“Who has all the tickets to the red carpet films this year?” is the question many industry attendees are asking. The answer is partly: “The festival sponsors.”
Social media focused luxury brands led by the Kering’s Gucci and YSL, as well as TikTok and platform Brut, both back for a second year, and festival stalwarts L’Oreal Paris and Chopard, each have an unconfirmed amount of tickets to hand out.
For some of the over 13,500 accredited industry professionals, each paying between €399 to €550 for a badge, this goes some way to explaining their ticketing difficulties.
“This is my 38th Cannes and I have never had problems like this,” said UK producer-distributor Hamish McAlpine. “My market badge doesn’t seem to give me any priority whatsoever.”
He would normally expect to get into 75% of the Competition screenings but this year hasn’t succeeded in getting a single one.
Frozen out of festival screenings, industry delegates also are struggling to get into market screenings of festival titles. The digitised system allows sellers to prioritise buyers. “There’s a trickle-down effect. The sales agents can’t get the buyers to see the film [at the official screening] so maybe a third or more of the [market] screenings are buyer-only,” McAlpine said.
Earlier in the week, his partner, producer Carole Siller, was offered tickets by a contact at Gucci. Certain she could secure a ticket via her market badge, she turned it down. As of late Thursday, she was regretting her decision.
An earlier version of this story reported the fee charged for a market badge was around $860 (€800).
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