January 20 2021, 12:42 pm | BY Ricki Green | 4 Comments Last week, the Ascential-owned advertising and media mega-festival Cannes Lions confirmed plans to hold their event in the South of France in June. In any normal year, Cannes is the sort of event that always stir up mixed emotions – the excitement of meeting up with far-flung friends and exploring the best creative work the industry has to offer collides against the twitchy stress of, well, everything else – and the industry’s response to the news that organisers plan to go ahead after last year’s coronavirus cancellation is similarly mixed.
In 2020, with the whole world in some state of lockdown, organisers had little choice but to cancel. At this point in 2021, it’s hard to tell exactly what the world will look like in six months’ time. Vaccines have started to roll out, but levels of virus are high in many countries, driven by new, more infectious strains. Plus there’s a question of whether a jaunt to the South of France is going to be high up in anyone’s priorities. Equally, though, it may be that a big celebration is just what everyone needs.