• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 24, 2011

…definitely not the festival’s press room “facilities.” Honestly, I’ve covered lots of conferences in my career, but I haven’t been to many where the technical set-up has been worse for people trying to cover it. It’s almost as if the Cannes organizers don’t want the press to cover it.

Among other things, there is no wi-fi in the actual presentation rooms, which means any journalist hoping to cover the sessions “live,” must do so by watching it on a closed-circuit screen in the press room. That wouldn’t be so bad, except the wi-fi in the press room also goes in and out. More significantly, the closed-circuit feeds also go out intermittently, like it just did while WPP Chief Martin Sorrell was conducting an interview on stage with the Unilever brass. I guess that’s okay, since most of us journalists gathered around the monitor missed the first half of the conversation, anyway, because no one could figure out how to get the volume up high enough to actually hear what the speakers were saying.

This has been a constant problem throughout the festival, which is compounded by the fact that some of the international media present, apparently don’t understand that the journalists gathered around the monitor are actually trying to listen to what the speakers are saying, and they just jabber on as loud as they possibly can.

Look, I’m used to working in noisy bustling conditions, and can usually filter the distractions out, but only if I can hear what people are saying.

As the American journalist sitting next to me just said, “It’s going to be hard for me to make a story out of how interesting [Uniliever CEO Paul] Polman’s tie is.”

To which I added, “If you could read lips, you’d have an exclusive.”

I know this post may prevent me from being invited back again next year, but you know, it needed to be said. And the abysmal quality of the press center is actually in stark contrast to the rest of the festival, which is incredibly well produced.