Cannes Lions 2026 - Freewheel Beach

Retreat by the Sea — Freewheel's Cannes Lions home

For one week, the global media and advertising industry compresses itself into a few hundred metres of seafront. This space became the brand's Cannes headquarters: client meetings, filmed talks, hospitality and two private evenings.

Cannes Lions is a dense, saturated week. We took the opposite approach: a retreat by the sea. Natural materials, sand tones, shade and greenery. Somewhere you sit down and stay, rather than somewhere you pass through.

The real demand was about use, not decor. The same square metres had to host a confidential meeting in the morning, a filmed conference at midday, a happy hour at 6pm and a seated dinner in the evening. We designed the venue as a modular system, with a different level of privacy in each space — from the open lounge to the enclosed meeting room.

Environmental commitment had to show in the production rather than on a sign: eco-designed, reusable structures made in France, no plastic bottles, waste sorting across the whole site.

We turned the beach into a complete brand venue, built around seven spaces: welcome area, seafront deck, restaurant-lounge, auditorium, co-working-style meeting area, private meeting rooms and photocall, alongside a technical zone and green rooms allowing guest, speaker and production routes to be kept entirely separate.

The formats. A daily programme of talks on a stage produced to broadcast standard, allowing capture and distribution by the partner media channels present on site. Throughout the day, client meetings managed from a dedicated desk.

The two evenings. A VIP dinner in banquet format, Saint-Tropez in spirit, with bespoke entertainment and a tailor-made gifting experience. Then a festive night on the theme Riviera Carnaval, with its own stage and line-up, closing the week on a different register.