The Indian contingent is approximately 120 strong, but not many faces were seen in the corridors, at least till Day Two on June 18. JWT’s senior management was quite excited and rightly so, the evening awards ceremony will honour officials from the agency, who go on the stage to collect the Promo Lion.

Even as Colvyn Harris (CEO, JWT) and Josy Paul (National Creative Director, JWT) were looking forward to that, they decided to stay away from the seminars on the day. Why? Paul replied, “The sessions of this day didn’t look provocative enough. Also, the theme of the conference is ‘the more you see, the more ideas you get’, so I decided to stay out and see more.” “We are dolling up for the evening, and the discussion is whether the Gold would go better with black or white,” quipped Harris.

While that is from one of the winning agencies of the day, O&M officials were not seen (possibly still looking for Sumanto Chattopadhyay’s cellphone, which he had lost on the first day of the Festival), and even though we hear Vijay Lalwani and Nishant from Everest’s creative team are here, we are yet to bump into them.

mc2’s copywriter Akhilesh Bagri is here (he finally reached after being lost in transit), who exchange4media readers would recollect is attending the event after winning the creative contest that was conducted by the Bombay Ad Club in association with The Times Group.

Punitha Arumugam attended all sessions on the day, while Times of India’s Bhaskar Das also made it to a few sessions. Tribal DDB’s Meera Sharath Chandra is another regular attendee this year, who attended the sessions but is clearly not enjoying the food here.

Well that was a little from some of the members of the Indian contingent on the first two days of the Festival.

Day Three will begin with the announcement of the Cyber shortlist, and of the winners of radio, outdoor and media too would be unveiled. Some of the key sessions on the day include mediaedge:cia’s ‘Sponsorship at the heart of brand communication’, Manchester United’s ‘Creating the future of a legendary brand’. The session will be addressed by Sir Bobby Charlton and Lee Daley, Group Commercial Director and Board Director, will host the session.