Who Needs Glitz at Mipcom When You’ve Got Poirot?
As someone who has only ever been to Cannes for the film festival, my first thought on arriving in town for my debut Mipcom was: “What the hell happened to the red carpet?”
For the last decade, I’ve only known the area leading up to the Palais steps as gloriously sacred turf, one of cinema’s most hallowed grounds and a heavily protected space where every inch is to be painstakingly monitored by the eagle eyes of star-spotters, photographers and reporters.
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Who will wear what on the red carpet? Will they laugh? Will they smile? Will they bump into an old Hollywood foe or former flame? Will they make it up the steps without falling? Will they try to take a selfie? Will they get into an altercation with a security guard? Will they get escorted off for not wearing the right footwear? These are all issues that have been afforded countless column inches, sparking fierce debates, forced reps to rush out hastily prepared statements and much more.
But here in mid-October for the world’s biggest TV trade show? I mean, there is a red carpet, but you’d have been forgiven for walking over it without noticing. No paps. No press. No adoring fans on ladders. It’s also a fraction of the length of the film festival one. And those glorious, career-defining steps up to the Palais doors are… just a few steps.
“Yeah, it’s a bit shorter than you’re probably used to!” said a friend in publicity, a veteran of both Mipcom and the film festival. “It’s barely recognizable by comparison. But it is little more chilled!”
While the glitz and glamour — and, indeed, a distinct reduction of the chaos that so often accompanies it — may be the immediately noticeable difference, it’s soon clear why. Mipcom is every inch the trade show, where the stars are the uber TV producers and C-suite level decision makers across studios, streamers and broadcasters. When it comes to the industry aspect, Mipcom is truly the Cannes of the TV trade show world. In fact, it mostly tops its big screen big brother on that front.
Where the film festival’s market section has become a somewhat dreary, undernourished component, at least in the halls of the Palais, where tired booths sell all manner of questionable titles with equally questionable futures, at Mipcom it’s bold, bright, lively and — at least looks — all very expensive. And as a sales exec noted, “unlike the film festival, almost all the shows will have actually been made already.”
But while Mipcom’s A-list count might be on the low side, one veteran British star got the sort of attention usually reserved for the latest franchise-topping heartthrob. Variety heard that lengthy queues were formed by admirers wanting to meet and have their photos taken with Hercule Poirot legend Sir David Suchet, in town to promote both ITV’s scripted series “The Au Pair” and Sphere Abacus’s unscripted series “Travels With Agatha Christie With David Suchet.”
“I’ve honestly never seen anything like it,” said one Mipcom regular. “One woman actually started crying.”
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