Notes from Cannes Lions 2026

Turns out even the C-Suite would rather be content creators

I have returned - and sort of recovered - from Cannes Lions, which took place last week in the south of France.

One morning I dragged myself out of bed to catch Alex Cooper being interviewed by Ben Smith, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Semafor. It took place at Google Beach, a beachside lounge where you sit in a sports car and watch a drive-in movie (later that day they hosted a Pride party with such good drinks and music that the crowd was mostly straight guys).

Cooper said plenty of interesting things, especially about how she monetizes haters, which I’ll get into another time. But the most striking moment of the conversation was when Smith said out loud what a lot of executives were probably thinking quietly. “Everybody wants to be a creator, and being an executive is a bit of a step down in some way,” he said. “It’s a pretty nice life to be a creator these days, and there are a lot of headaches that come with running a company.”

It’s true that at Cannes Lions the creators had the best lives.

The executives I know spent the day juggling on-site meetings with Zooms with their execs back home. They footed the bills for lunches and ran back to their hotel rooms, or missed the performances at their own parties, because they were dealing with budgets, strategy meetings, and investors outside of Cannes.

The creators, however, were wined and dined all day - on yachts, at beach clubs, on rooftops - by brands desperate to work with them. They ran around making content they love and feel passionate about. While the C-suites were accountable to their investors and higher-up execs, the creators reported to no one but themselves (and don’t get me wrong. They work VERY hard. It’s just different doing it for yourself.)

Then there were the parties.

Before the festival I wrote a piece for Air Mail arguing that Cannes Lions is now the best party on earth, pulling in all the big names and acts from Hollywood, media, and tech. (It was titled “The Cannes Film Festival Is Dead; Long Live Cannes Lions,” which is possibly my favorite headline I’ve ever had.)

The bashes were even more elaborate than I imagined. Netflix hosted a comedy show with Ali Wong. UTA had Ludacris perform poolside at the Hotel du Cap. Spotify had Mumford & Sons wooing a crowd. Tiësto played a Yahoo party under a drone show that put sharks and fish in the sky. Google had a dinner for 125 people where Olivia Dean performed. And while there were A-list celebrities everywhere, the moments were built for creators to capture content and for brands to woo them in the process.

So Ben Smith had a point (and I’m not just saying this because I have been sort of convinced that I am also a “creator.”) I just can’t believe he said it out loud.

Anyway. Here are a few other fun, breezy things I noticed at the festival.

The Most Exclusive Party Spot Was Hiding in Plain Sight

Noah Tepperberg, co-CEO of TAO, runs a members’ club in New York called the Crane Club. He set up a pop-up version of it in Cannes for the festival with the same host, the same staff, even the same uniforms.

The wild part: it was tucked inside the Carlton Hotel, the literal epicenter of Cannes Lions and its busiest spot. And yet the Crane Club stayed nearly invisible - the signage made it look like a LinkedIn activation, so most people had no idea it was there. Huge names slipped in and out unnoticed. John Summit partied there after his DJ set at Spotify Beach. So did Paris Hilton, Ciara and Russell Wilson, Alex Rodriguez, Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum, Lando Norris, Seth Meyers, and Rachel Zoe.

Inside, it felt like an intimate, very private party where you could do whatever you wanted: smoke, make out with strangers, dance. No more than 100 people were there on any given night, and no one else knew.

RIP Panels

The star Substackers at Cannes were tapped not to sit on panels but to lead roundtable discussions. Casey Lewis, for example, led a discussion among 20 people on a stunning rooftop hosted by D1A, a communications and creative agency based in New York.

As someone who loves moderating panels, I’ll say this: they can be wanting, and they are often more about the photo op for the panelists than the actual conversation. I’m really into the idea of moving toward roundtable discussions, where high-level people can actually share ideas and learn from each other rather than perform for a room.

What Looks Like a Boondoggle Is Not

For anyone who thinks this is just a boondoggle: I know people who packed in 15 meetings a day, hit five parties every night, slept four or five hours, and got up and did it all over again.

My favorite moment of the entire festival was watching a close friend, a CMO, dance on the beach for two hours to a famous rapper at a private party, then march straight up to him and negotiate a brand deal on the spot.

It was a sight to behold.

Knicks Fever Is Still Going

I sat on the Croisette for exactly six minutes, people-watching. I counted 17 Knicks hats, two Knicks jerseys, and one pair of Knicks flip-flops (I need those). I also spotted a very cool purse shaped like a basketball.

For comparison there were only three soccer jerseys total: two England, one France.

Who Knew Dollar General Throws Parties

I ended up in a very long customs line at the Nice airport and made friends with a few women while waiting. We compared notes on the best parties we’d been to, and one of them mentioned a party thrown by Dollar General - in a pub, with only 60 people invited, with Third Eye Blind performing. WTF.

It’s a reminder of how many brands descended on Cannes willing to do almost anything to get talked about - which, honestly, is exactly what makes the festival so fun.