Cannes Film Festival Yacht Charter

Why Cannes Film Festival belongs on the water

Cannes Film Festival day-by-day

Indicative running order based on prior editions. Final times are released by the organisers closer to the date; your concierge will confirm the working schedule for your charter week.

1. Day –3 to –1

   Tue–Thu pre-week

   Yacht arrivals & dressing

   Charter yachts arrive Cannes from Saint-Tropez, the Îles d'Hyères or Antibes through the prior week. Jetée Albert Edouard berth contracts confirm; bay anchorage permits issue. Studio and streamer yachts complete their branded dressing — signage on the bathing platform, deck graphics, gangway carpet — through Wednesday and Thursday. The town quiets briefly before the opening.

2. Day 1 — Opening

   Opening Ceremony & gala dinner

   Opening Ceremony in the Grand Théâtre Lumière at 19:00, followed by the Opening Dinner under the Palais. The first carpet of the festival sets the tone. Yachts in the Vieux Port host pre-ceremony Champagne receptions for credentialed guests, then the principal table moves ashore for the dinner. Late-night the calendar reconverges at the Carlton beach or the Eden Roc bar.

3. Days 2–4

   First competition arc & Marché opening

   Competition screenings begin. The Marché du Film opens in parallel under the Palais and at the Riviera tents. The yacht's daytime schedule is dominated by press junket appointments, financing meetings and sales-agent breakfasts; the evening programme is carpet dinners at the Martinez and the Carlton, then a return to the yacht for the after-dinner private reception.

4. Days 5–7 — Middle weekend

   Carpet density peak & villa programme

   Saturday and Sunday of the middle weekend are the densest carpet nights of the festival. The Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc hosts the major brand and platform dinners; the Vista-Palace and the villas above La Californie host the most private of the after-dinner programmes. Yacht-based brunches Saturday and Sunday morning anchor the daytime calendar for the platform and luxury-house hosts.

5. Days 8–10 — Second arc

   Jury deliberations begin, calendar narrows

   The competition closes through Day 9. Jury deliberations begin in private. The week's working pace shifts from screenings to deals — the yacht-based dinners narrow to closing-conversation tables of eight to twelve rather than reception scale, and the press junket pace eases.

6. Day 11 — Awards

   Palme d'Or Closing Ceremony

   Awards Ceremony in the Grand Théâtre Lumière, Palme d'Or announced. The carpet dinner at the Palais follows. The night runs late — the winners' parties at the Eden Roc and the Martinez go until 04:00. Yacht-based after-parties for the winning teams have become a discreet alternative to the hotel programme over the last decade.

7. Day 12 — Decompression

   Departure & onward cruising

   Departure day. Most studio and platform yachts slip lines Sunday or Monday for Antibes refit, Saint-Tropez decompression, or onward Mediterranean continuation. Principal charters that extend typically take a two-to-five-day Riviera continuation cruise — Saint-Tropez, Porquerolles, or Portofino — before final disembarkation.

Where the week actually happens

The berths, terraces, lounges, and tables that define Cannes Film Festival. Access varies: some require a host on the inside, others can be arranged through our concierge.

• Berth
  Jetée Albert Edouard — Cannes Vieux Port

  The festival's working yacht jetty — Mediterranean-moored superyacht berths from 35 to 80 metres directly opposite the Palais des Festivals. Allocation through the Régies du Port; the better positions are taken by long-standing studio and platform contracts that renew quietly. The default working berth for any serious festival charter.

• Berth
  Port Pierre Canto — east Cannes

  Modern marina at the east end of the Croisette, fifteen minutes' tender or eight minutes by car from the Palais. The default secondary berth when Jetée allocations are full; calmer, more discreet, useful for principal charters that prefer distance from the press waterfront.

• Anchorage
  Bay of Cannes anchorage — opposite Île Sainte-Marguerite

  Permitted anchorage for yachts above 70 metres that cannot berth in the Vieux Port. Constant tender movement to the Palais sub-deck and the Carlton beach across the festival. The choice for the largest pinnacle-class yachts and for hosts who prefer privacy over berth visibility.

• Hotel & dining
  Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc — Antibes

  The defining festival hotel and the venue for the highest-stakes carpet dinners — the amfAR Gala anchors the middle Saturday, and the major platform and luxury-house dinners take the Eden Roc terraces across the fortnight. Helipad on site; the helicopter shuttle from Cannes yacht-side runs four minutes.

• Hotel & dining
  Hôtel Martinez — Croisette

  The Croisette's working host hotel for the festival. La Palme d'Or restaurant is the contested dinner reservation; the rooftop Mademoiselle Gray is the late-evening venue. The Martinez beachfront hosts a number of studio and brand activations.

• Hotel & dining
  Hôtel Carlton Cannes

  Newly reopened on the Croisette, the carpet hotel for press junkets and post-screening receptions. The beach pavilion hosts the daytime brand activations; the rooftop hosts the evening pre-carpet receptions for the major distributors.

• Hotel & dining
  Majestic Barrière — Croisette

  The exhibitor and distributor hotel adjacent to the Palais. Plage du Majestic hosts headline daytime activations; the Petite Maison de Nicole is the contested working lunch reservation across the festival.

• Restaurant
  La Guérite — Île Sainte-Marguerite

  The island lunch venue, ten minutes by tender from the Vieux Port. The default daytime escape from the Croisette pace through the middle of the festival. Reservations across the festival saturate by March.

• Restaurant
  Tetou — Golfe-Juan

  The historic bouillabaisse house, twenty minutes by car west of Cannes. The festival's traditional lunch venue for industry principals who want distance from the carpet noise; consistently full through the middle four days.

• Villa programme
  La Mamounia & Villa-Ephrussi private dinners

  The hills above La Californie and the Cap d'Antibes peninsula host the festival's most private after-dinner programme — the rented and friend-of-friend villa dinners for forty to a hundred where the screenings conversation continues until 03:00. Coordinated through villa-programme partners; access is by introduction.

What Cannes Film Festival actually costs

Indicative all-in budgets for a seven-night charter timed to the event. Base rates are the yacht only; APA (advance provisioning, typically 30–35%), VAT where applicable, and event-week berth supplements sit on top.

A seven-day yacht itinerary around Cannes Film Festival

1. Day 1 — Wed

   Antibes board, transit to Cannes

   Board mid-afternoon at Port Vauban or IYCA Antibes. Twenty-minute cruise across the bay to Cannes, take up the Jetée Albert Edouard berth in the late afternoon, soft Champagne reception on the aft deck. Quiet on-board dinner the night before opening.

2. Day 2 — Thu

   Opening Ceremony

   Daytime Marché du Film orientation and rest. 17:00 — host pre-ceremony Champagne reception for credentialed guests on the upper deck. 19:00 — principal party ashore for Opening Ceremony at the Palais and Opening Dinner. Yacht hosts late-night decompression cocktail for ten close guests.

3. Day 3 — Fri

   Competition arc begins

   Breakfast meetings on the aft deck for sales-agent and financing introductions. Mid-morning press junket schedule for principal talent guests aboard. Lunch on the foredeck for thirty industry partners. Evening carpet at the Palais; post-carpet reception aboard for sixty.

4. Day 4 — Sat

   Middle-weekend peak

   Yacht brunch on the upper deck for forty (the highest single-function social density of the week). Afternoon tender excursion to Île Sainte-Marguerite for the principal table at La Guérite. Evening: Eden Roc dinner ashore, helicopter shuttle from yacht-side. Late return for closing cocktails on board.

5. Day 5 — Sun

   Quieter Sunday & screenings

   A controlled-pace day. Late breakfast on board, two competition screenings through the afternoon, a quieter principal-table dinner at La Palme d'Or at the Martinez, return for nightcaps on board.

6. Day 6 — Mon

   Marché deal day

   The week's most working day. Back-to-back financing and distribution meetings in the sky lounge and on the aft deck from 09:00 to 18:00. Working lunch on board for twenty. Dinner ashore at Tetou for the principal-financier table of ten.

7. Day 7 — Tue

   Departure or onward cruise

   Disembark mid-morning at the Jetée or — for clients who extend — slip lines for Saint-Tropez and a 2–3 day post-festival continuation: Pampelonne lunches, Porquerolles overnight, return to Antibes for final disembarkation.

What life on board looks like

How Cannes Film Festival actually gets booked

1. T–12 to T–14 months
   Berth strategy & studio coordination

   Charter enquiries for the following May festival open the spring of the prior year. Jetée Albert Edouard allocation conversation with the Régies du Port and the studio-yacht broker network is best opened in May/June for the following festival; the better positions are committed by autumn.

2. T–9 months
   Yacht longlist

   By August/September of the prior year the inventory of 45m-plus yachts on the Riviera willing to commit to a festival-fortnight contract is finite; longlist conversation needs to be open by then.

3. T–6 months
   Yacht contracted, berth confirmed

   Yacht contracted with 50% deposit by November/December for a May festival. Berth allocation confirmed in parallel. Cannes hotel rooms for any complementary land-based programme contracted simultaneously — the Carlton, Martinez and Eden Roc inventory across the festival is gone by Christmas.

4. T–3 to T–4 months
   Hosting programme drafted

   Hosting calendar drafted — carpet credentials requested through studio relationships, restaurant reservations confirmed across the fortnight, helicopter and villa programme blocked in. Branded dressing approved with the yard if the week is a corporate activation.

5. T–6 weeks
   Final guest list & dietary lock

   Final guest list, arrival flights, dietary requirements and stateroom assignments to the chief stewardess. Tender and helicopter movements rehearsed against the festival's published schedule.

6. Festival fortnight
   Live concierge

   On-site concierge from the day before Opening Ceremony through the morning after Awards. Master schedule held in real time; broker-on-call for any escalation.

Yachts suited to Cannes Film Festival

Examples from our current fleet. Final yacht and berth are matched to your group and event week at proposal stage.

Cannes Film Festival charter — questions answered in depth

• What does a Cannes Film Festival yacht charter cost, all-in?

  A 45-metre yacht for the festival fortnight (twelve days plus the soft-arrival night and the departure morning) typically runs €440,000–€780,000 all-in. That comprises a base charter fee of around €260,000–€480,000, APA of 30–35% (high — the chef and beverage volume across the festival is meaningful), the Jetée Albert Edouard berth supplement of €45,000–€90,000 across the fortnight, and concierge, restaurant, helicopter and credentials coordination of €60,000–€120,000. A 55-metre yacht moves the all-in to €800,000–€1.4m. 70m+ moves beyond €2.5m.

• Can I get a berth on the Jetée Albert Edouard?

  Yes — but it is the most contested charter berth allocation on the Mediterranean. Long-standing studio and platform contracts hold many of the better positions year-on-year; the inventory that releases for new charter clients each year is finite and is allocated through broker relationships with the Régies du Port. Engagement by the previous May or June is required; serious conversations inside nine months will be working with the secondary berths at Port Pierre Canto or with bay anchorage.

• Can the yacht anchor in the bay if Vieux Port berths are full?

  Yes. The bay anchorage permits for the festival are allocated each year for yachts above 70 metres that cannot accommodate inside the Vieux Port. Tender access to the Palais sub-deck and the Carlton beach is constant across the festival. This is the chosen position for many of the pinnacle yachts above 80 metres.

• How is Cannes festival different from Cannes Lions?

  Two completely different industries on the same physical infrastructure four weeks apart. The Film Festival is twelve days of competition, sales market, carpet hospitality and talent press; the working community is the global film and streaming business. Cannes Lions is five days of creative-industry conference, awards and corporate hospitality; the working community is the advertising, media and platform business. The yachts and the marina infrastructure are the same; the hosting cadence and guest profile are entirely different.

• Do I need festival credentials to host on board?

  Not for on-board hospitality — the yacht is private property and guests aboard do not require festival accreditation. For Palais entry, Marché entry, screening tickets and carpet access, accreditation is required and is allocated through studio, distributor or Marché-exhibitor relationships. Our concierge coordinates accreditation requests through the relevant studio or Marché partners; lead time is meaningful (at least three months for serious accreditation).

• Can I host A-list talent on board?

  Yes, and this is one of the most common single use-cases. Talent management for chartered yachts during the festival is well-rehearsed by experienced crews — controlled boarding (typically by tender from a discreet quay rather than via the Jetée), on-board press protocol, and tight stateroom assignment. We work with talent agencies' security and PR leads directly through the planning window.

• What's the right yacht size for the festival?

  For a producer or smaller-distributor charter: 38–45m. For a major luxury house, mid-tier platform or principal hosting charter: 46–58m. For a studio or major streaming-platform anchor charter: 60m+. Most successful festival charters sit in the 45–60m bracket — large enough to host meaningfully across the fortnight, small enough to keep operational simplicity in the contested Jetée environment.

• Can children come?

  Possible but not common at the festival. The fortnight is operationally intense, the press perimeter is constant, and the on-board guest flow is meaningful. Families occasionally use a yacht-based festival week as a working trip with children present, with a parallel programme run by the chief stewardess — Île Sainte-Marguerite excursions, beach time at the Plage du Majestic — but most clients arrange family time before or after the festival rather than during.

• Can we charter for fewer than the full fortnight?

  Yes — many festival yachts are contracted in two segments: the opening-week segment (Opening through middle weekend) and the closing-week segment (middle weekend through Awards). Each runs five to seven days. Single-week segments are the more popular charter shape for principal and luxury-house clients; the full fortnight is the default for studio and platform charters.

• How do guests get to Cannes?

  Nice Côte d'Azur airport is the primary point of arrival — 25 minutes by car from Cannes, eight minutes by helicopter from Nice to the Cannes-Mandelieu heliport, then five minutes by tender from heliport to yacht. Private aviation infrastructure at Nice is extensive; helicopter and yacht-side transfer coordination is standard across our festival charters.

• What about onward cruising after the festival?

  The most popular continuation is a 3–5 day Riviera decompression: Saint-Tropez (Pampelonne lunches, sunset at Bagatelle), Porquerolles in the Îles d'Hyères, Cap-Ferrat anchorage or onward east to Portofino and the Ligurian coast. Many platforms and luxury houses contract a continuation week with an entirely new guest list for a senior-management retreat in the calmer post-festival window.

• Is the WiFi on board good enough for live business?

  Yes. Mediterranean charter yachts of the relevant scale run Starlink with redundant cellular failover; bandwidth supports streaming, video conferencing, screening of dailies and an entire connected hospitality programme. Cannes town cellular coverage is excellent across the marina; guests' own devices work without intervention.

• What's the cancellation policy?

  Yacht charter cancellation follows the MYBA agreement signed at contract — typically 50% deposit non-refundable from signing, balance at six months, full balance non-refundable inside ninety days. Berth contracts at the Jetée and the alternative marinas are non-refundable from allocation. Specialist charter cancellation insurance is strongly recommended and we introduce a broker at contracting.

Plan a cannes film festival yacht charter from a private superyacht — front-quay berth, Michelin-level crew, helicopter and concierge handled end-to-end.