Hey friends, welcome back to Creator Etiquette!
This week's issue is in partnership with Adobe Acrobat! As an Adobe Acrobat Ambassador, I'm partnering with Adobe to share the tools I genuinely use to run my business, and how I used Acrobat to survive (and thrive) at my first Cannes Lions.
This newsletter lives alongside the YouTube channel and the podcast. If you'd rather listen in, make sure to follow along on YouTube and Spotify!
Today's Topic: Cannes Lions Is Not a Conference. It's a Career Accelerator — If You Come Prepared.
I just got back from my first Cannes Lions in the South of France! I recorded 12 podcast interviews and attended over 20 brand activations, dinners, and panels. None of it would have gone the way it did without having a real system behind me. Today I'm breaking down what Cannes actually is, what it costs, what you need to know before you go, and the exact tool that kept me from completely unraveling on the ground.
What Cannes Lions Actually Is
Cannes Lions is the world's biggest advertising and creativity festival. It runs for a week every June in the South of France, and it has been becoming one of the most important places for creators to show up.
The Croisette is about a mile of beach activations from brands like Adobe, LinkedIn, Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and dozens of others. Each brand essentially builds its own pop-up world. There are panels, podcasts, dinners, happy hours, and one-on-one meetings happening every single hour of every day.
Cannes is an executive world. You are not walking into a creator content festival. You are walking into a room full of CMOs, CFOs, and heads of influencer who are actively making decisions about which creators they want to work with long-term. Your professionalism, how you show up, how prepared you are, how easy you are to work with on the ground, is part of the audition.
The Cost Breakdown
Flights: ~$3,000–$3,500 round trip (economy, booked early — I locked in my first leg in December)
Accommodation: $150–$900/night. Stay within walking distance of the Croisette. Being 15 minutes on foot beats 30 minutes by car when you have a meeting in 20 minutes.
Creator pass: ~$1,500 — this gets you into Creator Beach, the Palais panels, and the award shows
All-in: budget $7,000–$10,000 including food, drinks, and the unexpected
If your goal is to go next year, start now. It took me two to three years of building to feel ready to be in that room. Start saving and start making the relationships that will get you invited.
How I Prepared to Actually Function on the Ground
Going into Cannes I had a Google Sheet of RSVPs, a Google Doc with my shot list and itinerary, PDFs of brand contracts, screenshots of meeting locations, flight and hotel confirmations, interview briefs, brand deal deliverables, and more. What saved me was consolidating everything into one Adobe Acrobat PDF space.
When you load your files into an Acrobat PDF Space, the AI Assistant reads everything. It auto-summarized all 26 files the moment I opened the space, and becomes a searchable brain for your whole trip.
When you are doing back-to-back meetings with executives in 100-degree heat on a beachfront, your brain is at capacity. You cannot also be your own filing system. The mental load of staying organized is exactly the thing that trips creators up in professional settings. Acrobat removed that load entirely.
→ Want to set up your own conference PDF Space? Start here
What I Got Right (And What I'd Do Differently)
RSVP to everything early. I started in April. If you are not RSVPing by the time the conference is six weeks out, you are already behind.
Fly in two days early. I would have missed an entire dinner, a site walk, and a day of relationship-building if I'd flown in the day the conference started.
Prioritize the dinners over everything. I loved the activations, beaches, and happy hours, but the conversations that actually move things forward happened at dinner tables. A room of 12 people over a meal beats a booth every single time. Show up and stay for the whole thing.
Make the ask. The only reason I recorded 12 podcast episodes at the Adobe Creator Studio is because I emailed Adobe months ago and asked if I could record one. One. They said yes and it grew from there. Closed mouths don't get fed.
What I'd do differently: block at least one hour a day with no commitments. The best moments of my week were spontaneous — gelato with a new friend, an impromptu street interview, a conversation I didn't plan that I am still thinking about. Leave room for the unscheduled.
The full Cannes debrief episode is live now, and all 12 interviews I recorded are dropping through September. This is going to be one of the best lineups we have ever put out, and I cannot wait for you to hear every single one of them!
Xo, Gigi Robinson
Founder, Hosts of Influence® | Creator, Educator, Speaker, Author, Dog Mom
You are receiving this because you signed up for Creator Etiquette®. Unsubscribe anytime, no hard feelings.
