Asia and Latin American lead the rise in partipicants.

The Cannes Market is reporting an 8% hike in attendance this year, with Asia and Latin America leading the rise in participants.

“We’ve seen a 15% increase in Asian participants and a 21% rise in professionals from Latin America,” noted market managing director Jérôme Paillard, on the basis of figures up to Tuesday afternoon.

“Overall, I think people are happy with the market. A lot of contracts have been signed even if the prices have been slightly lower than hoped for,” he added.

Breaking the Latin American figures down, Argentina saw a 42% increase in attendees, Chile, a 118% rise and Colombia, a 22% hike.

From Asia, Taiwanese attendance jumped 48% to 62 participants. China’s burgeoning presence rose by 20% to 237 attendees.

Attendance from European territories was stable in most countries with a small dip in participants from some of the countries hit by the region’s debt crisis such as Greece and Romania.

Overall, companies in the market hailed from 109 countries. A number of African nations were in attendance for the first time including Burkina Faso, Congo, Gabon and Rwanda.

In terms of the market’s content, 4,659 films were on offer, 3,028 of which were market debuts. Of these titles, 941 pictures screened in the market, including 741 premieres.

While the rain might have dampened spirits on the Croisette the bad weather prompted a 25% jump in market screening admissions to 35,700.

“The alleys of the market have been packed out… people couldn’t meet on the Croisette,” says Paillard.