Cannes 2011, done. I’m relaxing with a mate in our apartment by the Palais. It’s Sunday evening. Most have flown out this afternoon and it feels as though the circus has left town. It has. You get the feeling that the locals are happy that the show has moved on, well the ones that don’t own bars or restaurants anyway. I have a flight out of London tomorrow evening but can’t get a flight to London, hmmm.
It’s hard not to be impressed by this Festival. Every year the work seems better and better. Watching the Film, Integrated & Titanium Show last night really rammed that home. Then there is the seminar programme and whilst there are always a few duds there is an awful lot of good stuff. And of course there is the partying! Catching up with friends that have moved overseas or even those ones from home that you haven’t seen for a while. Or friends that you have made coming back to this place year after year.
There’s no such thing as an average day in Cannes but if there was it would feel like this…
You wake up and spend all day racing from one seminar to another and trying to see all the work in between. Then you spend all night with your buddies laughing at yourself and each other whilst you buy the world’s most expensive beers. You hear businesses being formed at 3am in the Gutter Bar by serious people in an anything but serious setting. Exhausted you trudge home and sleep for a much smaller time than you require and then get up and do it all over again. That’s Cannes.
Every year there seem to be clear trends and hot topics of conversation that come from this week. This year is no exception. It’s exciting but I know that I have a lot to do when I get home. If you want to know what they are, then come here yourself because I’m not telling. It's too expensive! It's worth flying twenty-four hours just for dinner at Hotel du Cap but that’s another subject altogether.
Speaking with the Festival boss it’s interesting to hear that twenty five percent of delegates this year were clients. Interesting but not surprising. Just a few years ago there were practically none. I hope they keep coming. And the quicker our government gets the national broadband network built the more hope little Australia has.
How much do you reckon a cab to London would be...
Glen Condie is Creative Director of Sydney agency Wonder.