MIPIM: Has property's party started again?

It'll be one last blast at the bars and cafes in Cannes tonight.

While there'll be some brave souls hanging round for meetings on Friday morning, MIPIM 2014 is more or less over now.

It's been an at times frenetic event, dominated by a sense that there's a lot of investment money chasing too few opportunities.

Adding to the vague sense of desperation, construction firms have been telling anyone who'll listen that they'll run out of brickies and sparks to do all this development within 18 months.

You have to take the hyper atmosphere of MIPIM with a huge pinch of salt. Even so, it's pretty obvious that a new cycle is getting into gear on a serious level. Money is waiting for occupiers to be brave, and planners will need to act fast when proposals land.

Nottingham has almost certainly lined up some deals here, with some sites attracting a number of potential development partners. It's base, La Potiniere in Square Merimee, has had people walking through the door looking for serious conversations. Some won't go anywhere, but both political leader Jon Collins and chief executive Ian Curryer are convinced they are coming away with concrete options.

La Potiniere has been an effective base. Directly opposite the Palais des Festivals, it makes a stand look almost redundant (and don't bother ringing - I'm told Team Nottingham has already snaffled it for next year).

The council has to get results this time round. In the last cycle the CGIs ran well ahead of demand and two key zones, Eastside and Waterside, were left high and dry. Judging by the number of bidders who queued up with millions in their pockets to try to swipe Kevin Riley's troubled Riverside apartments, the demand has already arrived.

Today's announcement that the city council will share the risk with  Peel on 50,000 sq ft of Grade A space near the city's railway station tells you that some regional markets still need a jump-start. Whether the council will actually end up occupying the space depends on whether economic progress is sustained.

But there's a sense now that stalled sites in Nottingham and beyond are about to burst back to life. That or it was a good party...

MIPIM: What next for Nottingham?

Back in March, I was lucky enough to hitch a ride to MIPIM, the international property, investment and economic development expo which takes place in the agreeable surroundings of Cannes.
I went with Team Nottingham, the informal group of surveyors, architects, civil engineers and other property professionals who kept the city's flame burning on the international stage after the city council decided it could no longer justify a yacht in Cannes harbour at a time of cutbacks.
While I can guess at the politics behind this decision, it left Nottingham looking a bit small town compared to the UK's other big cities. Team Nottingham has tried to overcome that for the past couple of years by paying for key officers from the council's development and inward investment teams to come with them.
Their presence added value to discussions about potential deals, and helped put the city in the spotlight when a major inward investment was announced and an award for being a key European business city was handed over.
But how will Nottingham tackle MIPIM next year? Getting your presence right takes months of planning and it has to take some key decisions very soon.
The first is what Team Nottingham is. Should it remain an informal group of property businesses using the city's name and opportunities as a hook to try to develop relationships and opportunities? Or should it go back to being what every other city at MIPIM is - an official delegation led by a figurehead where business and officials unite around a purposeful message?
And can Team Nottingham stay at the compact size it's been for the past couple of years?
The answers aren't straightforward. And it isn't just the existing Team Nottingham that has some thinking to do. The city council has to decide whether it's serious about one of the single biggest inward investment events in the world.
With a £600m tram expansion, a £140m fast road to the motorway, a £60m City Deal, a £60m transport interchange, an Enterprise Zone and a major push for a creative quarter all signed off, a half-hearted presence would be like building a moonshot and leaving it on the launch pad.
In short, it has some serious bragging rights and tangible opportunities rather than me-too CGIs. And worries about council staff being seen near flash yachts can be forgotten. What Mipim is - and isn't - is now well understood where it matters.
It clearly wants to influence the future direction of Nottingham's presence at MIPIM. So what is it bringing to the table in terms of resources and ideas?
As for the current Team Nottingham, it will struggle to maintain its compact size, especially if the city council comes back on board properly. The council can't support a closed club, and the Team sorely needs greater resources if it is going to raise its profile. More team members ought to mean more resources whether that's cash or in kind.
This is a sensitive issue for some Team Nottingham members, who probably feel the work (and money) they put in to keeping the whole show going for the last couple of years entitles them to either sectoral exclusivity or a better deal than latecomers.
The biggest question of all is what kind of profile Nottingham wants at MIPIM. Derby appeared to have a bigger budget and a slicker presence in March. But that presence was very traditional and ended up looking and sounding similar to a number of other English provincial cities, who seem to think samey CGIs and weary 'open for business' slogans are all you need.
Nottingham mustn't fall into that trap. Nor does it need to: it has some genuinely unique opportunities in the shape of tangible, properly financed projects rather than political pipedreams. A shoestring presence and me-too messages will sell those opportunities short.
There has been the odd hint sometimes that the city council doesn't see this kind of event as important, as if it is blinded by the glitz and doesn't appreciate the number of high-level decision-makers who lie behind the show - decision makers whose millions deliver jobs and growth.
Sure, there are aspects of the show which seem overblown and distasteful. But that is only one part of it and isn't where the real business gets done.
The city doesn't need to spend a fortune ( though the price of hotels and apartments means a yacht is actually a cost-effective presence). It can be smart rather than showy. But MIPIM is a stage - and Nottingham has to come out from the wings and step into the spotlight.
Come next March, Nottingham, and it's show time.