State of Awe Digest #18 | Anticipating new worlds
The Latest Wonders in Experience Design, Festivals and Gatherings
November 22, 2020
Our aphorism to help with the times: Solitude can be your companion. Companionship can be solitary confinement. It is who you choose to celebrate with that matters.
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
Breakthroughs.
Vaccine announcements galore over the past two weeks had our minds spinning towards the coming “social jubilee” when our large gatherings are safe enough for everyone to return, together. Fire up the engine of our internal hype machine, otherwise known as hopeful anticipation. This rocket fuel is one of the most powerful pre-experience combustibles, and one every experience designer needs to understand in detail.
Our feature piece connects how our desire (a real life group hug) and our projection of that moment in the future releases dopamine, fuelling present enjoyment.
The insight: as a creator, how can you root your experience in an established longing and desire for things your guests love? And hit the dopamine button by creating an imaginary vision in their head of what this will look like? For us, hygge Christmas settings spike those chemicals. Of course, it is also worth remembering that on the other side of desire stands fear, and that the power of anxiety to shape behaviour is equally influential. Use the force of certainty-uncertainty wisely.
Experience Design Strategy 🏔️ Worldbuilding
While we are on the topic of imaginations, we have been using ours to transplant a strategy that the fiction writing sphere has long used to entrance us. Star Wars, The Matrix, Harry Potter and Dune are classic examples from our inspiration board. Known as worldbuilding, it is the process of constructing a complete and plausible imaginary world that serves as a context for a story. Or in our case, an experience.
In a collapsing reality where live events are having its Napster moment and Ready Player One futures look more plausible by the day, the most successful immersive experiences will have some degree of worldbuilding design inherent within them. Just look at where Disney Parks are going for a positive litmus test. A collection of inquiries that may help:
Wild Card Creative, one of the most successful feature film creative agencies out there, released a full page of resources packed with insight (great read). Their research shows that imaginary worlds build organic audience growth, drive the best engagement and increase monetization. Get this: 72% of US consumers would spend $100 to live in their favourite world.
There are key elements to a successful story-world that are applicable to any experience: altered physical environments, one-of-a-kind cultural boundaries, tiered access and benefits that come along with it, historical lore or mythology and a request for guests to use it all in your unique way. Thinking deeply about how to have guests “pass through” to a new space, with its own rules, norms and stories will make your guests open to playing their own character in your experiential world.
When creating worlds in the traditional writing sense, there are a ton of questions to ask yourself as the creator. But one of the most important questions to apply to an experience: what powers your imaginary reality? Is it a unique currency, a feeling, a colour, a belief? And how can you amplify that so all attending guests wield the power of this new reality?
But of course, there are things you might want to avoid: failing to provide a sense of place or not explaining the world well to your participants might materialize one of the biggest enemies to experience designers: confusion.
The insight: we feel like you might be questioning just how to apply this effectively. As one of our favourite gathering authors, Priya Parker always clearly explains, creating an alternate reality requires “pop-up rules” that everyone must follow. And ultimately, the weirder, the better (nice reference). Imaginary reality design can have incredible results.
Fads and Crazes 📱 Meaningful Virtual Experiences
Credible prediction, after prediction, after prediction (including our chart of the month below) aligns us to a hybrid-virtual social future where live entertainment is increasingly digitized. Research agency Gartner expects that by 2024 only 25% of all business events will take place offline, compared to 60% in 2019. We have at least another year of habit-forming behaviour change coming, according to the industry’s highest paid CEOs and live music producers.
As is the norm for this digest, here are your virtual quick hits to accompany the stats:
🏈 The NFL Pro Bowl goes virtual and will play out on the video game, Madden NFL 21. You can vote to ensure your favourite player is represented in the game.
🙌 Tomorrowland, the massive EDM festival (and the best virtual event of 2020 thus far), launches a New Year’s Eve experience and opens their virtual venue, Noaz, permanently. Other big names are jumping on a remote NYE too.
🎪 Lil Nas X gave the internet a rattle with 33M views during his Roblox (video game) concert. Compare it with Travis Scott’s performance in Fornite. Video games are evolving into legit music venues.
📽️ Niall Horan from One Direction sold 125,000 tickets across 151 countries to his Royal Albert Hall show. The core insight: “What’s exciting is the combination of live jeopardy and production values, which feels new. It’s not a live concert.”
🎤 The mastery of virtual master of ceremonies hosting is underway, and a new class of professionals is emerging.
🏃 How the scrappy escape room industry is reinventing itself online. Innovation cycles are happening very fast.
🧑🏫 Conference organizers are learning the ropes fast too (list of things to try within).
🤳 Anything new out there? Well, we’ve covered most of it all previously and in detail. But the new gen of virtual is coming and we agree, it will be more immersive, data-driven, well-branded and unmissable.
🤝 But here’s something new: L’Oreal is now planning to use virtual events for recruiting.
⚡ Our new friends at Back of House, provided a musician’s take on the best livestreaming platforms.
⛔ Your virtual event failing? A good set of insights why.
🎄 Don’t care and just want a nice Holiday season? We got you: plan an office party that doesn’t suck, host family in new ways (a collection) and attend a nice virtual Christmas tree lighting event.
The insight: Video games rot your brain? Nope, says science. Phones distract us from experiencing live events? Also a big nope, according to a new study. Technology, when used in conjunction with things that make our human experience better (friends, social collaboration, positive emotions) improve our lives. Worth embracing when designing the future of experience.
Designer Data Drop 🧮 Chart of the Month
As a follow up to our chart in the last digest covering expectations on a return to previous activities, below is a more specific result, measured from thousands of event producers:
Arena of Safety and Security 🦠 COVID Edition
Vaccine announcement halo effect is buoying our optimism, as is the scientific take on effectiveness. But ultimately, we need to remember the logic behind the timelines. Life has a surprising amount of detail (amazing analogies within), and our expectations may get caught off-guard by the logistical nuances.
What does the middle ground look like?
Ticketmaster got embroiled in some heavy optical controversy after they innocently mentioned the “vaccine passport” control for concerts. Cue hot takes and cool memes. They needed to walk back their comments.
Cannes is still planning a 2021 film festival with three possible scenarios, which is smart. Even for the adventurous, like the CMA Awards, COVID will loom large at physical events through 2022.
The insight: don’t fret Ticketmaster, we have your solution. Kidding, we don’t think this is strong enough to add to our holy trinity “return to IRL”: testing, cure, vaccine.
Arena of Altered States 🤩 Election Night Influence
The real winner of the US election? Drugs. If you were following along, the decriminalization of possession of illegal substances took a huge step forward, even in very conservative regions. And while there are places where the war on drugs was long ago over (and is working), the US still influences global culture so much.
The trend just continues to gain speed, with our local municipality having just announced plans to decriminalize all illicit drugs.
This is great news for incarceration rates of disadvantaged people, healing those who have deep trauma and mental anguish and for those who need novel substance abuse treatments. But we are interested in how social culture will shift as adoption of psychedelics and relaxed possession of stimulants increases?
🩺 One, our gatherings will be healthier. Alcohol consumption ranks at the top of societal impacts after tallying up the social costs. Interestingly, there was a medical breakthrough in helping to save some of the 3 million deaths annually from alcohol intoxication.
👀 Two, our gatherings will be more emotionally intimate and sensory. What happens to social preferences when amplified human senses need greater attention? What happens to “networking” when conversations need to be deeper than “what do you do for work?”
📖 Three, our gatherings could be less egotistical and more spiritual. Do status seeking experiences change in the near future? Does external identity validation begin to matter less to influencer events?
The insight: while not an immediate impact for experience designers, this area of liberalization has the opportunity to change consumer preferences. Particularly those who are young and experimental. In a post-COVID era, big, bright and vibrant music festivals look very promising.
Thinkers and Philosophers 🕵 Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell (1904 - 1987), legendary mythologist and thinker, provided our society many gifts, most notably the theory of the monomyth. His theory, best known as the hero’s journey, is a story structure derived from the study of civilizations and their narratives, spanning history. In a digest packed with worldbuilding and altered realities, we felt it was only appropriate to feature one of our favourite philosophers of the human experience:
Need a primer on the hero’s journey? Here’s a graphic that breaks down six well known movies into the twelve stages of the structure. And it’s true, we probably wouldn’t have Star Wars without Joseph Campbell.
OK, OK. You’re not writing a fable for the ages. So how does his thinking apply? Well, if you are designing for a particular type of user, they view themselves as the hero in their own journey. And in the classic storytelling sense, the hero must make seven important choices that change the direction of their destiny. The hero cannot be a bystander. Choice matters. It sparks an awakening.
In the ‘90s a Hollywood screenwriter wrote a practical guide to help writers implement the narrative. And there are juicy tidbits within. But ultimately this needs to be distilled further for your “experience heroes”. The sequence? Beginning in the ordinary world, you call them to adventure, provide an ordeal with suffering, reward them for overcoming it, finally sending them back transformed.
The insight: Joseph Campbell had much to offer our culture, and his monomyth was only one of many pivotal theories that apply across society. But with history as a guide, the core pattern is what is important. Of course, he’s not the only one with story structure insights (Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 shapes of stories is also helpful), but his might be the ultimate. Inspired? Dive deeper into the 6 part interview series taped just prior to the end of his life, with legendary interviewer, Bill Moyer. At the very least, learn to “follow your bliss”.
Beautiful event instas to inspire your next project (from a diverse group)
🪟 Roving frame performers by NuArt.
🎁 The most legit “at home” event delivery kit we’ve seen yet, designed by We are BMF for lyft and Grubhub.
🔦 Outdoor Christmas lighting vibes by Mindy Weiss.
🪜 Climb the ladder to sweet dreams by Kristin Banta.
🍦 A boozy ice cream sundae by Cody Goldstein.
Hot morsels to ace your next event conversation
🛰️ Space hotel with artificial gravity will be in orbit by 2025.
⚙️ We knew COVID was going to change style. How the Chinese are embracing a cyberpunk aesthetic.
🎆 Impressed with those firework drones from Biden’s victory speech? We were, and think fireworks and drones were meant to be. An explainer.
⚡ The inside story on how HBO created a VR experience for 100 influencers.
🎨 We all need to tap into the spirit of Bob Ross these days. And now you can. The Boss Ross Experience, a new interactive museum in his name, opens in Indiana.
🚗 Best practices and a few resulting metrics on county fair drive-thru experiences.
🔥 Billy McFarland, the most infamous event producer in history, has recorded a podcast from prison about Fyre Festival (hint: you haven’t seen the last of him).
🎥 A Vancouver-based company launches a platform to combine movies and conversation, a hybrid “social movie screening” experience.
End note
This was the eighteenth edition of the State of Awe digest. We leave you with a reminder that worldbuilding can translate to real life: you can always send in your avatar to do the dirty work.
If you like the digest, please consider forwarding this letter directly by email to two colleagues in the experience economy. Direct them here.
As Ever,
Jordan + Tyson