ChicCoaches Is Coming to Cannes

Next May, Cannes becomes home to something the volleyball world hasn't seen before: a premium, immersive retreat built exclusively for women who coach.

ChicCoaches isn't a convention in the traditional sense, and it isn't a coaching clinic either. It's closer to what you'd expect from a members' retreat — small, deliberately capped cohorts; real relationships instead of a trade-show floor; and a programme that treats tactical mastery, identity, and leadership as equally essential, rather than treating the game as the only subject worth an agenda item.

The format moves across three registers each day: time on the court, working through tactics and systems with faculty who've coached or played at the level they teach; time in conversation, on confidence, visibility, and the kind of career questions rarely addressed head-on in a men's-dominated coaching world; and time at the table — the unstructured hours that, across every Maison du Volley programme, tend to be where the real relationships take root.

It's a women-only environment by design, not as a limitation but as the entire premise: a room where every person in it already understands exactly what it's like to lead a team from that particular seat. For many participants, that alone — being in a room with peers who don't need the context explained — will be the most immersive part of the week.

Cannes was chosen deliberately. The setting carries the same quiet luxury as every Maison du Volley experience, but for ChicCoaches specifically, it's also a statement: the women who coach this sport deserve a retreat built to this standard, not an afterthought bolted onto a men's convention.

Registration details and the full May programme will follow — this is one to watch.