State of Awe Digest #30 | Everyone must speak
The Latest Wonders in Experience Design, Festivals and Gatherings
May 9, 2021
Our aphorism to help with the times: Confront that demon of nothingness. Spray it down with colour, fill its senses with light and get it drunk on good vibes.
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.
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For curious subscribers, you can find all previous digests here (certain ideas are timeless). A catalogue of current and future topic areas can be found here.
Insight Map 🔮 The Digest Summary
House of Focus: translating vibrations into virtual experiences;
Arena of Design Thinking: the secret to being a good host;
Arena of Safety and Security: whoa! Things are happening IRL;
Designer Data Drop: the future event revenue generation: microtransactions;
Meaningful Virtual Experiences: creator culture, infinite supply and winner-take-all design;
Fads and Crazes: further developments on NFTs for experiences;
Thinkers and Philosophers: James Turrell and his surreal philosophy;
As always, six beautiful instas, six hot morsels and one request to share this digest with someone who would appreciate it.
House of Focus 🎯 Feature Article Thinking
It is a conversation starter we have tracked before: vibes.
As this feature outlines (open version), we have found ourselves in the era of good vibes. But not only good vibes, also those laid-back chill vibes, moments when we “just get a vibe”, and a lifestyle that shuns being too “vibey”. Frank Ocean was just vibin’ and so was Nathan Apodaca’s cranberry-swigging lip sync. Vibes hit peak Google search this past week, and the use of the word in books is only on the up. The tag is current culture royalty.
Vibes send subtle messages (digest #23), there are many cross-cultural words for it (digest #24), and a good vibe is the experience designer’s dark matter (digest #12). Hard to detect, unmeasurable yet mysteriously and immensely weighty.
Our current fascination: how good vibes translate virtually. And what we have found, is that they do. You just need to design for them.
The insight: there is a lot of talk about “Zoom fatigue” and an obvious negativity around virtual events. But certain online experiences just keep growing, some like crazy. We feel that the negativity is misplaced. The problem isn’t the technology itself, but the human input. Digital vibrations resonate deeply when the Zoom meeting, the streaming event or the online gathering is designed so we can truly share the experience with each other. As masters of the sixth sense of vibe, we know, because we have felt it. And once we all figure out the secrets to virtual atmospherics and emotional impact, a whole new era of convening will be upon us.
Arena of Design Thinking 🔎 Moderation and Facilitation
When contemplating how to create virtual vibes, there is no bigger role than that of host.
Every meeting is now an online meeting (must read), and every online meeting needs structured facilitation. Even with a hybrid event model emerging (be it work or event), the likelihood is that the “dreaded” online gathering will only be more frequent.
We understand that generally speaking, meetings suck. But there is a path for every host to improve the online Zoom. We present the secrets of moderation, and the set of core principles needed to host a really good online gathering:
Core promise. No gathering can take shape without intention, one that is shared by every participant. And it’s more than fine, encouraged in fact, to exclude those who won’t serve this purpose in a direct way.
Generous authority. There is only one legitimate source of pleasure in playing host. And that is the pleasure in the outcomes of the gathering, outcomes that must be shared by all those present. The host is the social leader, must draw out the silent, protect the weak and close with accomplishment. Read the playbook before you run the meet. Here’s a nice take.
Be seen, feel safe, add voice. The trifecta of facilitation, a trio that must be embraced by every participant. Virtual events fail the vibe test unless everyone finds the space to share. Cut out those monologues and increase time for conversation by a factor of three. Experiment with conversation formats. Give control to your community every 3-5 minutes.
Power in the small. You can convene large numbers, but in virtual you need to force channels for those intimate connections. Break the group down into pockets of less than four.
Deliberate mix. Creating good conversations and co-created outcomes requires variety. Shake your seating plan. We want to be entertained, and meeting new people outside of our comfort zone accelerates this.
The insight: building a good vibe in the Metaverse is a lot different than creating this within physical space. It requires three times the normal level of participation by everyone present, with a structure that is facilitated by a host with authority. And this doesn’t just apply to meetings, but social gatherings, live streams (through chat) and virtual worlds. Design your loops for intentional outcomes. Everyone must speak.
Arena of Safety and Security 🦠 The Long Road Back
But wait! Real live events are surging. We are definitely feeling those vibes too. Developments from around the playground on the road back to IRL:
👴 The age divide. A clear demographic pattern is emerging. Millennials and Gen Z currently hold twice as many tickets to events when compared to older generations. 51% of high income, older generation households are more likely to purchase tickets that require proof of vaccination. There is a big demographic split emerging on attending larger events.
🏟️ Outdoor safety. The science is clearing: a 5,000 attendee test event in Spain showed no signs of outbreak or transmission. Texas is open-and-free, but mask wearing and social distancing indoors is still the norm.
💥 Big wins. Check out the 50,000-person concert in New Zealand. Bonnaroo experiences the fastest sellout in its history, Bad Bunny’s concert tour breaks ticket sale records, how New York will return to festivals this summer, Overwatch is tiptoeing back into live eSport events, Travis Scott’s Astroworld sells out in an hour, and Miami Tech Week blew the roof off.
💉 Vax passes. The roll out continues.
💎 Stimulus. Bud Light is ready with $10m in live event budget, and isn’t shy about it.
The insight: the last two weeks feel very different. The engines have started on IRL, and it was impossible to ignore it. The length of the road to our destination may have shortened.
Designer Data Drop 🧮 Microtransaction Economies
Community economies are going to be driven by microtransactions. Just look at this progression:
Things over tickets. Event producers are really starting to consider this economic transformation. How we might replace ticketing fees.
Avatar clothing powerhouse. How an emerging design brand plans to build a fashion microtransaction empire.
Meaningful Virtual Experiences 📱The Latest and Greatest
From around the Metaverse, the morsels that advance our understanding of meaningful virtual experiences:
Quality wins. Clubhouse announced it is investing in feature audio content.
Psycho-centric design. How behavioural science is exploding, and why it matters. Post-pandemic gathering design is transformation-driven. Swapcard lays out a really effective practical guide.
Case study. How Facebook’s internal virtual event was branded and designed. Driving community and a craving for belonging was tops of the list.
The thrills. The race to build the Metaverse is on. Tomorrowland announces their virtual summer festival, Burning Man goes virtual for the second year in a row, and Astroworld is looking for a virtual roller coaster designer.
The insight: the Clubhouse investment into original programming is very interesting. You will notice not one big brand on the list. There are intersecting trend lines here: the supply of virtual experiences is going exponential, the winner-take-all game of finding viral quality is underway, and unique individual creators, not corporate brands, will create the human-centric outcomes we desire. Virtual experience consumption will track towards this intersection fast. Opportunity abounds. Expect to see big winners emerge quickly.
Fads and Crazes ⚡ NFTs for Experiences
The non-fungible token craze has settled slightly, but developments for the experience economy continue to roll:
Live disruption. Rolling Stone releases a feature on how NFT technology could be a game changer for the live events industry. It covers Post Malone’s coming NFT pong tournament, and how swag will be upended. The Vendry gives us a nice summary of best-in-class event examples.
Experience NFT launch. The infamous personality Gary Vaynerchuk releases a big set of tokens that grant its holder access to various events, experiences and to him. He wants to pave the way for experiential NFTs. His is a real world example of how a community will give the NFT its value (must read), and why this application is perfect for the experience economy.
The insight: blockchain adoption curves are steep. Still holding out? We found something that might help. You can now NFT your awkward family photographs. As is now the norm, the weirder, the winner. Strange today, yes. But this technology will dramatically shape the future of the experience economy.
Thinkers and Philosophers 🕵 James Turrell
Living artist, James Turrell (1943 - ) has been called “an orchestrator of experience, the furthest thing from a creator of cheap effects.” He is an engineer of truly immersive spaces, built right out of the mountains themselves. Yet his work in light-forms also carries a philosophy that defines our time, now more than ever. And he might be building the single-most ambitious art project, ever.
🏔️ The 580-feet tall, 2-mile wide Roden Crater is that project. Under construction since 1974, this feature outlines how one of the world’s largest art pieces will complete, and how you might be able to enjoy it in the future (awesome read).
🔭 Stepping back from Roden Crater, Turrell’s work is philosophical (explore his smaller works here). It stands at the trending crossroads of “awesome emptiness”, our obsession with inward self-exploration (like meditation), and our expanding love for the solar system and the stars. It is both contemplative and transformative.
🤯 But just like our growing gathering Metaverse, James Turrell’s art is very removed from the language of reality. Our shared reality is fragmenting fast (must read). His work is the space between reality and otherworldly, it is visually holographic, and “very hallucinatory”. It is the truest experience of immersive art. And it is found across many cultures, tucked into unlikely corners of the planet.
The insight: parallel to our enjoyment of immersive art exhibitions (covered in digest #23), we are seeking contemplative, calm yet transformative experiences. The Roden Crater is a vast place in a remote location, perfectly symbolizing our societal searches. It intrigues us for these reasons. The difference between this 2013 New York Times summary, and today, is that many more of us are seeking places that are deliberately surreal. If you are an event designer, you want to be experimenting with uncomfortable spaces that force participants to surrender to their uncertainties. Transformation awaits.
Beautiful event instas to inspire your next project
🎟️ An experience-based NFT art installation by Manifold.
🪑 Please be seated by artist, Paul Cocksedge.
🏆 The 93rd Oscars Award Ceremony outdoor courtyard by David Rockwell. His stage design, not so much.
🥦 Mossy wonderland at Grand Central Station by Lily Kwong.
🟪 Ticketed, immersive floral installation experiences by The Floral Escape.
👁️ Physical mind tricks by artist, Peter Kogler.
Hot morsels to ace your next conversation on gathering design
🏨 The hot new hotel viewing party.
🎥 A company aiming to create the world’s most advanced wellbeing resorts, invests in experiential immersive art company Superblue.
🛰️ An exciting drone flight through the Mall of America.
🚀 Calling all explorers! Blue Origin will begin auctioning its space tourism packages.
🕹️ eSports as an Olympic Sport? Coming soon.
🚇 The world’s largest art walk, contained within Stockholm’s underground subway.
End note
In this beautiful photographic journal, we get a glimpse into eight very different community gatherings across America.
What strikes us is the intimacy. Something we believe will only continue to be valued as we emerge into a new world. Small, tight and driven by mutual interests. This will continue to be very cool.
If you know someone who might like these mutual interests, we would be grateful if you shared this digest with them. Direct fellow designers here.
As Ever,
Jordan + Tyson