Same old, yet very new. That's what I told the press team at the Cannes Lions when I made my way to the press centre for the first time this week.

After seven trips to the South of France for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity with Campaign, the phrase above is exactly how I'm feeling after the first three days.

Under the 'same old' category comes the press room. It's the same, with plenty of familiar faces from different countries globally smiling to acknowledge each other. The Lumiere, the Debussy, the Forum and the Terrace stage remain the same too, albeit with a different set of speakers.

The shortlist announcement and the time of it going live on the portal remain the same too.

Dalbir Singh of Kiss Films continues his Producer's Diary too, with witty cartoons based on interactions during the day.

What's new then?

Plenty. 

First of all, it's Manifest's debut at the festival. And the response we have got has been overwhelming. It's not just the Indian community, but a lot of the global delegates have also taken note of it. Which has led to us landing far more meetings/interactions with them. 

It's only day three, and the magazine has taken us across the FIFA Beach (or Plage as it's called in French) and got us into a conversation with Marco Nazzari, director - marketing and brand, FIFA, whose team was impressed by the size of the magazine.

With that, enough of self-praise for Manifest.

What's also new is the Silver and Bronze announcement at 2:30 pm local time. I'm not sure whether it's for the good or bad. It does increase the workload though as we end up filing two different stories daily, as the Gold and Grand Prix winners can only be revealed after the awards function is completed.

The first three days have been busy, to say the least. India's Lion tally may just be at 12, but that hasn't dampened the spirits of our delegation. 

In terms of meetings over the last 60-odd hours, Manifest has met with the likes of Sir Martin Sorrell (S4 Capital), Prasoon Joshi (McCann), Indy Khabra (Livewire), Rana Barua, Mohit Joshi and Mayuri Nikumbh (Havas India), Rajdeepak Das, Varun Shah and the rest of the Publicis Groupe from India, Girish Balachandran (On Purpose), Gautam Reghunath, PG Aditiya and the Talented team that's got itself sponsored to the festival, Terry Savage (LIA), Boaz Paldi (UNDP), footballers that included Frank Lampard, David Trezeguet and Gilberto Silva, Dalbir Singh (Kiss Films), Ridhesh Sejpal (Goodfellas Studios), Mitesh Kothari and Shrenik Gandhi (White Rivers Media), and many more.
 
Barua was kind enough to introduce me to Havas' Jacques Séguéla, who will be receiving the Lion of St. Mark award on Friday. Which reminds me, can Friday come soon enough? 

In the three days so far, according to my fitness tracker, I have walked 48 kilometres. I feel like it's been more. 

The author is founder and editor, Manifest.