In the News: Advertising Festivals Run Low on Entries, San Francisco Food Event Offers Cautionary Tale

Other Cannes Festival Fairing Just as Poorly: Cannes' storied film festival isn't the only big event on the French coast to suffer this year. The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival has seen 20 percent fewer submissions in 2009, and some posit attendance will be down as much as 40 percent. AdAge credits agencies' overall disinterest in pursuing awards in the economic climate as the motivating factor in pulling out of Cannes and other advertising events. Similar awards and conventions in Asia, Europe, and Latin America—which typically see a great deal of American nominees and delegates—have suffered even worse drops. [AdAge]

Movie Stunt Confuses and Angers Audience: To kick off the campaign for his upcoming untitled documentary, Michael Moore staged a stunt at a Manhattan theater last week that was part guerrilla marketing and part prank. Moviegoers who attended a Friday screening of The Hangover caught a teaser for Moore's film, after which he appeared onscreen to sarcastically ask them to donate money to his "save the C.E.O.s" fund. A team walked around the theater passing collection pails and the audience reaction ranged from outrage—some yelled for the theater to start the movie—to total confusion. A few patrons actually threw change and a couple dollars into the buckets. [MTV News]

Bay Area Food Fest Goes Awry: Producers of the Great American Food and Music Festival had to learn the hard way about underestimating attendance. Sluggish ticket sales for the inaugural event in the busy San Francisco suburb of Mountain View prompted food vendors to not come fully stocked and producers not to pay enough attention to crowd control, but last minute interest in the event—and host Bobby Flay—brought in many more guests than anticipated. The results included hours-long lines, food shortages, and more than 1,500 attendees lining up for refunds. One producer claims to have answered about 1,700 complaint emails in the days since the big snafu. [SF Weekly]

Six Flags to Remain Open Despite Bankruptcy: Companies planning summer outings to Six Flags theme parks can rest assured that the company's bankruptcy filing doesn't mean it's closing its doors this summer. The chain will remain open for the foreseeable future, and prior to the news of the bankruptcy, had apparently seen an upswing in attendance over the past several years. [DailyFinance]