I'm Staying Awake for 24 Hours: Here's Why.

It started as a fairly stupid idea, and I want to be clear that I still think it's a fairly stupid idea. The difference is that now about forty other people have agreed to join in, which makes it everyone's problem.

On Thursday 3rd September at 9am, I'm going live. And I'm not stopping until 9am on Friday.

24 hours. 48 sessions, one every half hour. No sleep. It's called The 24-Hour Open House, it's completely free to watch, and every penny it raises goes to Breast Cancer Now and Andy's Man Club.

Here's how it happened, what's on, and why I'd love you to be there.

The idea

I'd been mulling over doing something for charity for a while. Nothing had stuck. Then somewhere between a marathon and a bake sale, I landed on the thing I actually do for a living: talking to people in this industry.

The logic went like this. I can't run very far. I'm not going to raise much with a raffle. But I can host. And if I can host for one hour, I can probably host for 24 - and if I fill those 24 hours with genuinely useful people, then instead of asking for money in exchange for nothing, I'd be asking for money in exchange for something worth having.

So I sent a few messages. I expected a couple of yeses and a lot of polite silence.

Almost nobody said no.

Which is how a daft idea to break up the boredom of an all-nighter turned into 48 sessions featuring some of the best people in our industry, and several from well outside it. I've said elsewhere that it's part conference, part telethon and part fever dream. By 4am I suspect it'll be mostly the third one.

The reason

Two charities, both chosen for with utmost care.

Breast Cancer Now fund research that is genuinely changing what a diagnosis means, and they're there on the worst day of someone's life with a nurse on the end of a phone. Most of us know someone who has needed them. They are also the chosen charity of Women in Estate Agency, who mission I want to wholeheartedly support.

Andy's Man Club run free peer support groups for men, every Monday night, in towns and cities across the country. Our industry is full of men who have become extremely good at saying they're fine, so this one feels particularly close to home. Andy Barton from the club is joining me at 1pm to talk about it.

Here's the bit I'm proudest of: 100% of every donation reaches those two charities. This is largely thanks to my amazing sponsor Kotini. If you give a fiver, the charities get a fiver.

Rory Sutherland is coming

I asked, fully expecting a polite no.

Rory Sutherland - vice chairman of Ogilvy, author of Alchemy, and one of the most original thinkers in advertising anywhere in the world - is joining me at 9.30pm on the Thursday to talk about estate agency.

I'm still slightly stunned.

If you don't know the name, you almost certainly know the ideas. Rory is the man who argues, more persuasively than anyone, that the most effective ideas are usually the ones that make no logical sense at all. That people don't behave the way the spreadsheet says they will. That the value of a thing is mostly in the perception of it.

Which is - if you think about it for more than about four seconds - the entire job of an estate agent.

Why one property advert pulls forty enquiries and a nearly identical one pulls four. Why the fee conversation is never really about the fee. Why the sensible, optimised, perfectly reasonable marketing that every agency in the country is doing produces such perfectly reasonable, forgettable results.

Because we are, if I'm honest, a fairly logical and unadventurous sector when it comes to marketing. We copy each other. We do what worked last year. We optimise things that were never very interesting to begin with. I can't think of an industry that needs a dose of Rory's medicine more.

And it's free. A man who commands enormous fees on stages all over the world, talking to estate agents, at half past nine at night, for nothing. If you only watch one session out of the 48, make it that one.

Then watch the other 47 anyway.

What else is on

Thirty-four sessions are live on the schedule as I write this, with more still to come. A quick tour:

Marketing and profile. John Espirian opens at 9am with live LinkedIn profile audits on brave volunteers. Phill Agnew of the Nudge podcast follows at 9.30 with the behavioural science behind better marketing. Ben Madden on personal brand, Kirsty Franks with half an hour of ideas you can steal, and Steve Carroll - who has led at REA Group and News Corp across three continents - on the uncomfortable fact that digital has made all of us visible whether we like it or not.

The hard commercial stuff. Vicky Bibiris on the uncomfortable truth that roughly half of all listings never sell, and what to do about it. Ross D'Aniello on moving the conversation from fees to worth. Steve Eakins on talking confidently about the market. Adam Graver on winning the instruction long before you're in the living room. Kate Faulkner OBE joins Kieran Witt for a live Kotini Coffee Table at noon.

People and teams. Nigel Risner on why every office is a zoo. Jo Bourne on finishing the year strong. Stephen Brown on sharper conversations. Jaine Whitfield on going from a one-person agency to offices and a team of five with no plan whatsoever. And Ali Mortimer on why burnout isn't simply the price of a successful career.

The future. Alex Pelosi-Buchanan and Adam Mackay on what AI can already do better than you and what it never will. Mal McCallion at 6.30am with The Rightmove Resistance. Daniel Thomas on referrals - the fee-earning opportunity almost nobody in this industry talks about.

And then there's the rest of it. The Big Fat Property Quiz. Just a Minute, Estate Agency Edition - four agents, sixty seconds, no hesitation or repetition or deviation. Michael Day telling his career through the songs that scored it. A bedtime story for younger viewers at half six. The World Cup of Business Books.

See the full schedule →

The night shift

This is the part I'm most worried about and most looking forward to.

At 10.30pm, Estate Agency Confessions. Anonymous confessions from across the industry, read out live, with Father Toby and Sister Amy Shields deciding who earns forgiveness and who stays in purgatory. The valuation you knew was nonsense, the key you lost, the email that went to entirely the wrong person. Submit yours here - it's completely anonymous, and I won't know who sent it either.

At midnight, Simon Whale brings a dose of mischief.

At 3am, I attempt to build the estate agency equivalent of Football Manager, live, using AI tools. Then play it. I have no idea whether this will work, and that's rather the appeal.

At 4am, Sam Hunter joins from Australia, where it will be a far more civilised 1pm. He's sold houses in Brisbane and in London, built proptech for UK agents, and now represents buyers back home.

Then Mal at 6.30, Matt Giggs at 8, and if I'm still upright, a Grand Finale at 8.30.

How to watch

It's free. There's no ticket, no catch and no upsell.

Register here and I'll send you the link, plus news of new speakers as they're confirmed. Everything streams live on YouTube.

You're not expected to watch all 24 hours - that's my job. Have a look through the schedule, pick three or four sessions that genuinely interest you, put them in your diary, and drop in. Ten minutes at lunchtime is as welcome as the full day.

The ask

Here's the deal.

I'll stay awake for 24 hours. I'll line up the best people I can find. I'll give it away for nothing.

And if you get something out of it - a tactic you use on Monday, an idea that sticks, or just the mild entertainment of watching a man slowly unravel on a livestream - I'd ask you to give something back.

Donate to Breast Cancer Now and Andy's Man Club here. £5, £50, whatever you can. Every penny of it goes to them.

Thank you

To Kotini, for sponsoring this and making the 100% promise possible. To The Elevate Hub, for hosting me for the full 24 hours and not asking too many questions about why I need the lights on all night. To Agents Giving for helping spread the word. And to every single person who said yes to a stranger's daft idea about staying up all night.

See you on the 3rd. Bring coffee.

The 24-Hour Open House 9am Thursday 3rd September - 9am Friday 4th September 2026 Free to attend · 24hourwebinar.com Raising money for Breast Cancer Now (Reg. Charity No. 1160558) and Andy's Man Club (Reg. Charity No. 1179647)