Video Age International October 2016

14 October 2016 V I D E O A G E O ver 14,000 participants are expected at this fall’s MipJunior and MIPCOM, which take place in their traditional Cannes, France, setting from October 15-20. As recently as three years ago, 13,000 participants was considered a record number. The number of exhibitors is also growing. This year, out of 2,000-plus exhibiting companies, more than 30 are new, and all are occupying 24,100 sqm of exhibition space (last year, it was 23,705 sqm), which extends from the old port (exhibiting on anchored boats) to the opposite side at the end of the gardens. In recent years, the six floors of the Palais have been completely filled up with stands, and exhibitors have had to expand to the beach and on the pathways heading to the Palais. Conceivably, there isn’t any more room to expand. And yet new exhibitors demand spaces and established exhibitors ask for more space. The increasing number of participants is also straining Cannes’ accommodation inventory, which consists mostly of about 100 hotels with 5,500 rooms. The overflow is moving into the private residential market and into hotels in 12 surrounding towns, located at distances varying from Le Cannet at 1.97 Km away, to Biot, located 10 Km away. These moves, however, cut into some of the MIPCOM organizers (Reed Midem) income from hotel rooms’ markups, while still costing them to run shuttle buses to and from various towns (Reed Midem has agreements only with some of the private apartments rental agencies). AnalyzingReedMidem’s tea leaves forMIPCOM, the strategy seems to be to grow the number of participants by offering more seminars and more side events that don’t require more exhibition space. These added participants, paying the equivalent of U.S.$1,500 per badge, could bring in more than $500,000 of income to Reed Midem. This year in particular, due to enhanced security, before entering key hotels, people have to show either the MIPCOM badge or the hotel key, a procedure thatwill drasticallydiminish thenumber of industry execs who get by without registering. And, talking about security, Reed Midem has alsoaddressed the concernof those companies that are exhibiting facing the seaside with potential danger coming from boats and swimmers. As for the number of exhibitors, more than increasing them, the strategy seems to leverage their booth space at MIPCOM for their presence at MIP-TV, which represents such a challenge that Reed Midem’s parent company, Reed Exhibition, last spring sent out a survey to assess the situation. Under this scenario, Reed Midem finds itself with two issues: One created by the success of MIPCOM (in spite of consolidations), the other by the challenging MIP-TV in April. By analyzing both problems, VideoAge came up with two “what if” solutions: Move MIPCOM to Las Vegas and MIP-TV to the month of March. Currently, of the 2,000-plusMIPCOM’s exhibition companies, 508 (or 25.4 percent) come from the Americas (140 from Canada, 153 from the U.S. and 215 from LATAM — 2015 figures) and they occupy an estimated 60 percent of the exhibition space. For executives from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia (11 countries), Japan, Korea and China, traveling to Las Vegas would not increase their traveling time. A Las Vegas location could obviously generate some defection from small European companies, but that will be more than compensated for by increased participation from Canada, the U.S., Latin America and the Far East — especially from China — whose companies now fill entire floors at MIPCOM and are possibly looking to expand. Moreover, Las Vegas could offer one single- floor exhibition area (as opposed to six floors in the Palais in Cannes), more convenient hotel accommodations, unlimited growth potential and reduced costs, both to organizers and exhibitors. A precedent for the move could be the GSMA’s Mobile World Congress, which outgrew its 28,000-sqm-exhibition area for its 2,000 exhibitors in Cannes and in 2006 moved to Barcelona, Spain. Granted, MIPCOM can still easily grow 4,000 more sqm of space and an additional 1,000 participants, but eventually it will find itself in the same predicament as GSM. Cesar Diaz of 7A Media recalled that in early 2000, there was also talk of moving MIPCOM to Barcelona. Even Ascential’s (formerly EMAP) Cannes Lions, the advertising trade show and festival held in June, which experienced rapid growth, was finding Cannes too restrictive for its 15,000 participants and considered leaving town, until the decision was made to remain there for the next 10 years. It has been noted that Cannes Lions has grown its digital TV presence and that Reed Midem is feeling the heat, as the presence of Reed’s executives at the event could attest. NATPE too sent top-level executives to participate at the Lions, considering that years ago, MIP-TV, MIPCOM and NATPE were hotbeds for advertising executives, which have since scaled down their presence at those markets and focused on Cannes Lions instead. Reportedly, in 2007 Reed Midem actually tried to acquire Cannes Lions, but ultimately an accord couldn’t be reached. It has also been reported that Reed Midem is looking to expand beyond the Cannes’ enclave, first by organizing Mip Cancun in partnership with ProMexico (Mexico’s trade and investment government agency) and, second, by starting a TVmarket in Dubai, UAE at the end of January. In addition, until recently the company was in negotiations to buy Discop Africa. In the past Reed Midem tried to enter the Asian TV market, but since it would have been in competition with parent company Reed Exhibition’s ATF, the project was scrapped. However, starting May 23, 2017, Reed Midem is launching MIP China in the lakeside city of Hangzhou, in partnership with China Media Management and Zhejiang MegaMedia. As for MIP-TV, moving the market to March seems like a no-brainer, but the move is resisted by Reed Midem, even though the organization is well Rate of Growth Outgrowing Cannes? Could Las Vegas Offer More Room? MIPCOM Preview & Analysis VideoAge Daily presence at MIPCOM China’s extensive presence at MIPCOM The increasing number of participants is straining Cannes’ accommodation inventory ... The overflow is moving into the private residential market and into hotels in 12 surrounding towns. (Continued on Page 16)