May 10, 2020
Our aphorism to help with the times: “Experiences are not built to last. Produce to pass, contrast”
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. Our intention is to serve you trend-driven, idea candy that inspires divergent, lateral or combination creative thinking for your own gatherings.
Fads and Crazes 📱Meaningful Virtual Experiences
Our first digest of State of Awe was published (to an audience of one) on March 22, 2020, only a week into COVID-19 related quarantine. This is the first edition that hasn’t started with a summary of how the virus is affecting us, but rather dives right into the positive, solutions-oriented wonders out there. We feel we have arrived at the collective understanding that large gatherings will not happen until herd immunity is achieved, medical interventions drastically change outcomes or a vaccine is developed and distributed. So what now?
➿ To celebrate, we first share a great “story of the pivot”, from the New Yorker, describing a reincarnation of two high end restaurants into the brand “Contrair”, a takeout food concept. It is a great story of a rebrand and product pivot to meet the times. The newly selected portmanteau company name doubles as a punning bit of gallows humor: guests might ask “Are you guys closed?” chef Jeremiah Stone said, “and we can be, like, ‘Au Contrair!’ Clever inventions in these times seem to be rewarded well.
❗ By now you have all taken part in many virtual experiences. What do these events need to overcome? We share a collection of articles on the shortcomings, led first by this astute list of eight concerns. There is no question there are doubts about this new format. We have heard of confident digital event producers providing “no question refunds” on attendance, essentially guaranteeing content quality to their participants (counter to the refund backlash of Ticketmaster and Live Nation). And yet others providing in-home packages with cut-out emojis to give participants an analog interactive element meant to overcome “button fatigue”. And this New York Times article outlines, there are nuanced social failings to the video conference:
🦚 Body language issues: digital video rooms play havoc with our ability to mirror. Without realizing it, all of us engage in facial mimicry whenever we encounter another person. It’s a constant, almost synchronous, interplay. To recognize emotion, we have to actually embody it. When we can’t do it seamlessly, as happens during a video chat, we feel unsettled because it’s hard to read people’s reactions and, thus, predict what they will do.
😣 Social disorder: blocking, freezing, blurring, jerkiness and out-of-sync audio. Our brains strain to fill in the gaps and make sense of the subtle disruptions, which makes us feel vaguely disturbed, uneasy and tired without quite knowing why.
👀 Eye contact Issues: video chat inhibits trust because we can’t look one another in the eye. Depending on the camera angle, people may appear to be looking up or down or to the side. Viewers may then perceive them as uninterested, shifty, haughty, servile or guilty.
The insight and inquiry: these subtle issues probably aren’t going away anytime soon. So we need to turn to optimizations. How do we improve the experience? We recommend putting a sticker note over your own face (or changing your settings so you don’t appear on screen), to encourage looking into the camera for the sake of others. Practice patience, allowing for space between conversation transitions. Intentionally set a more casual environment for all participants, asking everyone to video call in from their favourite outdoor walk. Ask everyone to bring a physical token, memento or collective item they need to show off, describe or characterize to increase the ambient personality of the gathering. What other ideas have you seen work?
💡 The virtual platform space is seeing some wild innovation at a very rapid pace. And we have been part of a countless number of demonstrations. Many don’t make the cut, but some show the future of the virtual gathering world. Enter Airmeet, whose virtual breakout tables will come as an attractive feature to more structured organizers (i.e. conferences). There is Clubhouse, the invite-only audio-based social network where people can spontaneously jump into voice chat rooms together (read an in-depth report here on why it might be so popular in the future). Or Around, launching soon. Houseparty added 50M users in one month. And there was the “top secret” virtual Burning Man demonstration we took part in from High Fidelity (from the creators of Second Life). And finally, one of our scrappy, bootstrapped favourites so far, Rally, who is mirroring the happy hour experience very well. Here is an article that outlines the opportunity for non-Zoom concepts perfectly (must read), and it links out to a wonderfully categorized list of 200 solutions that exist in the current space (it misses a few of the above hyper new entrants, FYI).
The insight and inquiry: the coming 2.0 wave of video chat rooms looks very different from your standard Zoom room. Expect the virtual to mirror in-real-life experiences much more closely. From ambient audio, where you can faintly hear nearby conversations, to virtual maps you can design that help you explore space before engaging in conversation, to moments of randomness, spontaneity and coincidence deliberately designed into the experience. This space is moving! Watch out.
Belonging and Longevity Arena
🙍♀️ We have observed a huge increase in feature pieces focused on loneliness in recent weeks. As many of us experience solitariness to new levels never seen during this generation, this makes great sense. As Marcel Proust (featured later in this digest) darkly concludes: no one can fully understand anyone. Loneliness is endemic. “We’re awkward, lonely pilgrims trying to give each tusk-kisses in the dark.” Is this true?
💯 Last year, we worked with the Blue Zone organization, and the central researchers behind the groundbreaking studies on centenarians (areas in the world where people outlast probabilities to live beyond 100 years-old). If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, you can watch this TED Talk by led researcher, Dan Buettner.
🟦 As part of their “Power 9”, principles you can implement into your life to extend longevity of your healthspan, one third of the tenets related directly to connection. Being part of a tight knit community that gathers together regularly (traditionally in faith-based congregations), valuing connectedness with loved ones, and having a small, very close group of best friends are all critical needs for our personal health. As an example, in Japan’s Blue Zone, Okinawans created ”moais”–groups of five friends that committed to each other for life.
The insight and inquiry: what role can you, as master gatherers, play in breaking down barriers within experiences to give participants a true opportunity to form deeper relationships? Or, as the name of this newsletter implies, what state of awe can you manifest for others?
🗻 Only in the past 10-15 years have we begun to research the mysterious emotion of awe. This emotion might just be one of the most powerful reactions we can have as humans, and the benefits are quite wild, read more here (including how awe makes us feel more connected to other people and humanity). We will explore this in much more detail in coming digests.
Designer Data Drop 🧮 Chart of the Month
🎨 The Event Canvas, a multi-stage, one-page, open source design tool created by the folks at the Event Design Collective. It is a complementary download for their website, and is most definitely a comprehensive tool for planning experiences of all shapes and sizes. It accounts for stakeholder expectations, which are likely the single most important reference point to any event.
Why Do We Dance? 💃 Arena of Rhythm and Music
💧 Since our last digest, we managed to catch a virtual premiere of Cirque du Soleil’s One Night for One Drop live performance. It got us thinking about movement, and its importance to events.
👠 As this feature article from Farnam Street suggests, if you contemplate the sheer pervasiveness of dance across all of human society, it becomes apparent this isn’t a small trivial consideration. This is a fascinating read, and the conclusions for belonging are insightful. Muscular bonding, otherwise defined as “a sense of euphoric connection that is sparked by performing rhythmic movements in unison to music or chanting”, provides a remarkable sense of connection and unity with those you share it with.
🕺 Scientific studies have shown that dancing was a key activity to evolution, and the DNA of dancers shared genes associated with a predisposition for being good social communicators. In addition, the dancers were found to have higher levels of serotonin.
👨💻 But this effect isn’t just contained to those actually dancing. Watching someone dance activates those same frontal cortex mirror neurons, and just watching may provide pleasure from simply seeing someone execute a movement with expert skill.
The insight and inquiry: dancing turns the “me” into “we”. Is there a way to unexpectedly feature dancing as part of an experience you are designing? Or more appropriate in these times, how do you integrate dance through virtual windows in the gatherings you are taking part in?
Stadium of Sponsorship
💸 As we forge ahead as event organizers, producers, gathering designers and venue operators, we all understand how important sponsorship is to our economic models. And for sponsoring brands, how important sponsorship exposure is to the marketing mix. Back in 2019, Eventbrite published a report (and summary article) explaining where sponsorship was headed: imaginative, bespoke and data-driven (we might also add sales-driven). But where do we stand now, in a COVID-19 world? This longer presentation has some excellent data.
🏟️ IEG, one of the world’s foremost experts on sponsorships released their 2020 outlook this past week (email signup required). Forbes summarized many of the findings in an interview with the Managing Director from IEG, Peter J. Laatz. Estimating a $10 billion, 5,000 brand impact due to the postponement of sport and live events, the findings suggest these live sponsorship opportunities will be changed forever. Yet, there are positives. 65% of properties and 45% of brands believe all lost sponsorship opportunities can be made up or reinvented. One of the biggest concerns that needs to be overcome is perception: how will our brand be perceived by the audience (and public) sponsoring this event in these times?
The insight and inquiry: to reinvent or retain existing sponsorships (and to attract new deals), we think brands need to quickly learn how to do three things to integrate into virtual events: One, create vulnerable, authentic video segments that can be played during broadcasts. Two, learn how to run engaging, participatory video room based experiences that are fun to take part in and generate leads. And three, come up with unique pre- in- and post-event contesting that uses their unique resources to provide participants both in-home and out-of-home experiences that generate loyalty and future sales with the brand. For now, brands should be mitigating risk and forging ahead with goodwill opportunities in the virtual space, while looking for opportunities to make their sales easier.
Thinkers and Philosophers 🕵 Marcel Proust and our Inner Child
🔍 Opening up a new category for the State of Awe digest, we look back on historical thinkers and philosophers whose writings might influence experience design (we explored this lightly in Digest #2 with Sen no Rikyū). In this digest, we take a dive into the teachings of Marcel Proust, the French novelist and critic who, by many accounts, is one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. He is known for his seven volume novel, À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time, at 1.2+ million words, the longest book ever published).
🤍 Proust’s writing tried to uncover meaning in life, exploring the main themes of social status, love and art. While he died before his insights could be completely confirmed, he seemed to favour art as one the most positive areas of meaning in life. He argued that much of life is ruined for us by a blanket or shroud of familiarity, categorized by Proust as habit, that descends between us and everything that matters. It dulls our senses and stops us appreciating everything, from the beauty of a sunset to our work and our friends. To shed habit, he looked to artists who could show us the world in a way that is fresh, appreciative, and alive.
👶 These artists could also show us the way of the child. For it is children, he argued, that don’t suffer from habit, which is why they get excited by some very key but simple things like puddles, jumping on the bed, sand and fresh bread. The trick – in Proust’s eyes – is to recover the powers of appreciation of a child in adulthood, to strip the veil of habit and therefore to start to look upon daily life with a new and more grateful sensitivity.
The insight and inquiry: what parts from a child’s natural sense of wonder do we want to embrace when being our best social selves? Immediacy, participation, play, touch, curiosity, lack of judgement. What childlike principles can you seamlessly integrate into your event to authentically allow for attendees to let go?
🎙️ Do you podcast or interview for your live events? If so, you should get intimate with the Proust questionnaire. Vanity Fair has been publishing interviews on its back page with this questionnaire for 20 years, and it is set of questions often used by modern interviewers. While not invented by Marcel, it was popularized by his published entry (you can read the story of it here). It is said to reveal the interviewee’s true nature.
Beautiful event instas to inspire your next project
🌸 It was all a dream by Samantha at The Hostess Haven.
4️⃣0️⃣ John Legend’s 40th Birthday by Lisa Vorce (John and Chrissy have been quarantine killing it on IG).
🎯 Beautiful resin art invitations by Jove Meyer for The Knot Gala.
🎉 Stair visuals by The Style Co.
™️ Stop motion typeface by Casey Ligon. What inventive material could you use to replicate this?
🟣 Vivid tabletops by Rishi Patel from HMR Designs.
✨ Doug Aiken’s Sonic Mountain Installation is pure beauty. Especially when brought to life by a percussion group.
Hot morsels to ace your next event
🍿 Ever heard of the immersive movie experience, Secret Cinema? Their newly launched “Secret Sofa” shows a great example of how the immersive can continue while socially distant.
🕹️ Read about the rapid merging of video games and music. What does this link-packed article tell you about the future of digital experiences?
🚀 NASA confirms Tom Cruise will film his next feature aboard the International Space Station. Who will be the first to produce a space event?
🎪 We all might all need this pandemic rave suit to get our big festival dance on.
📉 Eventbrite amd Live Nation daily mentions on Facebook have plummeted 95% since February
🔥 It has been almost exactly 3 years to the day since the debacle of Fyre Festival took over our Twitter feeds and cemented itself in pop culture forever. A quick summary refresher, in case you need to remind yourself, “It could always be worse”.
👀 List of events affected by the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic (updated).
End note
This was the fourth edition of the State of Awe digest. While we prepare to migrate the letter over to a formal, online platform we appreciate all of the feedback we continue to receive from close colleagues and industry insiders.
If you liked this edition, and think others would too, share with us your candid feedback. It would mean a lot to us, particularly now that we are committed to taking this to a much wider audience.
As Ever,
Jordan + Tyson