Kent Boswell’s Cannes Diary #1

Kent Boswell, creative tech and innovation director at The Hallway is representing Australia on the Cannes Digital Craft Lions jury. Boswell, along with most of the other Australian and NZ jurors, writes exclusively for CB.

After weeks of preliminary judging to help establish the Digital Craft shortlist and a relatively ‘quick’ 22-hour flight from Sydney, I have to say it’s damn exciting to be back in Cannes again and to feel the warmth of the Mediterranean sun hit my skin. The last time I was in this amazing seaside town was pre-Covid days back in 2018 for ‘Project Revoice’, so there has been a fairly solid gap between having an overflowing glass of Rosé wine in my hands.

After doing a little lap of the Croisette to recalibrate my bearings, you can certainly feel the calm before the storm as all the final checks are in full swing anticipating the BIG week ahead that officially kicks off from Monday. It’s almost a competition of what tech company has the biggest and most elaborate beach party setup, with absolutely no expense spared in the process.

Over the last 24 hours all the jurors (290 in total) have flown in from all corners of the globe and Cannes Lions organised an amazing cocktail party to welcome us all this evening. The espresso martini certainly did its job to help fight off the different timezone. It was fantastic to finally meet the other members of the Digital Craft jury in person, after weeks of speaking with them all on group Zooms – instant mates for life!

With a massive day of judging ahead of us tomorrow and some serious jet lag to combat, I’m off to count some sheep.

Can’t wait to get cracking in the morning…!