What do Cannes first-timers get wrong?
The brilliant film industry guru Stephen Follows has published the definitive guide for first-timers (and experienced attendees!) at the Cannes Fim Festival, which kicks off this week.
Stephen covers off everything from:
- Accreditation: Which badge do I need?
- The badge colour thing: is the caste system real? (Yes. And it is brutal!)
- Tickets: Is Cannes ticketing really a lottery? (No)
- The Marché floor: You're a producer with a film to sell. Should you spend my week on the Marché floor?
Drawing on 575 Cannes veterans, the 2026 rules and a decade of caught-out first-timers, this is what you need to know if you're heading to the Croisette.
THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM STEPHEN FOLLOW'S SUBSTACK
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL STORY
"Every spring, around this time, my inbox develops a particular shape.
Somebody emails to ask which badge they need. Somebody else emails to say they’ve been told Cannes tickets are ‘a lottery’ and is that really true? A first-time producer wants to know if they should bring business cards or a link. A publicist is panicking about the new dress code. And at least one person, every single year, asks me what shoes to wear.
The 79th Festival de Cannes opens on 12 May 2026, with the Marché du Film running 12 to 20 May. Around 15,000 market professionals from 140 countries will be there, and at least a third of them will be first-timers.
I’ve pulled together the questions I actually get asked, the ones people don’t ask until they land, and the ones they should ask but don’t. What follows draws on a survey I ran of 575 Cannes veterans, the festival’s own documentation, and the 2025 and 2026 rule changes that have caught several return visitors off guard"
For all of Stephen's insight and the rest of this story Click here to follow and read Stephen’s Substack