Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Lots of fun, great weather, fun people |
| Disadvantages: |
very expensive |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
I went out to The Cannes Advertising Film Festival. Ok, I know that you thought that this was going to be about glamorous stars, but it's not. This is about how to gate-crash all of the fun parties. The advertising festival (yes you can still meet rich and famous directors - most do commercials just to tide them over between feature films)are normally in about a month or so after the film festival in June.
Firstly, this is not a place to go on a shoe-string. Hotels are extortionate, but if you're willing to either rent an apartment or have a house up in the hills, you'll be much better off - the further out you go, the better the accomodation. Some of my friends actually ended up with a house that slept 10 with a pool, but it did take 15 minutes to get down to the seaside.
If you want to go to the parties, turn up glam, a lot of people don't make the effort, so if you do you'll get in. The second thing you need to do is mention the name of one of the production companies or advertising agencies at the door. If they say you're not on it tell them that they've made a mistake and that you didn't bring your ticket because you knew that your name would be on the door. If that doesn't work you say that half of your clients are expecting you in there and beg the door Nazi to be reasonable (they can be a bit officious).
I actually work in advertising, and the reason that I had to do this, is because a remarkably inept secretary managed to forget to get ahold of all of the required tickets before we went out, but I got into every single party anyway, while others were being turned away. You can do it too. By the way - the BBDO party is normally the best. If this doesn't work - go to the Gutter bar - everybody always ends up there after the parties anyway.
