Cannes Lions has today launched the 2018 Festival of Creativity, with important changes to the delegate experience and awards structure. The 65th edition of the Festival will run for five days, Monday 18 – Friday 22 June. A streamlined Festival and a simplified award structure will bring much greater focus to each Lion, truly recognise the best work and delivers it to the biggest audience and ensure that delegates can benefit the highest quality content programme and make the most of their time in Cannes.
As a result of the re-organisation:
- The Lions will be organised across nine core tracks to better reflect and support the fast-moving creative industries
- The new tracks will simultaneously provide the foundation for the Festival’s content programme – speakers, panel sessions and workshops – to help attendees navigate the Festival more easily
- The points allocations for the Special Awards (Holding Company of the Year, Agency of the Year, Network of the Year) have been changed to appropriately reward the very best work
- 120 Lions sub-categories have been removed
- Charity and NGO work will now be presented to the jury separately brand-led work; the first step to separate charity and brand work
- A new entry cap means that each piece of work can only be entered into a maximum of six Lions
- Lions Innovation and Lions Entertainment return in their established home in Palais 2, with Lions Innovation extended across the entire week with a full programme of content to reflect the importance of technology as an enabler of creativity
Changes to the Lions
- The Lions will be organised across nine core tracks to better reflect and support the fast-moving creative industries
- The new tracks will simultaneously provide the foundation for the Festival’s content programme – speakers, panel sessions and workshops – to help attendees navigate the Festival more easily
- The points allocations for the Special Awards (Holding Company of the Year, Agency of the Year, Network of the Year) have been changed to appropriately reward the very best work
- 120 Lions sub-categories have been removed
- Charity and NGO work will now be presented to the jury separately brand-led work; the first step to separate charity and brand work
- A new entry cap means that each piece of work can only be entered into a maximum of six Lions
- Lions Innovation and Lions Entertainment return in their established home in Palais 2, with Lions Innovation extended across the entire week with a full programme of content to reflect the importance of technology as an enabler of creativity
Commenting on the 2018 Festival, Philip Thomas, CEO, Ascential Events said, “This is an especially important launch for us. We have spent a lot of time talking to the relevant people to make sure the Festival is not only as aspirational as possible, but to also ensure the sentiment behind the Festival is fundamentally founded on the work and those behind it. We have held lengthy discussions in order to curate an updated Festival that puts the creative content back at the heart of Cannes Lions.
Following on conversations with the City of Cannes, the first in a series of exclusive benefit packages for Festival attendees has also been unveiled. Alongside capped taxi fares and expanded free Wi-Fi facilities along the Croisette, hotel prices will be frozen for 2018, and fixed-price menus will be on offer exclusively for Festival badge holders at more than 50 restaurants.
Speaking about the new benefits package, Jose Papa, Managing Director, Cannes Lions commented, “Our customers made it clear that they had a significant issue with the affordability of the city of Cannes, and we shared this feedback with our city partners. The response from the city, and from the Mayor David Lisnard’s office has been fantastic. These new delegate benefits make it possible for attendees to budget for the Festival more accurately and effectively, with genuine money-saving measures.”
Next year’s Festival also marks the introduction of a new initiative aimed at nurturing global young talent across the industry. One Young Lions delegate pass will be given free to every office which entered more than 15 entries at the 2017 Festival, totalling over 650 free places for the Festival in 2018.
