The best party at Cannes wasn't the one everyone flew in for

I just arrived back to Paris after a week at Cannes Lions, and there’s so much to share! I have so much I want to tell you, so I’ve decided to bring the Cannes recap to our Cult Brand Blueprint workshop on Tuesday.

More on that below.

First, if Cannes is new to you, here’s the gist:

Now, let’s talk about the week:

First, there were parties literally everywhere. And beaches named for corporations: Salesforce Beach, Amazon Port, Spotify Beach, but the best party at Cannes this year wasn't the concerts on those beaches, as was predicted. It wasn't the stages on the sand or the logos lit up over the water.

It was a house party.

Specifically, a villa party hosted by a guy who owns a creator agency. The vibe was more LA than French. A hilltop home washed in red light, a living room dance party, cigarettes as party favors, and the exact people everyone spent all week trying to meet. And that one contrast tells you precisely where status — and brand building — is headed.

It got me thinking: Is the era of the hot restaurant or entry to the chicest cocktail bar over?

For years, the flex was getting the very best reservation. I’ve seen this in every city I’ve lived in, from New Orleans to Nashville to LA. Everyone vying for the impossible table, a seat at the restaurant you had to know someone to get into.

I didn’t see that anywhere in Cannes. And tbh, it probably stopped meaning anything, because now anyone can get the table. There are 3 different credit cards for that. There's an app for it. When everyone can book it, booking it doesn't signal much.

So it seems status is moving. It’s moving to the one room you can't buy your way into: someone's home, by invitation.

It's the same counter-signaling we just watched happen with bare nails. When the symbol gets democratized, the people at the top opt out, and their opting out becomes the new symbol. A reservation says you have money. An invitation says you have access. And access is the harder one to fake.

Here's why this matters for your brand: the visible flex is getting cheaper by the day, and the access is where the value went. I have so many thoughts about how we can use this idea for our brand events and community building (and it’s way less pricey to host a party at home than have something catered in the chicest place in town).

Cannes was that thesis playing out live. Everyone flew in for the activations, and the thing people actually wanted was the dinner for six or the invite to that party.

Here's a few other things I saw — founder to founder, creator to creator. Six things, no gatekeeping.

The biggest thing keeping people away from Cannes is the myth that it costs a fortune. It doesn't. We booked an $800 Airbnb ten minutes out of town, far in advance, and most of the activations are free to register — no badge required. I personally had one, but I didn’t pay for it. I applied as press because of this very newsletter. So I had access to the same events, talks, and rooms as a culture writer for the NY Times.

The badge was never the point anyway. Proximity is. Being in the room watching really brilliant people think will teach you more than any panel, and you get a hundred reps at it yourself.

Steal this: the room you're skipping because it feels "too expensive" or "too exclusive" is usually neither. Find out before you count yourself out.

One of my favorite moments was watching Wilglory Tajong stand up at an activation, ask Oprah one question, exchange info, and walk away with a dinner date in New York.

Most people at this level aren’t pretentious. They want to know what you're good at, so say it. The imposter syndrome version of you wastes the week, and shooting your shot is the entire game right now.

Steal this: the ask you're scared to make is almost never as big a deal to them as it is to you. Say the thing.

You have under 11 seconds or so to say what you do, in very loud rooms, so you have to make it land — practice it until it's muscle memory. And the connections that actually stick usually have nothing to do with business anyway. People lean in when they like you first; the deal comes after. Your lore as a person is doing more work than your pitch.

Steal this: lead with the human. The founder who's memorable as a person gets the follow-up. The one who leads with the resume gets forgotten by the next bar.

And no, not the drinking kind. It's being ready for every kind of room — a dinner with six people, then an afterparty with three hundred — and finding the pockets of people you actually want to know in each one.

The connections don't live in one type of room. I had dinner with the founder of Fohr and met the co-founder of Hinge at a bar. I met my favorite internet mind Eugene Healey poolside at that house party and talked for 30+ minutes. At events like this, you have to turn the social on and leave it on for five days straight.

Steal this: stop waiting for the "right" room. Show up to all of them, then find your pocket once you're inside.

The biggest moments belonged to people who were a creator and an expert at something specific. And it runs both ways now — every CMO I talked to knows they need to be visible as the person behind the work.

Forbes just launched a creator-in-residence program, and honestly? Forbes needs the creators' trust more than the creators need Forbes. That's the shift.

Steal this: your expertise is the moat, and your visibility is the multiplier. You need both — pick the one you've been avoiding and start there.

Fashion did this 15 years ago. The front row went from editors to influencers — the industry clutched its pearls, then it became the standard. Cannes just did the same thing for creators, and the $3K one-off influencer-style video era is ending with it. The move now is equity, board seats, and creator-in-residence titles — real stakes in what creators help build. The infrastructure for creators-as-owners is being built right now, and most people haven't clocked it yet.

Steal this: stop trading attention for a flat fee. You're early — the same way the first influencers in that front row were early.

Every one of these comes back to the house party. The activation is the reservation — visible, buyable, available to anyone now. The relationship is the invitation. The access. The room you can't buy your way into.

Going out told everyone you could afford it. Getting invited tells everyone you're worth knowing.

That's the trade, and it's the whole job of a cult brand. You're not building the thing people can buy. You're building the thing people want in on.

I'm bringing my favorite moments from Cannes plus the framework to build a brand people want an invitation to — not just a product they can buy. We'll take the reservation-versus-invitation idea and turn it into the actual blueprint for your brand.

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