Cannes is becoming ‘a Super Bowl moment’ for creators: How they’re storming the French Riviera

Creators are getting their own dedicated beachside spots on the coveted French Riviera, hosting luncheons and leading workshops, and heading into the long weekend ready to court CMOs for long-term brand partnerships. 

“Creators are a noticeably bigger slice of the pie,” said Corey Martin, creator and managing director of media and influence at communications agency Allison Worldwide. 

AJ Eckstein, CEO of creator marketing agency The Creator Match, said Cannes has become the conference creators need to get to. “It’s at a level where, if you can go, you’ve ‘made it’ in the creator economy,” he said.

For creators too, this year feels the most profound.

“A couple of years ago, we were a colourful sideshow,” said Instagram creator Brandon Baum, who also owns his own creative studio. “Now content creators are the keynote speakers, not the panellists brought in to liven up yet another conversation about the future of marketing.” 

LinkedIn creator Natasha Badger said 2025 felt like a “teaser” in terms of creator attendance. “It’s clear that there is a huge uptick in creators this year,” she said.

More creators, more content

That uptick is manifesting in many ways. Cannes’ €1,494 ($1,732) Creator Pass, first launched in 2025, is more fleshed out than in years prior, according to The Drive Agency CEO Patrick Zielinski. The pass — roughly 70% cheaper than the “classic” €4,465 ($5,178)  marketing pass for corporate marketers — provides ample networking opportunities, roundtable discussions, and better access to the hundreds of sessions at the Palais des Festivals than ever before.

“Last year it was a little harder to have that accessibility,” he said. “I was really encouraged by seeing that drastic embrace this year.” (The Drive Agency has around 10 creator clients heading to Cannes). 

The pass gives creators access to the exclusive beach space — they’ve been there before, but this is an official spot. After the success of a dedicated creator track in the last few years, the official Cannes creator hub has moved from the Palais rooftop down to a massive beachfront location, known as the Adobe X LIONS Creator Beach, located directly behind the Palais.

Anyone who’s watched Cannes evolve over the past decade has seen this play out before: the media agencies were first to colonize the beach, followed by platforms and ad tech players rolling in bigger yachts and budgets each year. This year, it’s the creator economy’s turn in that same spotlight, with its own beachhead and programming signaling it’s arrived as a fully fledged part of the business.

Creator Colin Rocker’s first Cannes experience was last year, where he attended a creator activation on a “hot-ass rooftop” that was “two floors away from everything happening at the festival.”

“Having this beach space along the Croisette is a big move. That’s where all the main activations are,” Rocker told Digiday. “There’s a whole host of more activities in terms of creators not just being on panels but leading workshops and more.”

Crucially, the Creator Beach space includes a fully functioning podcast studio and content studio, which points to Cannes’ increased reliance on creators as press.

“It’s always been difficult at Cannes to get press attention and break through,” said Martin. “Creators have become a pathway to show off everything brands are doing.”

Creator economy strategist Gigi Robinson said several different companies are hosting their own content creator studios (including Edelman and TikTok), not just for UGC, but for brands to play up the trend of more accessible C-suite members.

Robinson will interview several CEOs and CMOs for her Creator Etiquette podcast in Adobe’s beachside studio. 

Tech and AI creator Megan Lieu said she’s attending Cannes to share content about the event and the creator economy at large.

“The appetite is growing for more people to learn about these events so that maybe one day they can break into those rooms,” Lieu said. “This is the opportunity to share with my audience that there’s a whole festival dedicated to this.”

For professionalized creators like Lieu, Cannes is increasingly becoming a Super Bowl moment where creators can make both engaging content and long-term brand partnerships on the ground, according to Sarah Teich, head of marketing at knowledge creator agency Smooth Media. She said Cannes has shifted toward creators bringing their editorial work to the festival. Smooth is representing six creators heading to Cannes, including the marketing-focused Breaking and Entering Media team, who will host a live show interviewing CMOs and C-suite marketing execs at Collins House.

“We’re doing more programming that is true creators’ editorial-forward versus the brands’ editorial-forward,” said Smooth co-founder Jenny Rothenberg. “Brands think that is more compelling… Cannes is obviously madness… Brands are seeing creators not just as amplification, but as making their editorial product better.”

Creators are wearing multiple hats (or fedoras)

Unlike the other major tentpole creator events like VidCon, Cannes Lions is drawing creators not just as social media mavens, but as small business owners, like Baum, who owns Studio B, a creative studio that’s worked with Meta, Lego, and others. 

And with more of their peers in attendance and easier access to execs (“they don’t normally go to VidCon or tech week,” said Eckstein), creators are heading to France with long-term goals in mind. 

Mayhew has attended Cannes for the last five years — the first two he went as one of just a handful of creators invited as TikTok’s guests. At the time, the social media platform had a small cabana on the beach — a far cry from the platform’s massive garden space at the Ritz Carlton it has this year — then later as a jury member. The last two years he’s shifted his strategy, paying out of pocket to attend because of the ample opportunities now available for creators.

“It’s much more professional now. We go there with goals to meet with agencies and brands because we’re getting way more involved early on,” Mayhew said. “It’s not just ‘do this TikTok or LinkedIn post for a campaign.’ CMOs are now taking meetings with creators.”

Rocker said he’s not heading into the long weekend expecting to sign a six-figure contract, but is focused on playing the long game: making connections with the higher-ups who make budget decisions and ideally, landing a panel himself. That’s exactly how the rest of the industry has long used Cannes — as a place for high-level introductions and relationship-building meetings, with actual deals often inked later. Now that Cannes has become so creator-friendly, those same kinds of opportunities are ample. 

“It’s a celebration of my arrival and solidification in my creator career,” said Rocker. “There’s a big, non-tangible benefit along the way, but I know people last year that showed up on Sunday, and by Thursday they were on a panel.”

Baum told Digiday he’s wearing two hats at Cannes Lions this year: content creator and business owner. That means he’ll also have to plan accordingly. 

“The key to success for creators and their teams on the ground is to prioritize meaningful connections,” Baum said. “Consider which opportunities support your personal and business objectives, and which interactions have the potential to remain impactful in 12 months’ time. Cannes is just the start of the story, not the full book.”