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By Root 914 0

I’d been to half a dozen similar parties during the week, and with each one, no matter how lavish and spectacular, I was becoming increasingly disinterested. I’d been away from advertising for more than two years. At some of these parties I knew a lot of people, at others maybe one or two acquaintances. I’d been partying with strangers until all hours for four straight nights, and there were three nights to go. I told myself I should go back to my hotel and get some rest, seemingly as I was handing my VIP invite to a security guard in a tuxedo and making my way through the velvet rope.

The invitation to this event said black tie, but at this point in the week I knew better than to be concerned about my clothing choices. People were wearing shorts, AC/DC T-shirts, Thom Jones ankle-hugger suit pants. Some guy was wearing a kilt. I bypassed the endless tables of gourmet food and went straight to the champagne bar.

My eye was immediately drawn to a young executive from an Argentinean agency being followed by her personal film crew as she mimicked socializing, sipping champagne, mingling with strangers, and admiring the high-powered spectacle that she is obviously (fictionally) such an important part of. But then there was a glitch with the camera, at which time she shifted out of one character to reveal her true self, who proceeded to yell at her producer for two minutes before putting the fake smile back on her face and flawlessly repeating the take. It all made her appear shallow and foolish here, at least to the only loser shallow and foolish enough to continue paying attention to her. But it will probably make her look like a star in the slickly edited corporate video yet to come back home.

In Cannes, the people who make the ads are brands unto themselves, and when you walk or work among them, it is difficult not to consider everything part of a focus group, or a series of ad impressions that ladder up to a brand. The disturbingly cheeky way the flight attendant recited the emergency evacuation instructions on the tarmac before leaving JFK. Did that trend start with Southwest? Is there a JetBlue effect? Is that young woman looking at an ad on her iPhone? Rather than hit me up for a ten-euro charge for an electrical adapter for my laptop, a smart network or brand ought to provide it free.

It can’t be helped.

Minutes before I left the party, an American creative director from Dallas complained to me about an anti-American bias among the judges at Cannes (even though the United States was winning more than its share of awards). “They give a few token awards to a few big agencies and screw us on the rest.”

My cue to move on was when concert smoke began to swirl across a huge stage in the center of the gala and the deejay asked us to put our hands together for a group of young women singers who emerged from the man-made cloud “all the way from the U.K.!” in flimsy white cocktail dresses. Canned music, part Wagner, part Freddie Mercury—a rock-opera, New Age, Andrew Lloyd Webber–esque audio clusterfuck—filled the air, and the women began to sing, or chant, or whatever. I’ve tried to remember the name of their band—Sensura? Bravura?—but it eludes me to this day. “Operatic pole dancers” is how an Australian woman with a star tattooed on her bare shoulder described them, but a Google search on that exact phrase came up empty.

I walked across the street to my hotel and, before going to bed, determined to make a quick pass through the veranda of the Carlton. Which is where I found my friend and former colleague Dante Piacenza, who had an extra necklace invitation for the Leo Burnett party down the Croisette at Le Palm Beach. Dante is the former head of broadcast production at Young & Rubicam and was presently working as an executive producer at Elias Arts.

On the Leo Burnett–co-opted, Disneyesque tram filled with partygoers that we hopped on outside Hotel Martinez, I met two young creative partners from the U.K. agency Rainey Kelly. The two have known each other since they were thirteen and have crashed Cannes on their own dime