State of Awe Digest #11 | Robots, pricing, status seeking and a punchier read
The Latest Wonders in Experience Design, Festivals and Gatherings
August 16, 2020
Our aphorism to help with the times: Time is your biggest enemy in the battle to design a great experience. Fill your army with masters of tempo, calibrate your mindset to the rhythm of the countdown, and layout your plans to charge at a moment’s notice. Limit the damage that can be caused by your greatest adversary, that tick of the grandfather clock.
State of Awe is a regular trend briefing from experience designer, Jordan Kallman and event brand curator, Tyson Villeneuve at The Social Concierge. This periodic letter covers the latest wonders, most influential psychological movements, emerging ideas, tactile designs and hottest patterns keeping attendees, producers, designers, operators, sponsors, organizers and leaders engaged in the experience economy.
OUR BELIEF: Depth of experience ignites culture, culture values beauty, beauty triggers emotion, emotion deepens understanding, and understanding gives us words for things we had felt but had not previously grasped. Belong and repeat. This loop creates a more beautiful life, well-lived, deeply remembered. We must popularize the way to people’s hearts, charging bonds and linking character, lighting up this circle of experience. Encourage others to join the club. Long live the spectacular.
OUR INTENTION: A long-form digest, this letter is meant as a “Sunday read”, skimming between topics, links and references you find interesting. We summarize insights and lines of inquiry to highlight possible outcomes. Our intention is to serve you trend-driven idea candy that inspires divergent, lateral or combinational creative thinking for your own gatherings.
For new subscribers, you can find all previous digests here (certain ideas are timeless). A catalogue of current and future topic areas can be found here.
House of Experimentation 🔮 A Quick Hit Digest
Due to an extremely busy live broadcast production schedule this month, this digest is shorter, punchier and more direct.
Amidst the madness, our thinking continues to stray towards changing habits. This off-the-top feature article from the Economist, gives a small glimpse what we mean. Hit us with your comment: what type of experience in your life will forever change because of new habits? For us, live online DJ sets with chat, instead of Apple Music. Community chat + good tunes = huge improvement.
We would love to hear from you. Enjoy your summer reading.
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics 🦿 GPT-3 Inspired
Over past weeks, we were watching from the sidelines as the technology world announced their shock and awe at the prowess of GPT-3 (what is GPT-3? Here’s why it is a big deal). This AI advancement writes code, can have conversations and is quite good at poetry, without human input whatsoever. And while it might still be a few years before artificial intelligence impacts experience design, we couldn’t help but feel inspired to look forward.
Honestly, where do you stand on the most recent video of Boston Dynamics’ robot abilities? Any normal human can’t help but be both creeped out and completely enthralled. Either way, zero denial. Impressive stuff. Take a look at their robotic progression here.
A few weird and wonderful morsels at the intersectional future of experience and radical technology, to kick off this digest:
🖊️ A researcher used GPT-3 as a creative writer. The results are extensive and wildly good.
🚀 Disney has a long history of using robotics and animatronics to wow us. But their latest addition, “Stuntronics” is truly autonomous and striking.
🤖 Bartenders are key players within experiences. Might we one day accept robot-tenders instead?
✂️ Haircut anyone?
🩰 How the New York City Ballet uses simple automated intelligence to sell tickets.
The insight: McKinsey & Company nails it. We are experiencing a great acceleration, in so many ways. What seemed ridiculous just 4 months ago is now extremely feasible. The bigger question though: how can experience designers use robotics and AI to revolutionize the human experience? Over here we dream regularly of a robot-centric circus. Who is going to be the first to create this new experience category?
Arena of Economics 💰 Pricing, Funding and Insurance
Struggling to price your cross reality, broadcast-based, virtual gatherings? You’re not alone.
💥 A pretty awesome, insight-packed study on virtual event pricing (must read).
💵 A festival in Boise, Idaho launched a crowdfunding investment campaign to give “community ownership stakes to their most loyal attendees”. Check it out.
❓ Do you need virtual event insurance? A few thoughts from the experts.
➿ “High revenue event planners that plan lower-priced events, more frequently, are doing extremely well.” Read it here. Small is great. Small, frequent and premium is grand.
The insight: Learning as we go, it looks like the true sweet spot for virtual event ticket price is about $17.50 Canadian, giving you the best shot between participation scale and revenue earnings. Or price lower if you need viewership over revenue returns.
Arena of Safety and Security 🦠 COVID Edition
Paper, rock scissors. Cure, vaccine, testing. These are the only three conditions we believe unlock a return to IRL gatherings.
Lollapalooza Co-Founder believes music festivals only return in 2022 or later.
We love this airport facility COVID testing truck. Have you spotted the first mobile festival testing company yet?
Distance isn’t going to cut it. But Kentucky Derby eliminates general admission tickets to create space. The New York Times might suggest “moving everything outdoors”. And this viral video made the rounds of a concert with distanced stage areas. Stopgap measures, unfortunately.
History shows that “mask slackers” have always existed. Masks won’t save events either, even if we agree that this accessory is now “must have fashion”. Great psychological culture context on mask wearing here.
In-depth COVID-19 working procedure guide from the Production Services Association. Very safe! Or a less safe version from the team at the iconic UK venue, Old Trafford.
The insight: event bubbles, whereby attendees are tested before entry seems to be the logical next step. Conjecture this may happen early in 2021. We agree.
Fads and Crazes 📱 Meaningful Virtual Experiences
What is a meaningful virtual event? We might need to shift the title of this section. Not really a fad, as we believe the answer is here to stay. The tenets: awe-striking content, authentic user engagement, and fluid social connection.
Engagement example alert: The Weeknd gives viewers the power to direct his 20-minute “cross reality” TikTok concert about a week ago.
For those doubting the emotional power of virtual concerts, read this.
Our attention was consumed one night over watching Cercle DJ performance videos. Beautiful, vast, striking wow factor content. A great example of fierce attention-holding content.
These four future trends on media, tells the tale. Screens everywhere, with the best content moving from passive to extremely interactive, while also getting even more immersive.
Need virtual event facilitator training? Courses from “the experts” are starting to appear.
Ten events that pivoted into virtual, and one great takeaway from each of them: a passport game for engagement from one, hyper-relevant content from another, and perfectly branded content from a brand you would expect nothing less of.
Dynamic and fluid social connection needed? Virtual producers need to onboard 2.5D and 3D technology that include features like proximity audio and space to explore.
The insight: experimentation is key, and failure is everywhere (example from Comic-Con at Home). The learning lessons? Participation and viewership nosedives without interactivity. Content is boring if it doesn’t reveal something new. Keep it simple, and embrace the challenge.
Designer Data Drop 🧮 Chart of the Month
🍸 Which country consumes the most alcohol? Do we see this change in the years ahead as new altered states take hold? As Generation Z grows up? As health and wellness continue to explode in popularity?
Arena of Altered States 🤩 Psychedelic Futures
We thought we would see a larger number of THC-infused dinner party concepts emerge since Canada legalized recreational use of marijuana (although there are a few playbooks out there). We remain curious how gatherings will eventually change with the continued march towards liberalized legalization of Schedule 1 substances.
🪐 Canadian petition to legalize natural psychedelic drugs was signed 13,000 times. It will soon go before the House of Commons for consideration.
🍄 The Canadian government approves the use of psilocybin for palliative care use.
📈 Continued legalization in certain States in America continues, as well. Polls show support in Colorado.
The insight: the “social lubricant” category continues to evolve. And while safe use will remain at the forefront while government policymakers experiment, we believe that expanded altered states will mean a curveball for experience designers. But also a big opportunity.
Experience Design Strategy 🏔️ Status Seekers and Prestige Predators
A recent read, Ashley Mears’ new book, “Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit” got us thinking about prestige, social currency and image identity politics in the age of COVID-19. “Free things are a clear marker of status in the VIP world. Free entry, drinks, and dinners signal recognition of a person’s social worth.” But online?
After spending 18 months “undercover”, Ashley found a clear trade of “bodily capital” and rich white men looking to raise both their internal and external status. The insider story is quite interesting.
Within experience design, techniques to increase scarcity (exclusivity), aspirational association (photogenic luxury) and social verification (local celebrity) both increase certain psychological triggers of internal value, and give status seekers an easily way to trigger FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, in others (origin of FOMO here).
But do virtual, socially distant experiences create FOMO? What was traditionally driving this style of anxiety definitely seems to be changing during the pandemic. “What we find is that… we have difficulty catching up with all the things being offered online” (interesting quick hit).
There has never been a time to try so many things, attend so many free events and experience online moments, all for relatively low or no cost. Missing out? At times it feels like the opposite. Deep creativity is needed to inject FOMO-inducing connectivity within these online experiences.
The insight and inquiry: Status is an intrinsic part of our sociology, and of course, we have evolved to respond to social hierarchy. So we don’t expect this to dissipate anytime soon. But until we are all back revenge attending events and furiously telling everyone about it, we believe cross reality, virtual experiences need to design a new form of status validation. One based on creative engagement and imagery-driving interaction. What are the strategies to increase the likelihood that prestige predators force interest from a wider audience? After all, it is hard to trade bodily capital with your digital avatar.
Beautiful event instas to inspire your next project (from a diverse group)
🐦 Cage heads by BLITZ by Inge Assendelft.
🔦 Virtual event set LED cage inspiration from Pink Sparrow.
💐 Pride blooms at the New York AIDS Memorial by Sophie Parker.
🔮 Mirror balls by Koby at kbydesigns.
⛓️ “I pity the fool”. Building head art of the iconic Mr. T by Falko One.
👀 Of Grace and Light by the famous Pierpaolo Piccioli.
♒ Mysterious floor etchings by I Have This Thing With Floors (great account).
🧥 Serious suit game by Kerby Jean-Raymond.
✒️ Calligraphy font magic by Andreas M Hansen.
👟 Floor reaction LEDs by Tobias van Schneider.
Hot morsels to ace your next event conversation
🙏 The hot popularity of mindful labyrinths.
🥤 Post Malone is launching a beer pong league.
🎻 A cool looking cello concert in a swimming pool.
🎪 The Festival of Festivals in Germany (156 organizers banded together).
🔥 Fyre Festival merchandise went up for auction (at last check, over $500 USD on auction!).
🍷 Medieval 'wine windows' reopen, reviving Italian plague tradition.
🎤 Yeti is auctioning off coolers customized by your favorite bands for COVID-19 relief.
🟥 A great effort to support the events industry, Light in Red.
🎟️ AirBnB is renting out the last Blockbuster standing for nightly stays.
🍵 “Tea in the window” by the Faimont Hotel Vancouver. Boutique, premium and unique.
End note
This was the eleventh edition of the State of Awe digest. It was a bit shorter, punchier and less insightful than usual due to our summer production schedule.
If the digest still met your expectations, we would love it if you spread the word. Share with your colleagues and contacts (you can direct them here, or just share this post). It would mean a lot to us.
And remember, what experience in your life will never go back to normal? Get specific, we are curious!
As Ever,
Jordan + Tyson