There will be no gold, silver or bronze Lions handed out this year. No extravagant parties. No posting fabulous French drinks and meals on Instagram. Advertising’s biggest event of the year, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, will not go forward with its 2020 edition, organizers announced this morning.
The advertising awards festival, which traditionally takes place in June, had hoped to go on to reschedule to late October. Now, the next edition of the festival won’t be held until June 21-25, 2021.
As the impact from COVID-19 continues to be felt globally, several holding companies had already pulled out for this year, the awards stated that it became clear that priorities had shifted to “the need to protect people.”
Philip Thomas, Chairman, Cannes Lions, said in a statement, “Cannes Lions at its core has always been about creativity and the Lions. We realise that the creative community has other challenges to face, and simply isn’t in a position to put forward the work that will set the benchmark. The marketing and creative industries, in common with so many others, are currently in turmoil, and it’s clear that we can play our small part by removing all speculation about the Festival this year. We have tried to make our decisions as early as possible to give the industry total clarity on the situation, and that is why we are announcing this move today.”
The awards announced their decision on Twitter.
Simon Cook, Managing Director, Cannes Lions, added: “We all look ahead to a more positive time – right now, Cannes Lions will continue to bring the global creative community together and provide inspiration where we can find it. Our recent call for inspirational creative stories from around the world has already garnered hundreds of accounts of our community uniting and showing progress in this crisis. We believe firmly that the Lions continue to offer valuable recognition to that community and we look forward to celebrating and honouring the work in 2021, when the world will hopefully feel more stable, and our community can give their work the focus it deserves,” added Simon Cook, Managing Director.
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The Lions is the latest event to be postponed. The coronavirus has also pushed back primary elections in over a dozen states, with the Democratic National Convention delayed from July to August.
SOURCE: Cannes Lion
Colin Costello is the West Coast Editor of Reel 360. Contact him at colin@reel360.com or follow him on Twitter at @colinthewriter1
