Our team arrived in Cannes way before the beginning of Cannes Lions, even though in the days before, the Croisette was not quiet. Runners move along the promenade and delivery vans stop outside luxury hotels, technicians unload crates onto the pavement. Beach clubs are still empty, their terraces covered in scaffolding, rolls of vinyl, wooden panels and cables.
In a few days, these same spaces will be unrecognizable. They’ll host some of the world’s biggest brands, industry leaders, celebrities and thousands of guests attending the most prestigious festival in advertising and creativity that will never see what happened before they arrived.
The festival lasts one week, but building it takes months. And for the people working behind the scenes, it begins long before the opening ceremony.
Before Cannes Lions begins, Cannes becomes something else
From the week before, every available space in Cannes is being transformed: beach clubs become event venues, restaurants disappear behind branded façades, villas are filled with furniture, flowers and audiovisual equipment. Trucks occupy every side street while cranes lift structures that weren’t there the day before.
Walking through Cannes on the Friday before the festival feels like wandering through a giant theatre just before the curtain rises with actors rehearsing, but the audience hasn’t arrived yet.
One member of the EAS team admitted arriving with completely different expectations.
“I thought it would be like any other trade show I’d attended before: exhibition halls, keynote speeches and networking events. I couldn’t have been more wrong”
Instead of conference halls, there was an entire city under construction, instead of queues for registration, there were production crews carrying lighting rigs across the Croisette, instead of polished brand experiences, there were forklifts, ladders and technicians working against the clock. And then there was the heat.
This year’s Cannes Lions happened to coincide with one of the hottest weeks ever recorded in France. By mid-morning, the Croisette felt like an open-air oven, with temperatures climbing well above 35°C and very little shade to escape to.
Yet there was no alternative. During Cannes Lions, walking isn’t just the easiest way to get around, it’s the fastest. With most streets either closed, congested or reserved for deliveries, moving on foot is often the only realistic option. Every meeting, apartment, villa and venue meant another walk along the Croisette.
By the end of each day, checking our phones had become a small ritual. Twenty thousand steps was considered a normal day. Some days, we walked even more.
The festival starts on Monday, the work way before
By Saturday morning, Cannes belongs to a different crowd. The city is full of workers from event agencies, production companies, brand teams, suppliers, drivers, technicians, florists, electricians, hospitality teams and much more.
Everyone is moving with the same sense of urgency, because once Monday arrives, there is no room left for preparation.
At EAS, the week unfolds across two parallel worlds: one revolves around accommodation and includes collecting apartment keys, welcoming guests arriving from around the world, managing check-ins, solving unexpected requests before they become problems.
One of the least visible, but most surprisingly challenging parts of the job is inspecting every property before guests arrive. It sounds straightforward until you realise that no two apartment buildings in Cannes work the same way. One entrance opens with a code, another with a key fob, another only after pulling a heavy door in exactly the right direction. Lifts have their own quirks, security systems differ from building to building, and what seems intuitive in one property becomes a puzzle in the next.
The other part of our job revolves around production: installing branding, receiving suppliers, preparing villas, checking deliveries and making sure every activation reflects months of planning.
Although these responsibilities sound distinct, in reality they merge into one continuous rhythm where priorities change by the hour, because one moment you’re collecting keys from a property owner and the next you’re helping organise a branded coffee station inside a private villa. Thirty minutes later you’re supervising signage installation before rushing to meet guests arriving from the airport.
No two days (and often no two hours) look the same. The strange thing about event production is that success often looks invisible: if everything runs perfectly, nobody notices the logistics, nobody thinks about the deliveries arriving before sunrise or that someone checked every apartment before the guests walked in.
Nobody wonders who made sure the coffee machine worked before breakfast or that the branding was perfectly aligned before the first photographs were taken.
For one member of the team, months of preparation finally came together during an event at Villa L’Abri. After weeks of coordinating suppliers, receiving products, organising spaces and working through countless checklists, the villa finally came to life, the guests arrived and the music started.
Everything that had existed only in planning documents suddenly became real, every client had different expectations, every schedule changed. And somehow, everything continued moving forward.
The stories nobody posts on LinkedIn
Ask anyone who has worked behind a major event what they remember most. It probably won’t be the keynote speakers or the celebrities or the awards… it will be the unexpected moments.
Like discovering that the bottled water prepared for an event has completely disappeared within ten minutes of guests arriving. One member of the team had to sprint to the nearest Monop’ hoping to buy twenty bottles of San Pellegrino.
The shelves were empty because apparently every other event team in Cannes had exactly the same idea. Eventually, supermarket staff disappeared into the stockroom and returned with additional cases. Crisis solved.
With numerous apartments to inspect prior to arrivals, the process can feel less like hospitality and more like an escape room. That’s precisely why the team always visits every property in advance: not only to make sure everything is ready and to leave a small EAS welcome touch, but also to be sure everything is in place and functioning prior to guest arrival.
And sometimes, despite all the preparation, Cannes still finds a way to surprise you. As one teammate laughed afterwards:
“I somehow managed to lock myself inside one of the buildings for twenty minutes before figuring out how to get out.”
Or the phone call that arrived just after 11 p.m. The day was almost over and the team was already heading home when a client called claiming that the beds in one apartment hadn’t been prepared:
“Two members of our team rushed over to make the bed, only to discover there were actually two beds to prepare.”.
Within minutes, several members of the team ran from one side of the Croisette to the other to bring clean bedsheets and make beds together so the guests could return to a ready apartment. The clients were not only satisfied but also surprised to see us still working so late at night. They really appreciated that we were available whenever they needed us and that we responded so quickly and efficiently. Needless to say, we all slept very well that night!
Solving ten problems before lunch
One team member described Cannes Lions perfectly:
“It makes you feel like a superhero and an ant at the same time. You can solve ten problems in five minutes, yet somehow can’t decide what to have for lunch.”
It sounds like a joke, but it isn’t. The pace at Cannes Lions is relentless. A supplier arrives late, a guest changes their arrival time, a delivery is delayed, a venue suddenly needs extra furniture, someone needs directions, someone else requires transport, and just when everything seems to be under control, another last-minute request comes in. Then another. And another.
That’s the reality of working behind one of the world’s largest business events. The job isn’t about preventing every problem from happening, because that’s impossible. It’s about solving each one quickly, calmly, and often before the client even realizes there was an issue in the first place.
Yet somehow, no matter how hectic the day had been, we always seemed to find each other at lunchtime. Without planning it, we’d end up in the same two places: Subway or Tomate Cherie.
During Cannes Lions, finding a good place to eat is harder than it sounds. Most restaurants along the Croisette are fully booked, expensive, or simply too slow when you only have thirty minutes before your next meeting. That’s why these two spots become something of an open secret among event professionals.
Subway is fast, reliable and fully customisable, making it easy for everyone to grab exactly what they want, whether it’s a hearty sandwich or a lighter option. Tomate Cherie, on the other hand, offers freshly prepared salads, pasta dishes and seasonal ingredients, providing a healthier alternative without sacrificing speed. Both are reasonably priced by Cannes standards, offer plenty of variety for different tastes and dietary preferences, and, most importantly, get you in and out quickly.
They became our daily meeting point. We’d grab a quick lunch, compare step counts, laugh about the latest unexpected challenge, and recharge for a few minutes before heading back into the whirlwind of Cannes Lions. In a week where every minute counts, those spontaneous lunches became a small ritual and one of the moments we all looked forward to.
What stays with you long after the festival ends
For some members of the EAS team, this year’s Cannes Lions marked the first experience of this kind, for others, it was another edition of an event they already knew well. Yet everyone described remarkably similar feelings: exhaustion, pride, and gratitude.
One colleague compared Cannes Lions to planning the biggest birthday celebration imaginable:
“For me, Lions feels a lot like your birthday: months of planning what to do, what to wear, who to see, how to make it unforgettable for your guests. And then, in a blink, it’s over and the nostalgia hits. That’s exactly how this year’s Cannes Lions played out. (Well, Eva Longoria was unfortunately not on my birthday guest list but…) A full year of preparation to deliver the impossible for our clients, ten days of the hardest, most intense work of the year, and then, just like that, it’s done. What remains are the memories, the photos, and the reminder of just how much we pulled off”
That spirit is difficult to explain until you’ve experienced it yourself, because despite the long days, the kilometres walked and the constant pressure, what people remember most isn’t the workload, but the teamwork by helping each other without being asked and stepping into whatever role is needed.
When the lights go out
By Saturday morning, Cannes slowly begins to return to normal. The branded façades are dismantled, the villas empty, the yachts leave the harbour, and trucks return to collect structures that, only days earlier, had seemed as though they had always belonged there. Within forty-eight hours, there is almost no trace that one of the world’s largest creative festivals has just taken place.
What remains are the memories of the people who made it happen.
They’ll remember walking more than 20,000 steps a day under the scorching Riviera sun, rushing from one venue to another, solving last-minute problems, making late-night trips to the supermarket, answering phone calls long after the workday was supposed to be over, and watching the first guests arrive at events that had taken months to plan.
The applause wasn’t for them, and the photographs rarely included them. Yet that’s the nature of working behind the scenes. Success is measured by what doesn’t happen: the problems guests never notice, the crises resolved before they unfold, and the countless details that quietly fall into place.
When everything runs seamlessly, no one thinks about the people who made it possible. And perhaps, in the world of events, that’s the greatest compliment of all, as our T-shirts said:
We are the people behind the impossible.
EAS is a Barcelona-based DMC offering premium MICE services with over 35 years of combined industry experience,
consistently delivering unparalleled event experiences. EAS delivers custom solutions for corporate accommodation
and events in Barcelona, Cannes and other select European locations.
