Our powerhouse projects, logistics and creative team have collectively delivered more Cannes Lions than they can count – and still, the Croisette teaches them something every year.
1. Your diary will eat you alive if you let it
Cannes has a unique ability to make you feel like you should be in three places at once, every hour, for five days straight. Everyone is sending invites, every brand has an event, every contact wants to grab 20 minutes. If you say yes to everything, you’ll spend the whole week rushing between things you’re half-present for and come home having had no real conversations at all. Three meaningful interactions in a morning beats ten rushed ones across a full day. The best meetings at Cannes are rarely the ones in the diary, they’re the ones that happen when you’ve left yourself a gap.
2. The real conversations happen away from the main stages
The keynotes are great but the insight you’ll actually use, the connection that leads somewhere real, the idea that changes how you’re thinking about something – that rarely comes from sitting in a row of seats watching a slide deck. It comes from a conversation at the edge of a drinks reception, or a small roundtable that only had 12 people in it, or someone you got talking to while waiting for a coffee. Prioritise the smaller, more intimate formats wherever you can find them.
3. Try to do one thing that has nothing to do with work
Go for a swim; find a good restaurant away from the Croisette; walk somewhere without checking your phone. It sounds counterintuitive at an industry event, but the people who come back from Cannes with genuinely fresh thinking are almost always the ones who gave their brain some actual space during the week. Constant input with no breathing room just produces noise. One hour completely offline (not between meetings, properly offline!) will do more for your energy and your thinking than any panel session you could fill that slot with instead.
4. Research before you land, or you’ll spend day one just orienting
The Cannes schedule is enormous and it moves fast. If you arrive without a loose plan, you’ll spend the first day just figuring out where things are, what’s actually worth your time, and what’s already fully booked. An hour before you travel, scanning the programme, shortlisting sessions, checking which beach clubs require registration, saves you two hours of frustration on the ground. You don’t need a minute-by-minute itinerary. You need enough of a map that you can make quick decisions and pivot with confidence when something better comes up. And 9/10 it will.
5. Pack like someone who knows what Cannes actually is
First timers pack for a conference, but veterans pack for a five-day outdoor endurance event that occasionally requires you to look good. The essentials nobody tells you about: a fan (the venues are hot, the queues are hotter), a good pair of sunglasses you don’t mind wearing all day, earplugs for the nights you actually want to sleep, and something to cut the sun on the walk between venues. A small crossbody bag beats a tote every time, hands free matters more than you think when you’re navigating crowds. Check your luggage on the way out so you have options when you land, then strip back to the minimum once you’re on the ground. The goal is to feel light, move easily, and not spend any part of your day thinking about what you’re carrying!
Authored by Shauna Azariah, Project Director; Giulia Piga, Senior 3D Designer; Lucia England, Senior Guest Experience Manager; Sarah Martin, 3D Creative Lead and Beth Senior, Senior Production Manager.
