State of Awe Digest #34 | An epoch of novelty
The Latest Wonders in Experience Design, Festivals and Gatherings
July 4, 2021
Our aphorism to help with the times: a mundane life collapses time; a novel experience unfolds it.
State of Awe is a regular trend briefing from experience designer, Jordan Kallman and event brand curator, Tyson Villeneuve at The Social Concierge.
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For curious subscribers, you can find all previous digests here. A catalogue of current and future topic areas can be found here.
Insight Map 🔮 The Digest Summary
House of Focus: it is time to redesign your festival squad;
Experience Design Strategy: how compelling characters will drive the next generation of virtual experiences;
Arena of Design Thinking: we all must worship. How shared interests can be elevated to collective belief;
Arena of Economics: an extraordinary era of novelty design;
Meaningful Virtual Experiences: a quick tour of the virtual circus;
Thinkers and Philosophers: Jon Levy and his social influence hacks (hint: great dinner parties);
As is tradition, one aphorism, six hot morsels, four beautiful instas (in visual banner form) and our polite reminder to share this digest with someone who needs the inspiration.
House of Focus 🎯 The Redesign of your Festival Squad
Have you looked into the reaches of life’s pantry recently? Almost certainly, a few expired friendships and stale acquaintances are lurking in the shadowy depths.
As this feature article outlines, the pandemic reoriented our spheres of attention. And in the process, we all reorganized the limits of who we care about. Many of us experienced dramatic friendship ends, ghostly fade outs, and forgotten bonds. The inertia that kept you tied up with tired or deficient relationships came to a rolling stop over the past fifteen months.
It puts us all in an interesting position as social experiences ramp back up in frequency. Will we pile our plates and gorge, or be more selective and stick to what nourishes and sustains us? There’s a good argument that your “friendscape” should be curated more carefully in this next round of life. It does, after all, determine your future self.
The insight: a previous digest investigated the societal levers turning your outer social circles more liquid (digest #32). Yet it is obvious our inner circles, those we most trust and spend time with, are tighter than ever. Experiences that allow us to bring these friends closer than ever are highly cherished. On the other hand, we seek ways to freshen up the outer rings, bring in new connections, and redesign our “festival squad”. As designers, the experiences that will flourish in the days to come will be those that offer a fresh start with new friends that share similar interests. And of course, those really intimate ones.
Experience Design Strategy 🏔️ Compelling Characters
This past week, we joined a handful of fellow gatherers to brain date at the intersection of storytelling and events. It is one of our favourite topics, because we definitely believe:
As content technology advances, certain experiences become highly character driven. Take Peloton as a prime example; a previously content-free fitness activity was transformed into the “Netflix of Wellness” (great read). The theory? Technology has unlocked the ability to tell stories and develop characters around activities previously impossible to do so:
Virtual personas. Digital gatherings and experiences will really open up opportunities for character-driven content, whether that is in the form of participant avatars or pseudo-fictional characters that users seek out at virtual events. You can see it materializing as Hollywood searches for the next big franchise in the Metaverse’s inventory of portable NFT characters (insightful read). Virtual events should create characters.
Story containers. For IRL events, storytelling will always be less prescriptive and more of an open world methodology. Unless you create theatrical entertainment formats, gathering producers need to create spaces where stories can emerge, weaving an imaginary vessel rather than a specific narrative. While virtual events should create characters, IRL events should make space for them.
The insight: we all have that “main-character energy” these days. And there are extensive thinking tools out there to create our narratives (looking at you, previous digests). One extra example, we find the “Big Five” character traits very useful. But no matter what, if you plan on entertaining an audience, you should fully grasp how you are creating spaces and pursuing pathways for great characters to emerge.
Arena of Design Thinking 💬 Elevating Shared Interests
We are all wired for worship. We all need a religion.
God genes. There is a growing field of research, called neurotheology, that is looking to link how our brains work with transcendent, religious experiences. Definitely controversial, but the topic is very interesting. Do we have a god gene that predisposes us to mystical experiences?
Seeking spirits. If we are indeed hardwired for worship, likely as a survival mechanism, and formal religious affiliations are at all-time lows, our religious instinct needs to be satisfied by other experiences.
Modern worship; otherwise defined as is the act of showing honour to an object. Jamie Wheal states that as we move away from blind faith in religious deities, we need to find meaning in direct, human experience. In modern culture, you can see this take many forms, from sport fandom to brand zealots.
The insight: if we are all “going to worship something”, then our shared interests fuelling gatherings and communities can be elevated. We can amplify shared interests to collective religious zeal. Within our events, this means growing community bonds through repeated instinctual rituals, be it repetitive chanting, dancing, movement or singing. It means opening up the opportunity to take part in a visual identity with costumes, flags, icons, or mascots. Or even better, shared memes. There is a space, an opportunity to elevate your community’s shared interest into the pantheon of micro-worship. We are, after all, in search of a new deity.
Arena of Economics 💰 An Unprecedented Era of Novelty
As the world of experience reopens, we will all get to enjoy an overload of novelty. Whether it is the “thrill of old restaurants” or seeking our bucket list travel spot, the new will be abundant. As designers, the importance of novelty as an economic lever cannot be understated:
🧠 Brain-changing newness. Novelty is like a magic spell for our neurochemistry (great read). It surges dopamine, it scientifically makes us happier, it presses us to explore further, it affects the perception of time and memory, and surprisingly makes our brains more resilient. “Neophilia” — the desire to have novel experiences — is actually a predictor of longevity.
💸 Evolving economics. While difficult to quantify, it is a long held belief that novelty drives financial returns (academic source). It ties back to Schumpter’s Paradox, in that the process of creative destruction creates the innovation necessary for big returns. Case in point, recent studies suggest that successful companies make 80% of their revenue with products younger than five years old.
The insight: within the experience economy, we have two critical uses of novelty: the application of novelty to move inward emotion, and the use of creative destruction to force innovative new experience businesses. With such a large majority of society’s “experience-first” industries going through a process of economic destruction and digital transformation, there has likely never been a time of more opportunity. Combine this with our current desire for novelty, and we sit at the cusp of an incredible era of innovation. The potential for creating something new might never be this great again.
Meaningful Virtual Experiences 📱The Latest and Greatest
As the digital revolution of live events rolls on, your quick hits and novel developments:
💻 Livestream longevity. A new study by United Talent Agency finds that 96% of consumers already plan to return to live events once it's safe. But notably, 88% of respondents who attended a virtual event during the pandemic will continue to do so when live events return, with top reasons to attend a virtual event being to avoid crowds, to experience an event comfortably, attend an event taking place in another region, and to spend less money than in person. Three out of four respondents viewed a virtual event during the pandemic. Keep a tight grasp on those digital fans.
🕹️ Gaming environments. The Fornite Travis Scott concert from April 2020 was the Digital Craft Grand Prix winner at Cannes. London’s O2 Arena becomes the first real world stadium to be recreated virtually, as it appears in the upcoming Fornite concert with UK band Easy Life.
✍️ Decentralized updates. Beeple, the most renowned NFT artist to date, launched a new NFT marketplace that will allow you to buy iconic moments in time.
🤳 Hybrid trends. Worth sharpening up on your event tech lingo. A full 57%+ of event planners are expecting to fully blend IRL and virtual audiences. Seven industry leading examples to emulate, here.
Thinkers and Philosophers 🕵 Jon Levy
Jon Levy, present day behavioural scientist and adventure designer, is a leading contemporary thinker on the topic of social influence, gatherings and adventure. Known across the media landscape as a master networker, Jon experiments at the intersection of sociology, neuroscience and live events. He unpacks very useful insights:
Event principles. The creator of the “Influencers Dinner”, this series of dinner parties at his parent’s sprawling New York City apartment became the thing of legend in the mid ‘10s. His secrets were simple: dinner events are powerful gathering formats, made novel by ensuring the entire experience is a shared one: from the cooking to the cleaning, the conversations to the salon-like presentations.
Influence hacks. His dinner events attracted highly accomplished individuals. But he sets rules so that no one can talk about those accomplishments. He unpacks other easy hacks to bring people of influence together.
2AM principle. Jon Levy recommends that an exciting life is full of adventure. And that to create adventure, you need to design for three experience criteria: make it remarkable; design in adversity and risk; and ultimately, ensure the experience provides personal growth. Here’s the full story on why it is called the 2AM principle.
You’re invited. His latest book is a set of social secrets. They distill down to two required principles to build a social circle that will improve your quality of life. They centre on developing deep bonds of trust, and inspiring a sense of collective community with those inside the circle.
The insight: Jon Levy is not a master networker, he’s a master gathering designer. He sets up boundaries and barriers that insulate a validated social experience. Inside those spheres, magic happens. What makes Jon’s thinking great is that it applies cross-format. As an example, he believes in virtual events, but he identifies that they are typically designed incorrectly (they usually are). More so, his grander beliefs are similar to ours: "the fundamental element that defines the quality of your life is the people you surround yourself with and the conversations you have with them." Worth designing for.
Hot morsels to amp the novelty factor of your next conversation
🎟️ Real world festival activations are back! And the pandemic performance king, Travis Scott is going Willy Wonka. 100 signed cans are hidden across the country, each can netting the lucky finders two tickets to the very sold out Astroworld Festival.
🏰 SoHo House, one of the original community-driven businesses, is planning an IPO.
🛫 Airbnb is looking for 12 people to spend a year travelling around its properties for free.
🙌 Tomorrowland 2021 is cancelled by local civic authorities. They turned around and launched their summer virtual massive for July 16/17. They will advertise the virtual experience on F1 cars.
📈 A new return to live recovery index launched for the US, charting progress back to live events.
💃 Dance festivals and nightclubs have lost 78% of their value during the pandemic.
End note
Summer has arrived on the west coast, with blistering temperatures over the past week. Even the most seaside outdoor gatherings were uncomfortably hot. As life picks up post-pandemic, double think your need to travel long distances for events. The future needs a climate redesign. How might we double down on the design of grand experiences, locally?
Inspire others and share our digest. We feel like whoever you pick will thank you for the insights. Plus, imagine how smart you will look! We joke… But seriously, direct them here.
As Ever,
Jordan + Tyson