This was our main day of prep work before the festival. The day started out with what I think is the scariest part of the trip, the Who’s Who test. Though this test can be stress inducing, it is one of the most practical tests you could take because YOU WILL be seeing these people either speaking at, or just walking around the festival. Knowing their names and companies gives you an upper hand in being able to walk up and casually start a conversation. After the test, we walked the entire length of the croisette to see where the different brands and activations would be located for the festival. In case you were wondering, the length from one end to the other is about a mile, and can take you 25+ minutes in the crowded heat. This is super helpful for the next part of the day where we reviewed our tentative schedules we premade before arriving in France. During the review, we edited our schedules according to proximity or based on other events that appeared that you are interested in (This was especially important for me because my friend on the trip got me a pass to SportsBeach, and they had a bunch of cool talks I was interested in!!). This is the number one thing I think helped me because I was never really wandering around the festival feeling overwhelmed. One thing that is important to note about the schedules is the importance of flexibility, because it’s while it is good to have an idea of what you want to do, being able to adapt quickly and go-with-the flow will make your festival experience that much better. After editing our schedules, we had the opportunity to hear from Dale Bornstein, the CEO of M Booth, an agency focused on deepening capabilities and recruiting the best talent in PR. As a pro of the festival herself, Dale explained a little bit about how to present yourself, and answered any questions from the group. Something Dale said that stuck with me was the importance of “Cannes-versations” leading to “Cannes-nections”. This is definitely something I found true when navigating the festival myself, because you never who you were standing next to. Overall, the day was focused on getting us into the mindset of networkers, and preparing us for a busy week to come.

After a busy day of prep work, we attended a whole group dinner at a beautiful beachfront restaurant. The food was super delicious, the view was stunning, and it was a fun way to end our travel and relaxing part of the trip and get into the festival mindset as a group. I really enjoyed being able to be as a whole group one last time before we got into the festival craziness!