My feed has been one thing all week: Cannes.
Oprah showed up in Schiaparelli, Steven Bartlett took the stage, and Mel Robbins worked the Croisette while hundreds of creators posted from the south of France between rosé, panels, and private dinners.
But if you'd said "Cannes Lions" to me a few months ago, I'd have given you a blank stare — I genuinely had no idea this event existed.
But this year it's everywhere, and once I actually looked at who was on those stages, I couldn't stop looking. The names aren't ad executives, they're creators, podcasters, and founders who built an audience and turned it into a business.
A 73-year-old institution built to hand trophies to ad agencies has reorganized its entire festival around the creator economy. And that’s the part I want to highlight, not the parties — the pivot.
So I went down the rabbit hole, what Cannes Lions actually is, who it's for, what it costs, and whether the founders I work with should have this event on their radar. Here's what I found, and what you need to know.
What is Cannes Lions, actually?
Cannes Lions is the International Festival of Creativity. It runs five days — this year, June 22–26 — at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. At its core it's an awards show: the advertising and marketing industry's Oscars, where agencies submit their best campaign work and a Lion is the trophy everyone wants to take home.
It's been running for 73 years. The customer it was built for is the giant advertising agency — the massive firms that make the commercials and campaigns for huge global corporations. Think the agency behind Nike's "Just Do It" (Wieden+Kennedy), or names like WPP and Omnicom that run the advertising for brands like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Apple. These are the players Cannes was built for — sending teams to compete, network, and close deals over a week of panels and beach activations.
But in recent years the festival has been in drastic decline — award entries dropped from roughly 26,900 in 2025 to about 20,050 in 2026, a 25% drop in a single year. Bringing in creators and the creator economy is taking the awards show to another level: renewed attention, fresh budget, and a sharper read on where marketing is headed. Cannes isn't courting creators on a whim. It's following the money — and the money is moving to them.
How did an ad festival end up courting creators?
Watch how deliberately this happened:
2018 — Cannes introduces the Social & Influencer Lions. First real acknowledgment that this was a category.
2024 — The first dedicated Creator Pass and LIONS Creators programming. Creators get their own track.
2025 — The category gets renamed "Social & Creator Lions." Five new subcategories. Around 400 creators attend — a record.
2026 — Creators are now a permanent fixture. LIONS Creators has its own beach footprint, its own stage, its own programming, headlined by Adobe. This year a classic pass runs €4,465 before tax (about $5,178), a dedicated creator pass runs €1,245, and the all-in premium combinations climb past €16,000.
This evolution took eight years, end to end. It wasn't a sudden pivot, it was a slow, structural migration toward where the attention — and the money — actually went.
What changed about how brands see creators?
The conversation at Cannes used to be: should brands work with creators?
The conversation this year is: how do brands scale creator partnerships measurably?
That shift in the question is the entire story. Creators stopped being a distribution channel (re: a place you go to rent attention) and became strategic business partners. People with their own audiences, their own businesses, their own leverage. When a brand sits across from a creator at Cannes now, it's two businesses talking, not a company hiring a billboard, and the sponsor list backs it up.
The companies writing the checks this year aren't just the old advertising-tech players. They're creator-economy platforms: Patreon, LTK, Linktree, Later, ManyChat. The infrastructure of the creator business showed up to fund the festival, because the festival is now where their customers gather.
There's a session in the actual 2026 programming that stood out to me, called "From Creator to CEO: Building Scalable Brands With AI." It features Steven Bartlett and Adobe's David Wadhwani talking about how AI is reshaping who gets to build, lead, and scale a brand.
"From creator to CEO" is the shift I want you to see. You can no longer just be an expert, creator, or influencer. You have to identify as a business owner - with influence.
And the ones who are treating their personal brand as the business, not just an advertising platform, will have all the leverage moving forward. Cannes Lions knew it, named it, and then put top creators on stage and started monetizing it, and we should all be paying attention.
Who is Cannes Lions actually for?
Let me be upfront about what’s real and what’s a little manufactured.
"Every creator is at Cannes" is mostly being driven by sponsored mega-creators and brands paying for proximity. The influencers you're seeing in your feed sharing BTS from the event were largely placed there — by brands, by platforms, by funds covering their passes. This isn’t an event most creators are attending yet due to the high cost and relatively new awareness of the event itself.
But the honest answer to "is this event for the $3–10M course creators, coaches, and experts I work with?" is: not the way it's currently built.
The programming, the awards, the deal floor — it's still oriented toward brands and agencies and the creators big enough to be courted by them. If you're looking for a tactical content takeaway to bring home, this is an expensive way to get it.
But that's not why I'd go, or why I would pay.
Is Cannes Lions worth attending?
Here's the thing about me and events: I don't go for the content. I have never once booked a flight for a breakout session I could've watched on a livestream for $99.
I go for the people.
My business is relationship based and most of my lead flow comes from getting in the room with high caliber founders like this.
And truthfully, I have never seen an event curate a space like this one. Oprah, Steven Bartlett, Mel Robbins - these are the actual operators behind the biggest creator-led businesses on the planet. They’re on panels, in the open, and accessible in a way they simply aren’t anywhere else. I can’t think of another event where you can watch someone of that caliber speak and then go up and ask them a question afterward.
That access is the product.
Cannes figured out that the real thing it sells isn't trophies — it's proximity. The chance to be in the same square mile as the people setting the direction of the entire industry, with a structure designed to make those conversations actually happen.
If you know how to create and capitalize on relationships - then yes, I think the trip is worth it. Because it’s not about the content ops or panel takeaways but rather the founder’s hands I'll come home having shaken that I'd otherwise never reach beyond my feed. That's a different kind of return, and in my experience it's the most valuable one.
So yes, I do plan to attend next year. Not for the Lion awards, but for the people who will be there competing for one.
What does this mean for your business?
You don't have to fly to France to takeaway this lesson:
The most established institution in marketing just reorganized itself around the exact thing I keep telling founders to build — an audience you own, a personal brand that operates like a business, a seat at the table that comes to you because of who you've become, not the pitch you sent.
Cannes is chasing creators because creators have won the competition: for attention. The attention moved to them, and the budgets followed. And a 73-year-old French festival rebuilt its whole infrastructure to stay close to them.
SO…if the biggest stage in the industry is betting on founder-led, audience-owned, personal-brand businesses — maybe it’s time to start showing up for yours like the industry changing tool it is.
To the people, not the panels,
Ashley
P.S. — If you went to Cannes this year, I want the unfiltered version. Was it as good as you thought? Hit reply and share your experiences— I'd love to go next year and want to make the most of it!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Cannes Lions?
Cannes Lions is the International Festival of Creativity, a five-day advertising and marketing awards festival held annually at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. Often called the advertising industry's Oscars, it has run for 73 years and awards "Lions" trophies for the best creative campaign work in the world.
When and where is Cannes Lions 2026?
Cannes Lions 2026 takes place June 22–26, 2026, at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France.
How much does it cost to attend Cannes Lions?
For 2026, a Classic pass costs €4,465 before tax (about $5,178), and a dedicated Creator pass costs €1,245. All-in premium combinations that bundle platinum, creator, and sport access climb past €16,000 — before flights and accommodation, which add significantly to the total in peak-season Cannes.
Why are creators going to Cannes Lions?
Cannes Lions has shifted toward the creator economy as its traditional agency customer base has shrunk — award entries dropped about 25% from 2025 to 2026. The festival now hosts dedicated LIONS Creators programming, a Social & Creator Lions awards category, and a creator pass, because consumer attention and brand budgets have moved toward creators. Many creators attend on passes funded by brands, platforms, or creator funds rather than self-funding.
Is Cannes Lions worth it for online creators, coaches, and course founders?
Cannes Lions is still primarily built for brands, agencies, and large creators courted by them, so it isn't designed as a tactical-education event for smaller online founders. Its real value is access — the chance to be in the same room as top-tier founders, podcasters, and business leaders who are otherwise hard to reach. For founders who attend events for relationships and proximity rather than content, that access can justify the cost.
What is the "Creator CEO" trend at Cannes Lions?
The "Creator CEO" trend refers to the shift from being a creator, expert, or influencer to operating as a business owner with influence — treating a personal brand as a company rather than an advertising platform. Cannes Lions 2026 featured a session titled "From Creator to CEO: Building Scalable Brands With AI" with Steven Bartlett and Adobe's David Wadhwani — a marker of how central this shift has become to how the marketing industry sees creators.