The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, known for bringing every inch of the creative communications industry in one time and place every year since 1954, will be held for free and online for the first time in history. This new version of the event, “LIONS Live” will be hosted from June 22 to 26.
COVID-19 has forced many international festivals and global conferences to postpone their events until further notice. However, Cannes Lions has found a way to bring their event to every single quarantined home for free through LIONS Live.
“We don’t want to pretend that we can replicate Cannes Lions online. Anyone that’s been to the festival before knows that it’s pretty irreplaceable. Through LIONS Live, we have tried to capture the essence of Cannes Lions by bringing the best content elements: provocative ideas, diverse talent, global insights, and debate, as well as curated networking. But what we can’t do is replicate those very human elements of the festival – the serendipitous moments and the chance meetings,” said the Chairman of Cannes Lions, Philip Thomas.
With their digital take on things this year, LIONS Live is bringing the creative community access to some of the most creative companies to look into original thinking and world-class resources.
This year, the focus is on ‘what’s next’ via masterclasses, short films and networking. “We don’t know what the future holds. So, we’re uniting the global creativity community to figure it out,” Cannes Lions expressed.
Some of the issues addressed include how brands are adapting to fast-shifting consumer behaviors, how business models are adjusting to the ‘new normal’, and who the pioneers to finding innovation solutions to the pandemic are.
Cannes Lions is bringing in expert opinions from across 118 countries to represent different voices, ideas and experiences across the spectrum of business and creativity.
“Our content team were very clear when we started putting Lions Live together that we didn’t want it to be like every other virtual event out there at the moment. We handed the baton to the industry themselves – the experts – to create the content. These are storytellers from the best creative agencies, production companies, entertainment companies, content creators and platforms in the world, so the quality is incredibly high,” said Thomas.
Lions Live will be broadcasted from the London studio by BBC journalist Tina Daheley. For those who want to register, they can visit this link. Thomas explained that because time zones can be an issues, they have content on demand; meaning that the audience can basically pick and choose what they want to consume, and when they want to consume it.
Overall, Lions live is for those who want to aim higher, who want to mix business with creativity, who want to have faith in the future, and who believe that “we’re better together”.
Interestingly, this year, Cannes Lions is partnering with the United Nations World Food Programme. As this subsidiary of the UN is focused on ending world hunger, there is a competition open on how to rebalance the waste-starvation equation.
This competition is open for anyone between the ages of 18 and 30. Anyone interested in competing had until June 14 to submit a 90 second film and a 500 word description explaining the idea. Winners will be announced through LIONS Live, and winners will also get free tickets to Cannes Lions 2021.
“We wanted to ensure that we were using the talent of the next generation to good use. So, we picked a cause that is timely and important. The UNWFP estimates that the pandemic will see more than a quarter of a billion people suffering acute hunger by the end of the year. This is a global issue that requires immediate attention from people across the world,” explained Thomas.
He shared that since they received incredible response to the competition, Thomas hopes this will help actually create change and give UNWFP innovative ideas that can be developed.
For those who don’t know yet, Cannes Lions has pretty relevant and big impact on Egypt too with its Cannes Lions Egypt Academy (CLEA). According to previous 925 article, CLEA offers experiential, practical, results-oriented, award winning and theoretical programs that are inspired from the MENA region and global sphere. Many of these tools are necessary to help people enhance, and move forward in their careers.
When asked what his message for the creative community in Egypt is, Thomas said that he encourages anyone who believes in how powerful creativity is, to sign up for the event. “It’s going to be an uplifting and inspiring creative reboot for the industry, and I believe that anyone who doubles down on creativity now, will come through stronger the other side,” he said.
