Nearly 1 in 10 people at the Cannes advertising extravaganza this week were looking for love on dating apps

One of the biggest stories being passed around at the Cannes Lions advertising festival this year was that of a young couple who decided to get it on right on the red carpet outside the main conference (and were photographed by an editor from Adweek for all the world to see.)

But it turns out they weren't the only ones getting amorous at Adland's annual jaunt this year. Data provided to Business Insider from mobile agency Joule's audience platform Quarc (which the company was showing off at its Cabana at Cannes) found 8.4% of the total people at Cannes, and in and around the festival, were using dating apps "and exhibiting behaviors on social networks around finding 'company'" during the event.

That's almost one in ten people! Of course, some of those may be residents or tourists to the Cannes area itself, but with around 12,000 people from the advertising industry flocking to the festival, it's very likely that lots of ad execs were hoping to get lucky on their work trip. Joule says dating app usage in the area increased 12% during Cannes Lions, compared with the previous week.

Joule examined signals from more than 20,000 apps such as OK! Cupid and MeetMe to pool its data (Tinder is not included in the data, so it's reasonable that the number of people using dating apps could have been even higher.)

The number of people using dating apps doubled between 8.30pm and 2.30am (to 16.73%) as the evening progressed. The peak hour for dating search was 8.30pm (21.2%.)

Females were far more likely to be using apps to find company than men - 23.2% versus 11.54%.

Roy Sudipto, Joule owner Tenthavenue's CEO of emerging markets told Business Insider: "Clearly, from what we saw on the Rue de la Croisette [the main strip along the beach in Cannes,] the men would rather [be more open in trying to find a date] than women, who would rather plan and be discreet!"

Overall, it was mostly English-speaking women looking for love in Cannes. While men using dating apps at the festival were most likely to speak Mandarin, according to Joule's data.