State of Awe | Digest #2
The Latest Wonders in Experience Design, Festivals and Gatherings
April 12, 2020
Our aphorism to help with the times: “Suffering peaks just before the break of awe”
COVID-19: over the past two weeks, the state of the global pandemic has significantly worsened. We realize the severity of not only the health crisis, the widespread loss and suffering, and the trauma being inflicted worldwide, but also the severity of the income inequality, income disadvantaged and the onset of economic challenges for almost everyone. Our agency, The Social Concierge is currently formulating event fundraising plans to help those in need, using the skills and influence we have available. We feel this is the best way for us to respond. We hope this briefing helps bring positivity about the here, now and later into your creative thinking.
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, lighting up this circle of experience. Encourage others to join the club. Long live the spectacular.
Arena of Safety and Security 🦠 COVID Edition
These are unprecedented generational times. Anyone creatively engaged in high touch endeavours and industries has been heavily affected in the past number of weeks due to COVID-19. After the past two weeks of shock, awe and trauma I would say that most, if not all of us simply sit in stunned silence regularly trying to comprehend what has transpired.
We can only wonder at what the future might hold.
But when looking ahead, it always implores you first to look back.
4️⃣0️⃣ History inevitably holds lessons for our future. As Ray Dalio, a renowned investor would say, “this is just another one of those”. We have been through this before. In fact, the “quarantine experience” that most of the world is currently facing for the first time in generations, takes its name from quarantinario, from the Italian word for 40. This referred to the 40-day waiting period imposed on ships and their crew in Venice in 1370 during the bubonic plague. For a short listing of various “quarantinarios” that have happened over societal history you can skim this unpleasant summary.
🌪️ There’s no doubt this has had an immediate impact on gatherings. According to Event Manager Blog’s most recent survey of event professionals, as of March 18, 90% of event professionals saw some or most of their business gone. Only 5% were minimally impacted.
🤒 But what of the lasting impacts AFTER the quarantines from histories past were lifted? For organizers, community builders and hosts, there are some troubling potential outcomes we need to intentionally avoid. As this summary of the 1918 Spanish Flu states, “the loneliness and suspicion caused by the flu continued to pervade American society in subtle ways… People didn’t seem as friendly as before”. And in Florence during the Black Death, the social distancing practice of villeggiatura, defined as withdrawing from the city to a country villa, birthed a popular rise in countryside living for the wealthier bourgeois. This cultural shift caught on, emptying cities in the warmer months for the first known significant “summer vacation” routines. The insight and inquiry: history shows us that these traumatic pandemics dramatically shift collective sentiment. What can you do to ensure your traditions, rituals and ceremonies remain part of the cultural fabric when the quarantine lifts?
⚡ So what are festivals, teams and event organizations doing to prepare to stay relevant? Immediately, we have seen large-scale venues and production-based companies with gear inventories shifting to help healthcare and governments deal with COVID-19 on the frontlines. Specifically in Vancouver, those uniquely positioned to do so have manufactured hand sanitizer, shifted to produce masks, encourage delivery of food, and provide life-saving power. A full list of those unique pivots here.
🆘 Looking further out into the future, many events have yet to make their move, pivot or evolve. The new reality is setting in, and caution flags are being raised on consumer spending even after quarantine. Behind the scenes, based on the conversations we are having with other producers, designers and organizers, a few solutions seem to be emerging as likely candidates for the near future of gatherings:
🔎 One, “the future is small”. Turning larger-scale events into smaller gatherings to fit within quarantine capacities provided by local governments will be an evolution many festivals will need to make.
🏳️ Two, to pay for operating expenses, contracted staff who don’t qualify for wage subsidy, many events will go public with a request for help. Cheap merchandise (example Story 1, 2, 3), lifetime membership tickets (buy now, attend later), and just straight financial requests for donations will all become commonplace soon.
🧑💻 Three, the monumental shift to online, virtual and remote experiences for the foreseeable near future. DJs taking their services virtual, famous musicians like Lady Gaga and Andrea Bocceili performing online to raise funds and help heal, and a million other examples.
The insight and inquiry: As the next few weeks unfold, how do these solutions help extend the sustainability of experiences? Does the quality and meaning of virtual gatherings continue to improve? What are you doing to ensure a return in the future?
Fads and Crazes 📱Meaningful Virtual Experiences
🤕 Who has “Zoom Fatigue”? A new phenomenon of this new world. With Twitch (live streaming platform) growing at 31% in only two weeks, list-upon-list of the virtual being published, dance parties becoming the new social norm, video call backgrounds the newest digital identity tool, attempts at the “biggest virtual” world records being attempted, and even Burning Man “going virtual”, it truly is becoming an overwhelming arena to navigate.
But more importantly, the question we are asking ourselves is “what makes for a meaningful virtual experience”? How do you bring a sense of satisfaction and genuine connection to a medium that exhausts us socially? What virtual experience will emerge as a classic, sticking around long after quarantine?
🤳 In a very short period of time, attending every virtual event we could imagine, we have learned that not much as changed. The most meaningful experiences, even when virtual, remain rooted in the principles of IRL experiences. Here’s a short list of what we have learned:
🗣️ Intimacy and authenticity reign supreme. Even before the COVID quarantine had set in, the “Just Chatting” live streams on Twitch had overtaken the most popular video gamer broadcasts. Why? Because we crave small, high touch social interactions that result in faster and more genuine new friendships, more quickly.
🤹♀️ Participation increases investment, engages more deeply and promotes a live stream experience that people remember. Read a huge summary of the state of interactive live streaming here.
✍️ Chat is essential to virtual events. With live streams, a set of layers to the conversation is critical as not everyone can participate at once in a single channel or platform. We have seen organizers struggle to decide what chat platform is best. Slack provides more control and centralization, Telegram allows for 1000+ capacity rooms, and WhatsApp is by far the most default social space. But what matters is that chat exists for your virtual audience.
💰 Pricing is still a fluctuating norm. Most virtual events seem to be embracing a free-model, but it looks like some have emerged with a paid ticket. If you are thinking about a paid virtual event, the ranges seem to be slightly lower than in-person experiences? We plan to keep our eyes on this as it evolves
🎁 Ask your attendees to bring a virtual offering to increase their buy-in to the event: a photo that has meaning for you, a song that holds a memory, a digital background of your favourite travel destination, or a toast to end the session. Priya Parker, author of the Art of Gathering launched a new podcast with the New York Times that covers this principle, and many others.
The insight and inquiry: the same psychological principles to great gatherings apply to virtual. We simply need to get creative when we can’t be together in person. Being a master host in the virtual world might take a little more effort until the new norms of digital experiences emerge. But use the classic principles of great get togethers as the foundation. Don’t be a lazy host.
Designer Data Drop 🧮 Chart of the Month
📈 Consumer spending is changing fast. And while it is fairly obvious what has happened to event, festival and organizer revenues, there are more subtle spending changes that are a bit more interesting. Glimpse has put together a set of charts showing unique categories on the move. And the graphic below (linked in full here) goes even deeper.
Arena of Sport, eSport and Gaming
The list of sporting events affected by COVID continues to grow. From the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Japan, to Formula One down to every professional sporting league across the planet. But even in the days of quarantine, solutions and innovation abound.
🏎️ With motorsports at a standstill, virtual racing has exploded. The eNASCAR series, a set of races involving the sport’s biggest names “driving barefoot” from the comfort of their homes, has been broadcast on Fox Sports for the past three weekends, topping out at over 1.3 million viewers.
🏀 Beginning today, ESPN will feature a basketball H-O-R-S-E tournament featuring the NBA’s most thrilling players. Players must describe each shot attempt, specifying the type of score they intend to make before taking a shot, such as a bank shot or swish. Dunking is prohibited. The first player in each game to accumulate the letters “H-O-R-S-E” after failing to match five shots is eliminated.
⚾ Major League Baseball is considering an extreme quarantine solution that includes a single region that hosts all games, sequestering players and essential staff in isolation from their families and friends, and will use frequent testing to ensure COVID-19 doesn’t enter the field of play. Pretty intense!
🕹️ Verizon has noted a 75% increase in gaming usage across its networks since quarantine began. In short, gaming and eSports are having a moment. And fans are turning out in massive numbers and records are being broken. And as one can see from the chart below, eSports are big money.
The insight and inquiry: Are there other gaming experiences that can be monetized? Are their experience by-products from your events (like in the case of the NBA) that could become events within themselves?
Rituals and Ceremony
In these times of change, we have seen an increasing number of expert recommendations to “create a COVID routine”. Which got us thinking about routines in a more experiential sense. What rituals might be changing? What ceremony to process this trauma might be born of this crisis?
⛩️ Sen no Rikyū is a historical figure who had a profound influence on the Japanese “Way of Tea” in the 16th century, bringing in massive change to tea ceremonies and the art of its performance, called (o)temae. Before Rikyū, common practice was for the wealthy and political to go to extreme lengths to create elaborate rituals, in ornate teahouses. These ceremonies served as venues for worldly gatherings and displays of status. Enter Sen no Rikyū and his radical redesign around the concept of wabi-sabi — a compound word combining wabi, or simplicity, with sabi, an appreciation of the imperfect. This new ritual style exploded, and Rikyū awakened in the Japanese a taste for the pared down and the authentic, for the undecorated and the humble. Read the story here.
The insight and inquiry: Is there an experience that is currently overly elaborate that can be developed in the complete opposite direction? Is there a new ritual you are taking part in that can be expanded and scaled to increase well-being or happiness? What is your ceremony plan for post-COVID-19?
Beautiful event instas to inspire your next project
🧙♀️ Es Devlin’s Louis Vuitton Runway Show Projections at the Louvre.
👟 Snarkitecture’s all white installation style, in the form of a sneaker hang.
🧑🚀 Stefan Beckman’s “Outer Space Thunderbird” on an advertisement video shoot set
❤️ Derek McLane’s classic Moulin Rouge set decor.
🎢 David Stark’s rollercoaster made of coins installation.
Hot morsels to ace your next event
🎾 Wimbledon might have proven that unique cancellation insurance is worth it.
🔮 What will the impacts and eventual consequences of mass event postponement be?
🎟️ Many ticketing companies not predicted to make it. Eventbrite revenues fall, 45% of staff let go.
🥤 Functional beverages, non-alcoholic drinks containing non-traditional ingredients like minerals, adaptogens, natural nootropics, vitamins, herbs, amino acids or added raw fruits, look like they will rival the energy drink market in the years to come. “Euphoric cocktails” at all events in the future?
📉 Influencer marketing rates dropping fast. Ad sales falling apart. Down 45% or more. Good news for advertising cost and reach after quarantine?
👀 List of events affected by the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic (updated).
End note
This second State of Awe edition took into consideration feedback we realized after sharing briefing #1 with a select and trusted sphere of colleagues and friends. A few asked what our purpose and intention was with this trend letter? And our only response was to bring together a long form “variety digest” that we would enjoy. Additionally, we just hadn’t found another industry thought leader covering a wide variety of topical, creative concepts.
So this memorandum sets out to be a regular periodical that combines "departments" of information from various areas we are interested in. Definitely more of a lazy Sunday morning read than your Tuesday “must know” bulletin blitz. Low on the visuals (rare for @TSC_Agency), high on the external linkages. We aren’t sure if others will enjoy it as much as we do putting it together. Very much an experiment in-progress!
If you liked this edition, and think others would too, share with us your candid feedback. It would mean a lot to us, particularly the constructive type that might get us second guessing how important and relevant this might be for you!
As Ever,
Jordan + Tyson