I've been to Cannes five times. Once by accident. It's never quite felt right - until now.
The first time I went to Cannes, I was 16. It was during the only foreign holiday my family booked when I was growing up. We took a 27 hour non stop coach trip from Bristol, stayed in a caravan in Antibes, and went to Cannes one evening on an excursion. I stood on the Croisette outside the Carlton, a world I had never imagined I would see, even from a distance and I thought to myself - 'If I stay there one day, I will know I have arrived'.
14 short years later, I was back. I was on holiday with my girlfriend (now my wife), we were travelling with two friends, which meant we were three Doctors and an Adman. We were staying in the Luberon, we'd gone to the Colombe d'Or for lunch (la di da), and then someone suggested drinks on the Carlton Terrace to end the perfect day. Europe's most expensive Gin & Tonics had just arrived when one of my companions mentioned the hotel seemed unfeasibly packed with the noisiest, smuggest and and most entitled group of people they'd ever set eyes on.
'Hmm' I pondered, 'yes, who ARE these people? Oh no...' Right on cue, a voice then boomed my name across the terrace. Yep, it was festival week - and I didn't even know (BMPDDB in the mid 90s wasn't big on Cannes, despite being the world's most awarded agency. It was our way). Watching my two very different world's collide was not a comfortable experience. And like that childhood holiday, I once again had a nagging sense that I didn't belong in Cannes.
Then of course, Cannes became very much a thing in London Adland. By the end of the '90s, attendance amongst the creative fraternity was the highlight of the year. What fun it all seemed - from a distance. Rose galore, bottomless lunches, bottomless everything else by many accounts. The DDB party on the beach on the Friday night was the hottest ticket of the week by a country mile. And then one year - I was asked if I'd like to go? Not to the festival - passes were a fortune. But if I could get myself to Cannes on the Friday and find somewhere to stay in the South of France, I could have a ticket to the DDB party. It was a reward, a recognition of all my good work, a treat. Naturally I said yes. I stayed in a tiny room about 45 minutes walk up the hill. I got to Cannes about 6pm. I had to leave the next morning at the crack of dawn - only flight I could get back. But I was there. In the middle of it all. At the most glamorous event of the week. I had arrived.
Except.
I knew almost no one. I was a London new business director, not an international networker. The few people I did know all had guests to entertain. The creative department were tight in every sense of the world. They'd been drinking since dawn - three days previously. Everybody else seemed to know everybody else. It was a strange and alien experience. Once again I was a fish out of water.
So I left it another 10 years. Then in 2008 - I did have one of those big network jobs. I was told I was going to Cannes. And yes - I did have a room booked in the Carlton. It's very nice. And I can't pretend I didn't enjoy it. A few funny things happened. I remember cheerfully hailing Michael Roth, then Global CEO of IPG on the Croisette, because he seemed vaguely familiar and so I thought we must have met. Of course, I only recognised him because I'd seen him so often in Campaign, a fact we both quickly realised (he was very charming about it).
But again, it didn't sit well with me. It did indeed cost an absolute fortune - and by then I had spent 20 years working in advertising and knew my way around an expense account. But the cost of Cannes seemed ludicrous. And, I kept asking myself, what was it for. I wandered into the Festival Hall to watch the reel of shortlisted films - in the cavernous main hall there were maybe a dozen people, everyone else was out getting smashed. There were very few clients attending - Cannes was still very much a creative's paradise, there to celebrate the work, not the people who'd paid for it. Try as I might, and fine though it was, I spent two days wondering how my being there was, well, helping. And then I came home. I'd ticked the stay at the Carlton box, and I was pretty sure I had the Festival's number. And that would be it for me.
But there was, as it turned out, one more twist in the tale. I wrote a piece for WARC for their strategic thinking awards - more for pleasure than any sort of purposeful gain. And much to my amazement - I won one of the prizes. They asked me to go and collect the award - at Cannes. I paid for the trip myself. I stayed down the coast. A friend invited me to lunch on his yacht (it was all you could hope); another two friends took me to dinner. I caught up with other folk I hadn't seen for years. It was lovely.
But... it wasn't business. It didn't seem to help my company - just my ego (who doesn't like a shiny award). I didn't come back with new business galore, or better educated, or even with new connections. Just a little tanned, and full of blisters. It was a long walk back to the hotel.
Which is why until now - I've never been back.
But this year - from afar - Cannes seems different. No one seems to be talking about awards - or at least nothing like to the degree they used to. Instead everyone is full of the talks they went to, the new thinking, the debates, the research and insight. It seems as full of planners, clients, account folk and journalists, as creatives. I'm sure for many folk of my Adland generation, that sounds dreadful. But to me - I'm wondering if finally, there's a point to the festival for people like me?
Maybe, just maybe, I am finally ready for Cannes.
So it's a shame it was last week really.
(Richard Morris - Partner @ Whistlejacket)