For the time being, apart from the traditional madness of May, there is still a gulf between fantasy and reality. Once past the star-studded handprints engraved on the forecourt and up the Palais staircase and its famous red carpet, the glamour evaporates and only a few photos of celebrities remind the average delegate of the "magic of cinema".
Cannes is a conference town
Isn't the Palais des festivals beautiful? "The Société d'économie mixte pour les événements cannois (Semec), responsible for managing this flagship venue, might retort that, with 300,000 accredited delegates and some 56 events organised throughout the year, this town of 70,000 inhabitants can proudly claim to be "France's second-largest conference city". More than just a convention city, Cannes is a veritable 'convention town', a sun-drenched microcosm where all the vital forces seem to be mobilised to feed an events machine that is not ungrateful: €50 million in direct economic impact, €280 million in indirect impact and €505 million in induced economic impact.
The Palais, which sits logically at the bow of the bay, is the central unit of this special kind of industry, which is promoted worldwide by the Cannes Film Festival and whose smooth day-to-day running is guaranteed by the concerted management of well-understood interests between Semec and the Cannes hotel industry. "When there's a show here, the hotels block 90 to 95 % of their rooms for the event. This is not the case in the other major cities on the Côte d'Azur, where hotels continue to reserve some of their rooms for their other customers", explains Jean-Jacques Lottermoser, Marketing and Sales Director of the Palais.
This focus on business tourism means that Cannes is more of a competitor in this sector to Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam or Barcelona than to Nice or Monaco. With a comparative advantage over these sprawling rivals, Cannes offers a powerful 'all-in-one' venue combining exhibition spaces, conference rooms and prestigious reception areas with panoramic views over the bay, all at a single address. The 'plus product' of Cannes is also the city's particular ability to live entirely to the rhythm of the event of the moment. Work, rest, leisure: for participants in trade fairs and conferences held in Cannes, everything is linked, if not intertwined. "Convention-goers don't take off their badges when they leave the Palais, because they know that their social work continues in the surrounding area, in the bars, restaurants and hotels of the Croisette", adds Jean-Jacques Lottermoser.
In fact, everything in Cannes is a stone's throw from the Palais, including the hotels, with nearly 5,200 rooms within a 700-metre radius, starting with the world-famous Carlton, Majestic, Martinez and Noga Hilton.
A minimal dose of glamour
It's an attractive offer, and one that insists on remaining so, while maintaining a certain exclusivity. Not everyone is welcome at the club, and a trade show must convey a minimum dose of glamour if it is to pass through the doors of the Palais. Mipim, Mipcom, MipTV, Midem, Tax Free World and, of course, the Film Festival and Market: the major events organised in Cannes illustrate the core business of a venue devoted to the major trade shows of the 'tertiary chic', with a marked preference for the world of luxury, entertainment, intellectual property and new technologies. There is no industrial or agricultural machinery here, and few of the pharmaceutical congresses or trade fairs that make up the bulk of sales elsewhere.
But to maintain its good standing with a select clientele, the Palais is forced to undergo constant change. Ten years after the opening of the Espace Riviera - followed in 2006 by the luminous Rotonde Lérins - the Palais is now embarking on a multi-faceted €140 million renovation project: extending and upgrading the Grand Auditorium, remodelling the Foyer du Grand Auditorium and the Foyer Debussy, improving the flow of traffic between the different areas, renovating the Parvis de la Croisette... The project also includes updating the exterior of the Palais, and above all the construction of an extension under the Square Reynaldo Hahn, in front of the Palais, to accommodate a new underground station and 10,000 m2 of additional exhibition space, which the Palais sorely needs in view of the 'emergency' tents set up in the vicinity during the biggest events. Work is due to start in 2011, with completion scheduled for 2013. But by then, a lot will have happened.
