Who needs Cannes when you have Cairns

Cannes in Cairns, a conference for the advertising industry, solved the needs of more than 700 Australian delegates who weren’t able to travel to France for Cannes Lions. The event, which took place 16-18 May, was held by The Misfits Media Company in lieu of the French advertising and media event Cannes Lions, which was inaccessible to Australian delegates due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. During the day, sessions were hosted by the recently refurbished Cairns Convention Centre. At these sessions, over 700 delegates listened to speakers from the Australian media, marketing, and advertising industry. Speakers at the event included former women’s world number one tennis player Ash Barty, executive chairman of Yellow Brick Road Group Mark Bouris, TV host and founder of ‘Flex Factory’ Lillian Ahenkan, writer and filmmaker John Safran, and Australian Paralympian Grant Patterson. Dan Uglow, the event’s welcome party organiser and The Misfits Media Company co-founder, explained that along with Pinterest, the event was supported by seven other brands: Nine, NewsCorp, Pubmatic, Ben & Jerry’s, Tug, Adobe, and Microsoft. “Nine wanted to do something with impact, highly visual and a bit of fun. A Ferris wheel in the middle of nowhere seemed like a crazy idea, and that’s always the best kind of idea,” Uglow said. The welcome party’s Ferris wheel was last seen at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Normally housed in Townsville, the wheel was already close by the working sugar cane farm hosting the event. As 95% of Australia’s sugar cane is found in Queensland, the state’s working cane farms double up as large event spaces. As the conference concluded Pinterest Australia and New Zealand’s Country Manager, Melinda Petrunof, said that she hoped the delegates would take a “renewed sense of perspective, energy and purpose” home with them. To read the full case study from Cairns & Great Barrier Reef business events, follow the link here.