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Many will be mourning the loss of the week of drinking and debauchery in the sun, thinly disguised as a work necessity, with the news that the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity will go fully digital for 2021.
No rosé from noon onwards? No speed boat rides to glamorous restaurants? No pretending that we “still got it” whilst looking like a crumpled ruin in a short-sleeved linen shirt?
For others, there will be relief. No more worrying about the walks between wandering hands across the terraces. No more needing to ensure you leave with a friend so that you don’t get followed home after dinner. No more wondering why on earth the festival of creativity choked to the gills with red-faced, older men is still.
Change for Cannes Lions was overdue for both industry and the festival: returning the focus on the work, on inspiration, and what happens when brilliance can shine, rather than who is lunching with whom and who has the biggest yacht.
Cannes has long been an exclusive realm. Something we creatives had dangled as the epitome of what is great about our industry. We thought it was about the work, but was it really?
The disconnect between the numbers who go to Cannes in festival week each year and those that have ever been able to afford a ticket into the Palais is marked. I’ve self-funded my way there many times in order to appear onstage in the fringe events, and the only time I ever heard one of the amazing talks inside the Palais was when I, too, was a speaker in a workshop onstage as part of the festival.
Prior to then, there was no way of getting inside. Firstly, no small to mid-size agency ever could afford to enter. So, no awards entry, no point in attending. And even if there have been award entries, no agency I have been part of has ever offered tickets to the talks. There were never conversations about agency passes. Instead, the focus is always on the awards, the celebrations, the parties.
The idea of making it in the door to hear some of the brilliant speakers and learn, be inspired, was never discussed. The price of a week pass was just too prohibitive. And my agencies are not alone. The industry focus has been on the gongs and the groupies, rather than inspiration and enablement. The new membership price is now at a much more affordable amount, complete with lower fees for under 30s, opening ongoing access and awards exposure to many more people. Sure, another video festival may feel like the last thing we want to make time for after a year of bad chairs and backache. However, this removal of the previous economic and personal barrier truly opens Cannes Lions to the world.
The festival must also accept its part in this loss of direction. Having become focused on the business of creativity, it seems it kinda forgot the bright young things the festival started as a celebration of. Bigger ticket prices in the Palais forced those without a pass to find their tribes elsewhere, to find accessible inspiration—along with a generous helping of sponsor logos and the obligatory free booze. Hence, the rise of fringe events and bigger sponsors.
So thank you, 2021. The move to digital levels the playing field and pulls the creative back into its sights, in a balance of inspiration as well as recognition for the work. Bravo.
For the first time ever, Cannes Lions will allow people no matter where they are in the world, no matter if they are parents or grads, or creatively curious; no matter if they live in a large house in Berks, Bucks and Beds or their gran’s flat in Hull, Leicester and Liverpool.
The combination of live-stream and on-demand serves more than different time zones; it allows those whose jobs or simply their days and home life would not allow set time viewing. This is great news for diversity and our industry. The more these hallowed gates are opened, the more talent will see, be inspired and add their brilliance to it.
So much talk has been about the need for greater inclusivity and greater diversity, and yet it took a global pandemic to really make the change. It has been a long time coming (and we as an industry still have such a long way to go), but this year’s Cannes Lions removes the barriers of location, income, life stage, of “fit.”
Can Cannes change for good? Let’s hope that this new focus on true creativity and inclusivity is here to stay.
