Cannes 2020: Cannes Lion pushes from June to October

The Cannes Lions festival has been postponed from June 22-26 to October 26-30 it was announced by festival organizers on Wednesday.

The decision was arrived at after consultation with public health officials, the Cannes mayoral office, French authorities and festival partners in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Speakers who were set to appear at the June festival included Kathleen Hall, corporate vice president of brand, advertising and research at Microsoft; Jean Tanis, global marketing creative lead at Netflix and Claudine Cheever, global head of branding and advertising at Amazon.

“The global situation is dynamic and changing rapidly, we felt it was critical to provide visibility on June as soon as possible. We will continue to liaise closely with our customers as we develop our plans,” said Philip Thomas, chair, Cannes Lions.

Simon Cook, managing director, Cannes Lions, went on to say: “Our community is facing unprecedented challenges and collaboration has never been more important. We are focused now on planning the festival – and our beating heart, the Lions – to ensure our community is able to recognize the extraordinary work it contributes to business, organizations and society.”

The announcement is a bit of a death knell for the main festival, whose fate has yet to be announced. A press conference is set for April 16 to announce if the 73rd edition of the Cannes Film Festival will go on in May as planned, be postponed or canceled altogether.

As of today, France currently under a 15-day lockdown in response to the pandemic. There have been 7,652 confirmed cases resulting in 148 deaths.