A (Few) Days in the (Kinsale) Life of Matt Lever

So, off to The Kinsale Sharks for five days of judging, listening and, very probably, Guinnessing… And, when you’re away judging multiple categories at an international awards festival, it’s important to set yourself up with a good breakfast. Although I’d have been just as happy with some marmalade…

Spent a great few days judging with these guys. Dan Lucey, ECD BBDO NY; Karen Cunningham, director @ Thomas Thomas; Emmet Wright, CD at Chemistry Dublin and Paul Rizzelo, CD at JWT London. We saw a great many brilliant pieces of work. Although from the look on their faces, the entry on screen when this photo was taken wasn’t one of them…

I managed to get to a number of excellent talks from some really interesting people from within and outside the ad industry. The theme of the festival was creative bravery, which Robert Senior brilliantly described as “doing what you believe is right, in spite of the cost of failure”.

Antonio “King Tone” Fernandez, spoke brilliantly about his mission to transform his life and the fortunes of the street gang he used to run in his talk “What does love look like in a gang?”. The reception was incredible, although how much of that was down to a load of advertising people not wanting to piss off a man who spent three years in solitary confinement I'm not sure…

I was invited to join a panel discussion on creative bravery with a couple of far more eloquent speakers than me. Here I am attempting to use my four- and two-year-old daughters as examples of why diversity in the industry begins with how we parent our girls from day one. I thought it made sense but the bald chap in row one seems to be thoroughly bored…

The Music and Short Films awards had tons of great stuff. I must be the only person in the world who hadn’t seen Ilya Naishuller’s gold Shark-winning promo for The Weeknd’s False Alarm (70m views!). It’s a more polished take on his Bad Motherfucker video, and if you haven’t seen it you need to…

Ilya Naishuller had another mesmerising promo for Leningrad’s Kolshik. Again, if you haven’t seen it, it deserves to be watched. If only for the still above…

It’s exciting to judge awards, but it’s equally exciting to win them. Here’s VCCP’s haul of sharks for Canon and Macmillan Cancer Support.

As you can imagine, I’ve been referred to as a 'tosser' innumerable times. Never for my darts performance though. Until now. As exciting as the gongs were, winning the €500 cash prize for Kinsale’s brilliantly unpretentious darts competition was my highlight…

When in Ireland and all that... It was my first time in Kinsale and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Great people, great work, great speakers. If you get the chance to go next year, grab it. (photo credit 750mph Audio Post Production on Instagram).