In the run-up to Mipim, extravagant claims are made about its power to turn your small insignificant practice into one that will see you not simply rubbing shoulders with property developers but building their next scheme. Don’t believe the myth.

Despite this, it’s worth the trip and the expense for several reasons.   

The first of these is because Mipim shows where architecture fits into the food chain — and just like the animal world property has a natural order of things, which architects need to understand.

It is a complicated chain but at the very top are the investors. These are the true tigers and, like the king of apex predators, they devour anything to stay alive but no one eats them.

Like tigers, investors are difficult to spot — preferring to hang out many miles from Cannes. This also comes as something of shock, for having spent a four-figure sum on gaining access to the headache-inducing Palais des Festivals, the real action takes place in restaurants high above Nice or in private villas.

After investors come developers. Like large sharks, their numbers have shrunk since 2008 but they are by no means eIxtinct.

But, as in the animal food chain, when one species declines another flourishes.

 Mipim is a good place to see the rise and fall of these groups. The RDAs have gone the way of the Dodo, while local authorities and other public sector agencies with land remain important players — more so this year than at any time since 2009.

 Like sulphur-crested cockatoos, architects are conspicuous – mainly because they are the only group not wearing a suit and tie – and there are a lot of them.

 Somewhere in all this are the agents, the people who market the buildings. They all look the same — and behave the same too. This herd mentality makes them difficult to place. They do not stand out but they are powerful in the chain — think of elephants.

Lower down, there is the prey. 

This includes the journalists, as well as groups that used to be higher up, like Cabe which this year is having to hawk its services around just like the PRs, marketers and CGI animators, and those at bottom of the food chain — the drainage consultant.

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