Thirteen perimeters, two ways in
Cannes lists thirteen permanent pedestrian zones. Four open with a badge: Le Suquet, Forville, Hoche and Félix Faure. Nine open through the municipal police intercom: the Carré d’Or, Commandant André, the Allées de la Liberté, place De Gaulle, the Bocca market, Teisseire, Meynadier, La Pompe and La Miséricorde.
The municipal rules are explicit about what is allowed once inside. The maximum duration is 30 minutes, parking is strictly forbidden, and only a short stop for loading and unloading is permitted. A house move or building work needs a permit filed at least fifteen days in advance.
In other words, the old town and the shopping quarter are not served at random. You pick a stopping point at the edge of the perimeter, you tell the guest, and you hold the thirty-minute window. That is also what stops a car sitting in a street that turned pedestrian at 3.30 pm.
Under the Palais, the ceiling is 1.80 m
Car park P1, under the Palais des Festivals, is entered at 1 boulevard de la Croisette. It holds 924 spaces over three levels, 15 accessible bays and 49 charging points, and it is open around the clock. Its maximum height is 1.80 m, so a van does not go down.
The same municipal factsheet carries a warning few people read before getting caught by it. During the fireworks festival, no exit is possible between 8 pm and midnight. Four hours.
At the station, the P9 drop-off area at 8 place de la gare has two entrances and one exit on boulevard de la Première Division Française Libre — that is, from the back. Its covered section stops at 1.90 m, so a van stays in the open-air part.
What the big events really change
The congress regime is not what is usually written about it. What the urban logistics department actually says is more precise and more useful: vehicles over 3.5 tonnes are banned from the Croisette unless a waiver is requested online, slow vehicles are banned from the Croisette between 1 April and 31 October under an order of 7 September 2023, and every parking reservation is chargeable with a minimum of fifteen calendar days’ notice.
Beyond the perimeter, supply is not the problem: the tourist office reports 16,000 free surface spaces, 2,500 paid on-street spaces and 7,000 spaces in covered car parks. The issue has never been the number of spaces. It has always been the distance between the free space and the door of the Palais on a red-carpet evening.