Cannes 2011 – is the strain beginning to show?
As a Cannes Lions veteran, The Brand Agency’s Head of Strategy Paul Yole shares his thoughts on what it might take to make sure that the Festival of Creativity retains its powerful appeal.
At the Circus event in Sydney earlier this year Craig Davis observed that people should attend for, “Inspiration, Stimulation and Provocation.” To a great extent I think I managed to achieve all three again this year. The best work in the world always inspires you to reset your benchmark, the seminars (or at least, the best of them) stimulate the mind and there was enough provocative thought to make you rethink what you are doing.
The highlights have been well covered elsewhere so I don’t intend to repeat them here. As ever it was a great Cannes and anyone who hasn’t been before should get along. But several of the veterans I spoke to suggested that a few things could have been done better. It is certainly becoming less of an event solely for creative people so I hope it doesn’t become like your favourite nightclub that your parents’ generation suddenly discovers, driving you away.
Organising an event for well over 9,000 delegates and several thousand more casual visitors is no mean feat and for the most part what is achieved is nothing short of miraculous. But when full delegates pay 2,300 Euro they are probably quite demanding and the feedback I was hearing hints at the need to review a few areas for 2012.
The main issue is overcrowding. A number of people complained to me about missing seminars due to the long queues, something I’ve never heard before. I’m sure there were even more delegates in the year before the GFC but I’ve not seen queues this bad. I briefly spoke to Terry Savage about this and he suggested this could be something to do with the profile of delegates, with far more clients and suits attending.
Whatever the reason, it has to be fixed. Here are a few thought starters:
• Consider having fewer seminars, maybe by being a bit stronger on quality control (some were a bit ordinary)
• Have a short break for lunch so that seminar junkies will be less cranky if they’ve eaten
• Have fewer panel discussions. I really enjoyed Aaron Sorkin, David Simon et al but generally I found these discussions unstructured and lacking a real argument
• Have a look at how the overflow from the Grand Auditorium into the Debussy at the film awards was handled. A few people became impatient when a bottleneck emerged.
It’s easy to be critical when you don’t have to manage an event of this scale, but I expect the organisers will seek feedback and make Cannes Lions 2012 even better. Adding new markets without losing your core audience is always a challenge but I’m sure Terry and his team are well up for it and are already well on top of the emerging issues.
Our industry needs Cannes to be great and in spite of these niggles it was again in 2011 and will be next year, I’m sure.
Only 49 weeks to get into training!
7 Comments
The queueing thing was an issue last year too. We saw one bloke lose his rag when he was denied entry into a session, “I paid 2000 fucking euros to come to this fucking thing and I haven’t gotten into a single fucking session all fucking morning!”
I think he was Australian.
The upside was that less popular speakers who were on before headliners got full houses as people seated themselves a session ahead … got to see a few unexpected gems that way, in fact.
Given the emphasis on new media and digital, why do you need to attend in person at all? Seems so old-fashioned.
Couldn’t the sessions be streamed to anywhere in the globe?
Of course, then there would be less reason to pay that obscene 2300 euro fee, but Cannes could probably make even more by charging less for off-site viewing.
That’s assuming people are there to attend seminars, and not just for a sunny jaunt to catch up with their buddies.
In fact, following up from my earlier comment, it seems that you can already stream most seminars, and those you can’t are availabe within hours.
Plus Lynchy is nice enough to post inspiring (and exclusive) chats with luminaries here. Chats you won’t get if you attend the actual week, or won’t remember if tey occur at te Gutter Bar.
So the only real reason to attend is, once again, to network or pick up a gong.
With 9000 delegates there, networking will be tricky. Each time I’ve been you end up hanging with mates you already know. And whilst picking up a gong is nice, it is hardly 2300 euro nice.
I’ve been twice and had everything paid for each time. Even then I didn’t think t was worth it.
The problems with wifi at the Palais have not been mentioned in this post, but Phil Thomas has now sent out surveys so everyone has a chance to mention it if they want.
Sure you can watch some stuff online but is it the same as being there, when you can properly focus on what is being said and have a chat to the presenters if you want?
9.23
Firstly, most people can’t even get into the popular seminars.
Secondly, is ‘atmosphere’ worth $3500?
When the seminar is streamed or recorded, you can replay it and watch over and over again to catch every nuance.
By my very rough calculation cannes lions generate approx. $30m per year from entries / delegation, add sponsorship on top of this and the number would be close to $35-40m. Thats alot of cash for what gets delivered, must start getting better or will start losing out.