State of Awe Digest #15 | Legacy implosion, virtual explosion, content know-hows, fashion week learnings and strangers with benefits
The Latest Wonders in Experience Design, Festivals and Gatherings
October 11, 2020
Our aphorism to help with the times: The act of remembering is a solitary loop of reliving. Creative gatherings and grand ceremonies turn that endless circle of separate recollection into a welcoming sphere of infinite, collective conversation.
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 Focus 🔮 Feature Article Thinking
We’ve gotten into the habit of providing an opening primer at the head of each digest. We like to think of it as a reference point for the rest of the curated letter, or generally speaking, an anchor point that had weight or gave us inspired thoughts.
In this piece from futurist, David Houle, he outlines how “the shift age” has materialized, primed to only accelerate. Importantly, what stands out, is the realization that legacy thinking and long-standing institutions protecting that thinking are indeed collapsing around us. This is worth giving this a deeper moment of reflection, as it relates to the legacy structures that surround your work.
Case in point, Tesla disbands its entire PR department due to its obsolescence. The legacy collapse of traditional public relations and external media relation activity is a reality we have been seeing materialize in the world of event promotion for quite some time. Every company is now a media company, going live and direct. A great thread unpacking this shift:
What other legacy habits do you see breaking? Drop a comment, we would love to hear your thoughts.
Experience Design Strategy 🏔️ Content and Programming
We are all now media companies, and thus, we all need to train our talents in creating impactful audience emotions via digital content. As early readers of the digest will attest, we have covered the importance of awe-striking visuals, constantly prioritizing interaction over entertainment (energize your community) and keeping attention spans focused with short duration.
A few less talked about strategies, yet arguably just as important:
At home, physically delivered programming. Hot tips on curating the virtual event kit, rewarding top performers with valued items, and the inclusion of surprise elements. Examples galore. Make it sensory, like this coffee conference.
Content packaging. Bandwidth, cost and capacity is always an issue with content creation. So why not use what you have already created in innovative ways? Embrace a content atomization methodology to unpack, splice, stretch out and repack.
Engagement moderation and journey channelling. With the first two US Presidential Debates behind us, I think we can all identify with the need for better moderation. As Priya Parker covered in her last letter, effective moderation is critical for remote audience outcomes. Virtual events need intention, a clear channel, structure and a host that can facilitate the journey. Here’s a step-by-step.
The insight: the experience of a digital gathering can be delightful and memorable. Learn how to bake the layer cake with a few simple, fundamental principles that focuses the participant’s journey and makes best use of their time.
Fads and Crazes 📱 Meaningful Virtual Experiences
Are you an optimist or pessimist? When do you think live events will be back? What are the biggest hurdles to designing your experiences right now? Between August 23 and September 7 over 1,350 live-event professionals were surveyed a similar set of questions, and the results are very interesting. 2020 has been transformative, to say the least. Check out the report’s summary here. Our biggest takeaway? A majority think virtual hybrid events are here to stay, the common thread you will see running through this digest.
Your regular quick hits on the forced fad, turning into long-term trend: virtual experiences:
🤹 We are all juggling the mental balls in our head: what safe and reasonable “experience fad” should we try versus the more creatively interesting trends that might be the longer-term winners? Drive-ins and thrus, fad. Cleaning and protection, trend. Hybrid events, winner. We agree.
🎉 But have you attended an online event you actually enjoyed? The responses to that cynical question are actually pretty positive.
💥 Variety, the 115-year-old media company releases surprising numbers on their slate of virtual events. Not surprisingly, they “now see virtual events as key to Variety’s plan, even when in-person events return.”
🎼 Billboard releases a report showing that nearly half of all music fans think it is important that artist livestreams and virtual concerts continue.
📈 The New Yorker Festival hits record sales and reach with virtual pivot.
🧑🏫 The rise of the jack-of-all-trades event technologist is definitely underway.
🤖 Roblox, the less cool, youthful, kid-focused gaming platform will feature virtual concerts and celebrity artist “meet ups” (and already have). They follow behind Fornite, TikTok and Minecraft in shaping the future of virtual performance space.
🌈 But not everyone is arguing they see sunshines and rainbows. DJ live streaming is copyright riddled (and getting worse), highly competitive and lacking dynamism. The renaissance moment was guaranteed to dim. Do big numbers of DJs fight to the other side of the coming trough of disillusionment?
👹 The 7 deadly sins of virtual events: confusing, lacking focus, untimely, inferior, “salesy”, silent and unengaged. But the biggest flaw is engagement, or lack thereof.
🧑⚕️ The “best virtual events start with superb content, delivered through a user-friendly platform designed for interaction and to stimulate adult learning”. The healthcare industry insider scoop on virtual here.
💣 Scared your virtual event might bomb? Here’s a punch list from producers who had epic fails.
The insight: the business end of virtual events is predicted to quadruple in seven years. With so many participants uncomfortable returning to IRL events (granted the polling needs an update), the hybrid gathering space is going to see a liftoff in content creativity, delivery innovation and financial monetization. Are you in or out?
Designer Data Drop 🧮 Chart of the Month
A fresh report on the state of live streaming shows that the past three months were slightly down in total live stream hours watched, yet holding steady. Twitch, the live streaming platform, has a commanding presence in the space, with over 91% of all market share in the live stream gaming space. Overall, we feel, these numbers can be extrapolated to mean that live streaming across the globe held its steady position over the summer months of the pandemic.
Arena of Safety and Security 🦠 COVID Edition
Are you one of the people partying through the pandemic? You might laugh, but the stories are quite serious. Here’s a deep read from MixMag on the moral pandemic party dilemma from the perspective of club owners, DJs, scientists and industry lobbyists (very interesting).
Your fast pass on safety upgrades, pandemic innovations and psychological winds regarding IRL events:
Nightclubs are in crisis mode. The #SaveOurStages movement continues to get louder.
One report from a musician’s union shows that up to 1/3rd of UK artists are likely to quit.
Division of festival goers into four quads, with a rotating stage to prevent a super spreader.
MovementPass launches in Europe, providing ticket holders a COVID-19 antibody passport so organizers can continue to gather large numbers.
With an estimated $5 billion in ticket sales lost and an estimate for a vaccine not ready in the US until later in 2021, rapid testing for event entry continues to become more popular.
Spain follows Germany in bringing together a 1,000-person event to clinically trial rapid testing, and measure scientific outcomes. Results from Germany’s Restart-19 project are due on October 22.
Amazon unveils touchless palm recognition technology to be used as venue entry credentials.
For those readers here on the west coast, Music BC released industry reopening guidelines.
The insight: the live entertainment crisis deepens. As one of our favourite poets famously said, “do not go gentle’. And while we rage, we must also prepare for the dawning of the light. Levity required. So, who do we look to for inspiration? The future of experiences, according to a theme park designer, obviously.
The Catwalk 💃 Future of Fashion Shows
In honour of the close of Paris Fashion Week (highlights here), and the end of the “Big 4” fashion weeks globally in 2020, we bring our attention back to the catwalk. A glimpse into the extremely nimble, highly innovative gathering space of fashion houses and haute couture designers (last covered in digest #5):
🎥 Videos and highly creative multimedia presentations look like they have a bright future in fashion shows.
📺 Electronics maker, LG and Balmain reimagined the front row experience during Paris Fashion Week, “hosting celebrities” on beautiful white dropped screens. It was wow 👀.
🔨 Extremely interesting interview with industry-leading set designers, answering the question, “does set design have a future at Fashion Week?” The answer: the work is mutating and hybrid will forever be the new norm. Fast digital shots, small boutique audiences and design that is “stream first” will only creatively amplify in the years ahead.
🛒 Moda Operandi, launched MODA LIVE back in July to transform their exclusive fashion access platform to the digital space, streaming famous designer trunk shows that were fully shoppable.
🟥 Red carpet beauty is evolving in the face of virtual events. Namely, at-home makeup kits (DIY glam), bright colours and statement-making cosmetic choices to pop on small screens. And good lighting, always good lighting.
🦾 Super models think their days might be limited: computer generated replacements are arriving on the scene, with AI providing full backstories, pose preferences and personalities.
🌬️ Canadian-Iranian designer, Roya Aghighi invented a living, biodegradable fabric named Biogarmentry. Made from algae, the biofabricated textile photosynthesizes, which purifies the air around it. Living clothing is coming.
👗 Gucci created a $10,000 dress that is completely virtual, meant for your digital avatar.
Insight: The fashion show space has long been a centre of creativity. From wild sets, to eye-popping fads and timeless trends, fashion has always been a place of innovation. With fashion long ago “going global”, they have been live streaming natives for longer than most. But the heavyweights are hitting the scales: digital hybridization will be fully embraced as the fashion show of the (very near) future.
Belonging and Longevity Arena
Feeling pandemic lonely? Even if you are not one of the 61% of Americans who reported feeling it in 2020, or 49% of those in the UK, all of us are having our moments. A few reminders in place of our normal gathering vibes:
There is immense power in just asking, out of nowhere, how your coworkers are doing.
Strangers are, well, strange. We know. But having a meaningful conversation with someone unexpected and unknown has surprising benefits.
Too old for new friends? An adult’s guide to extraordinary new friendships.
The insight: simply assume everyone likes you, be the initiator even when it feels weird, invest time and be vulnerable. Worst case, there’s always Quarantine Chat.
Beautiful event instas to inspire your next project
🍻 Mobile Oktoberfest by Breck Brew in Colorado.
☁️ Colourful wisps of suspended animation from artist and photographer, Thomas Jackson.
☔ Open air members club venue concepts by Nick Spanswick.
🍂 Fall colours, arranged in overhead fashion by Jovana Rikalo.
🦈 Remember the Sharknado craze? In event land it is actually a Flornado by Natasha Lisitsa and Daniel Schultz
🧁 These are not flowers, they are cupcakes. By Kerry’s Bouqcakes.
📜 Massive paper florals by Alvaro Urbano.
🧟 Inflatable monster race by Mother Of The Nation Festival.
👺 Voodoo tiki theme by Carla Nabozny.
🍩 COVID bumper tables? No thanks. By Revolution Events.
Hot morsels to ace your next event conversation
🎭 Missing your theatrical musical numbers? Thread through and watch one of the most entertaining TikTok sequences (via Twitter, ironically) in recent memory.
👰 Big fat Indian weddings? Try small skinny Millennial style. COVID-19 gives permission to circumnavigate traditions.
🏀 NBA Finals ratings plummeted to the lowest Game 1 rating in 26 years (maybe ever), even with LeBron James front-and-centre. We found this fact very interesting.
🎟️ The long-tenured President of Ticketmaster announces he is stepping down. Wildly successful 7-year run, packed with ticketing controversy.
🐐 Need some cuteness in your Zooms? Invite a live goat.
🚚 Canada’s first pub on wheels.
🪑 20,000 empty chairs were set up near the White House to commemorate COVID-19 remembrance day. Very eerie picture.
🦠 A massive tracker of COVID-19 super spreader events across the globe.
📋 Yak, a new livestream listing service is aiming to be your TV guide for virtual events.
End note
This was the fifteenth edition of the State of Awe digest. We miss events, big groups of friends and the emotional catharsis of a successful gathering. But hey, you know what we don’t miss?
Ghosting. When IRL returns, remember that saying no is still better than saying nothing at all.
Please share this digest with your spirited colleagues in the experience economy. Direct them here, or just share this post. And please let us know when you do, so we can share our gratitude.
As Ever,
Jordan + Tyson