It’s still ‘business as usual’ for Cannes Lions attendance this year—mostly

Nearly a decade ago, Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun made waves when he declared that the holding company wouldn’t attend the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in 2018. Instead, Publicis Groupe was prioritizing its AI platform Marcel, opting to spend on innovation over hobnobbing at the beaches and the Palais.

It was a statement that shook the ad world—but Publicis Groupe ended up sending some employees anyway, and the next year, it was seemingly back in full force.

Cannes Lions has long had a reputation as a boondoggle—hard not to, considering the price that comes with partying and downing rosé in the South of France. But the move touched a nerve that could still be reverberating today.

“It forced people to rationalize their investment differently and justify their investment differently,” Michael Kassan, the founder of MediaLink and the founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, told Marketing Brew.

How things change, how things stay the same. Whenever there’s looming uncertainty in the market or the perception of difficulty ahead, the annual festival serves as a leading indicator of sorts. Does a pullback at the festival indicate bigger warning signs about the industry?

This year, despite the uncertainty given the war in Iran, skyrocketing oil prices affecting travel, and the continued consolidation at holding companies, there are plenty of reasons for a Cannes Lions pullback. That doesn’t seem to be the case—at least, so far. Cannes Lions clocked more than 13,000 attendees at last year’s festival, and this year, organizers anticipate the same attendance level.

“It’s very much business as usual,” Kassan said, later adding that he has “not seen one brand, one publisher, say, ‘We’re not going to Cannes,’ or ‘We’re not spending money.’”

That’s not to say that there won’t be some belt-tightening. WPP, for one, won’t have a beach this year, according to Ad Age, which noted that PMG would be taking over the space. But even as Cannes Lions has developed a reputation for its extravagance, the festival continues to be seen as too important to miss—mostly.

“While budgets are under scrutiny and holding companies continue to consolidate, the stakes are simply too high to sit out,” Alan Schanzer, COO of Mediaplus, told us in an email, adding that the festival remains crucial for relationship-building.

The invite list

That’s certainly the case for B2B marketing agency Transmission. This year, the agency is sending five people along with 12–15 clients with the hope of fostering intimate discussions with CMOs at the festival. Ricky Abbott, president of Transmission, told us that the agency’s “whole year centers around Cannes.”

Even so, the realities of the current economic climate have resulted in some adjustments.

“It’s the same sense of head count, but I think we’ve changed the demographic of where people are coming from, so it’s [people] traveling less distance,” Abbott said. “So we have an EMEA operation and APAC operation, so there are a bunch of people from EMEA coming that maybe weren’t there last year.”

That recalibration of who to send could be an approach more agencies take this year as they look to still show up at the festival, but do so with a slightly tighter budget.

The shift in demographics of who gets to go is also reflected in the changing programming during the week—since 2024, Cannes Lions has hosted a track dedicated to creators, for example—and is another reflection of how the festival, and the decisions on who to send, are changing.

“Cannes used to be a destination for the most senior ad execs,” Brendan Gahan, founder of Creator Authority, told us in an email. “Now it’s a cultural moment for a much wider crowd. My hunch is that most creators showing up don’t know the history of the festival or its advertising roots, but they feel the gravity of it. The FOMO is doing a lot of the work.”

Taking a staycation

Others said they’re opting out of Cannes this year, FOMO be damned, and investing in events back home. That decision isn’t exactly a matter of economics but rather of priorities, focusing on the people for whom traveling abroad may be difficult or who do the work but didn’t make the cut to head to the South of France.

Our Third Place, a networking group for women, had initially planned on a presence at the festival this year, but has shifted its efforts to host events across the country, Katherine Naylor Pullman, founder of Our Third Place, told us.

“I would rather use the funds that we were getting for Cannes on local activations to support our [members] who are feeling the ripple effects of what’s going on with oil prices, and if the economy is really about to go down the drain, I got to give my girls a safety net,” she said. “That’s not going to happen in Cannes.”

Independent creative shop Lighthouse Creative Group typically attends the festival, but is instead taking its usual Cannes budget and throwing an event for the people who make the work in New York, Sam Slaughter, co-founder of Lighthouse Creative Group, told us. No one from the agency will attend the festival this year.

“All the fucking fat cats can go to Cannes. We’re gonna party with the creatives who don’t get to go there,” Slaughter said.

While the event is still in the planning stages, Slaughter said it will be “awesome and absurd,” and that the cost is “neutral” to that of going to Cannes, using money that was once earmarked for the agency’s senior team.

“I think of it as taking money from the execs and giving it to creatives instead,” he told us.

But some still see Cannes as the center of the year—one that is still well worth the price tag.

“It is the most efficient five days in your year, because you can accomplish a lot if you do it right,” Kassan said.