A snapshot to the other side of Cannes – Monday

Campaign Brief Asia asked Josh Edge to wonder the streets of Cannes tobring you a different perspective to the annual global adfest. Here’s are some of the things that caught Edge’s eye today. Pictured left – An interactive presentation of cinema advertising and it’s ability to integrate 3D vision, 3D sound, smells, taste, touch and interactive digital gaming. I’m still waiting for 3D glasses that don’t make you look like a complete plonker.

Below, Pic 1: Just one of the homely automobiles found puttering along on the streets on d’Antibes.

Pic 2: And so begins the mountains of free crap that is bestowed upon those entering the pearly gates of Cannes Lions. About 90% of this went straight in the bin shortly after this photo was taken.

Pic 3: Anyone wondering why every taxi in Cannes is a Mercedes obviously hasn’t ridden in one. At 5 euros a click it’s cheaper to hire your own jet to pop down to the shops.

Pic 4: Yes, this is the mighty Crowe’s hand-and-a-half. Not sure which he uses to throw those telephones, though.

Below, Pic 1: The beach is still where plenty of fat, red English and American creative-types like to chill and pretend that they’re James Bond. There’s always stuff to see if you sit still for half an hour or so. Unfortunately, nine times out of ten it’s a beef-jerkified Nanna pulling off her top for a dip.

Pic 2: This year Cannes Lions has happily synced up with the Cannes Music Festival, so there was plenty of hip hop and gypsy beats on the streets last night. Very, very cool.

Pic 3: More techno-gadgets, this time a Coke machine that plays music and video, offers immersive interaction and gives you a choice of several artist-designed Coke skins to spin, animate and order. All I know is that when you’re lining up for a free Coke on a hot day all this interaction is a pain in the arse.

Pic 4: This navigation board is absolutely amazing in a Minority Report-kinda way. You can select any part of the Festival and bring up live updates, feeds, watch video, the whole thing. Hard to get any work done when you’re playing with this sucker all day.

Below, Pic 1: 4pm, and already some delegates are arguing over fistfuls of Euros at the ‘Gutter Bar’.

Pic 2: Some restaurants let you sit out on the green.

Pic 3: The mighty Carlton. This is about as close as I, or any other young creative, is likely to get to staying here without selling a kidney or taking out a second mortgage.

Pic 4: Just some of the dudes you probably don’t want to bump into stumbling out of the ‘Gutter Bar’ at 4am. They’re standing in front of the Dutch young creatives bus, which gets a different funky skin every year.

Below, Pic 1: Almost a full house for Biz Stone, co-founder a Twitter and the least-assuming digital superstar ever. He finished his lecture with a standing ovation from the Tweeting faithful.

Pic 2: Biz also ran his Q&A session with a live streaming Twitter question feed, including questions from all over the world as well the audience.

Pic 3: This was pretty cool, the cinema audience can watch themselves on the screen while they interact with gaming devices on a huge scale, kind of like the Playstation Eye video games but with an entire cinema playing along.