , Nicholas Barrows ). It is so hard to manufacture these, so perhaps by making their event sponsorship options so limited and expensive, UKREiiF have helped these elements of the event gather pace more quickly?!

The layout of the exhibition and theatres adds to the ‘opportunities’ for networking throughout the day. It was impossible to walk from one session to another without chatting to someone. Clearly hugely aided by the weather (which has incredibly played ball for 2 years… 2024?), the outdoor space offered so many opportunities to hover and chat. That’s not to say however that the layout was particularly pretty or inspiring. The location is good, but surely there is a better set up in the space available that helps present the best side of Space Planning? It’s our profession after all.

Either way the set-up of UKREiiF currently fosters these incidentals and needs to keep doing this.

Invariably our measure of success from events like MIPIM and UKREiiF is ‘the people you met, the opportunities you gained’ (at least I hope we have now all moved away from the ‘work you won’ as a foolishly unrealistic target!). And as such networking is invariably the objective. But learning is also on offer, and as I debated in my thoughts on MIPIM, something we should also be making the most of.

Ahead of the conference, I was daunted by the wealth of content and frustrated by every session I wanted to attend overlapping with five other possibilities. I dutifully filled my calendar though and got to about 15 over the course of the three days and listened to some inspiring and candid speakers deliver some interesting discussions.? Sophie White and Pete Gladwell , Anna Sabine and Emma Degg MBE FRSA , and some great innovation from Octopus Energy that got many really excited about the reality of 'Zero Bills' for homes UK wide.

So the content was there and was good, but I do think there are some issues Built Environment Networking Ltd could look to address in 2024. The vast programme and perhaps a lack of theme or curation across the three days meant there was a lot of overlapping in topics and therefore repetition. Too much sales and not enough debate? Too much naval gazing amongst us property industry specialists and not enough insight from how other industries may tackle similar problems or offer a different angle on the problems? Too much UK focus and not enough that challenges us or takes us beyond the world we know? I appreciate this is difficult to do, but at these events surely we need to be reaching beyond our industry and challenging ourselves? To be drawing in views from beyond the UK perhaps, exemplars of how it can be done tailored to the challenges we face in the UK? Curated content that builds day-to-day, draws out synergies and themes and makes sure we all learn from this event and move our industry thinking forward.

Three days well spent? Almost certainly. Will Stantec return in 2024? Absolutely. Does it replace MIPIM? Not just yet for me. If we are to balance learning and networking these two events have different strengths and we must have an eye on what the rest of the world is doing if we are to make real progress.?