State of Awe Digest #6 | Beauty, anti-racism, exploration, miniaturization and the virtual
The Latest Wonders in Experience Design, Festivals and Gatherings
June 7, 2020
Our aphorism to help with the times: The most beautiful things are not forms, art or aesthetics but rather those irreplicable moments in time when we find ourselves enthralled.
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).
Arena of Safety and Security 👮♂️ Protests, Equality of Opportunity and Anti-Racism
Listening and learning. For us, much of the past two weeks has been filled with these personal challenges. George Floyd’s careless murder, the most recent in a long pattern at the hands of uniformed police, sparked both violent riots and peaceful protests across the globe. Amongst the pandemic backdrop, the falsity of the American Dream revealed its true self as the American Nightmare for Black, Indigenous People of Colour (the statistical comparisons of inequality in this feature are astounding).
But more so, this historical turning point unpacked an urgent need for white people to dig deeper than ever before to learn how their privilege supports supremacy, and to lean into actions that are demonstrably anti-racist. We are on this personal journey.
Yet, as gatherers, we have also been asking ourselves over the past 18 months, how can we proactively improve our experiences to be more equal, to better represent People of Colour and to deny silence and the status quo? How can we show the beauty of diversity, and by doing so, take down structures that support white privilege? What do we need to learn, and what do we need to do?
The insight and inquiry: our first step is to admit we don’t have all of the answers. And we have yet to compile the connective points necessary to provide an intelligent roadmap to others. That said, we have found a few things very helpful. First, that organizations can send an incredible message and outline important solutions. Be inspired by this one (or explore ALL of the corporate statements made so far here, awesome resource). Silence is quite obviously, no longer a choice we can make. Explore the resources. Ibram X. Kendi’s writing and discussion topics have been recommended as a starting point.
We will be back in the weeks ahead on this topic. Until then, we have faith in the beauty of non-violent protest, self-reflection, support for Black community leaders and the voice of art. We are also interested, what are you doing to make your experiences anti-racist?
Exploration, Experience and Transformation ⛺ Journey of Nomadic Escapes
Mahatma Gandhi described travel as “The Language of Peace”. Travel has been studied extensively and the psychological benefits are plentiful: enhanced emotional agility, increased creativity, deeper empathy, boosted tolerance and trust of strangers, not to mention the joys of escapism, identity and stress relief. Ultimately, we are nomadic at root and the experience of exploration makes us better.
🛰️ This past weekend, 10.3 million of us watched SpaceX launch their crew capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) with two NASA astronauts aboard. It was fascinating, not only because it felt like both the capsule and “space tuxedos” were from the future (small design detail: the worm is back!), or because it contrasted so heavily with our current suffering, but also because it seemed transformative. And experiences that are transformative, are typically more memorable. A few directions:
🚀 Being predictive, the “experience of space” is going to be big business. #dearMoon, expected launch in 2023, might be the first gathering of creatives to take to the stars, opening up an entirely new (and expensive) collective experience.
🦸♀️ Transformative travel, defined as a style of travel that “prioritizes the ‘Why and How’ rather than the ‘What and Where’ (source), has been a central trend driving tourism recently (particularly for Millennials). These experiences integrate genuine humanity, root back to individual purpose, push you outside of your expected constraints and do so in a responsible, managed way.
Insight and inquiry: This trend shows a serious desire to better know ourselves through our experiences. No doubt this consumer outcome will only grow in prominence, giving an advantage to events of all types that adopt a much more personalized, human-centric approach to delivery. It will require brave leadership, the type that pushed SpaceX to orbit.
✈️ As we consider what is going to change with the future of travel, international destinations across the globe are preparing to reopen. Although a few, are debating what normal they want to return to. A “slower” form of tourism might be the emerging consensus, particularly for destinations where capacity had far exceeded their ability to sustainably manage it (Barcelona, anyone?). Rethinking travel, before one third of Americans rapidly start travelling again, is showing a few interesting opportunities:
🛣️ Things will be local and close to home. According to Tourism Vancouver only 17% of locals believe we should welcome back international visitors. Travellers are rapidly shifting to being more likely to travel by car. Cycling equipment sales are up 500%.
Transparency and trust. Bruce Poon Tip, Founder of G Adventures released a free book Unlearn Travel, and it advocates for a reset. In 2018, his outfit launched the Ripple Score, measuring how much economic impact of each of its tours remains within the community. Is it local or foreign owned? As Marc Blazer puts it, “we want messengers we can trust”.
Less contact. Those with disposable income will demand a more private, socially distant form of travel. Those without will demand a cleaner, safer environment.
Virtual? Obviously. AirBnb is just over a month into their completely virtual Experiences. A few savvy hosts have really hit it big. And Abu Dhabi launched “StayCurious”, a virtual platform that recreates its marquee tourism experiences.
Travel bubbles. In the near future, will travelling from “COVID green zone” to “green zone” get easier?
Intimacy and scarcity. In Hanauma Bay, Hawaii, snorkeling access is controlled by way of fees, capacity and mandatory education prior to entry. Venice is considering sweeping change to manage arrivals in the same way. Wide-open and isolated places have increased appeal.
Insight and inquiry: It is extremely hard to slow the momentum of business patterns that are lucrative, even when they're destructive to the very places they derive it from. But managing demand, both in a time of a pandemic and moving forward responsibly is critical. Experiences that utilize scarcity effectively, increase intimacy and find avenues for economic success, while going smaller will be hailed as the new norm. A shining example from Vancouver, one recently launched in Toronto and an amazing 1-to-1 experience from Frankfurt.
Designer Data Drop 🧮 Chart of the Month
📉 A visualization of some great primary research conducted by cred, along with a few solid predictions. See the full graphic here.
Arena of Design Thinking 🔎 Miniaturization, Scale and Automation
“Pandemics press history’s fast-forward button”, astutely observes Yuval Harari. Andrew Yang, past Democratic presidential candidate summarized it perfectly, “we are experiencing 10 years of change in 10 weeks”. And the world of experience design is no different, particularly as it relates to the biggest trend of digitization.
🎛️ Of course, this is driven by rapid consumer adoption. But that adoption is because technologies have become easier to use. Technology hardware continues to miniaturize, while operational software becomes more automated and decentralized.
📹 In past weeks and months, we have seen countless live streams and virtual broadcasts. When compared to full-scale productions from our past, we have noticed an effective miniaturization of the hardware needed for high quality, well-produced streams. Not only has the adoption of smaller, less cumbersome hardware been obvious, but these live experiences have required far fewer “production staff”. What was managed by four technical crew, an MC, DJ and director have been wrapped into a single live personality with deep skills in managing a Twitch broadcast.
The insight and inquiry: we are seeing the potential for an “AV collapse“ post-pandemic. Could the adoption of new software, hardware and production habits translate over to in real life? Will we see 10 years of change in 10 weeks as it relates to the nuts and bolts of how live events are produced? Let us know your thoughts.
In a broader sense of scale in the world of experience, wide open and less dense environments (and/or optics) may rise in popularity.
Shop-able micro-sized spaces highlighting design trends of the year.
Future of weddings? Smaller.
Yes, there are wildly massive virtual events out there. But arguably, the more effective attention-design approach is smaller and more frequent?
The insight and inquiry: how do gatherers do things smaller? How are we able to connect multiple, more intimate experiences? Will “large scale” still work in the future?
Fads and Crazes 📱Meaningful Virtual Experiences
Looking for quick hits on what we are following in the movement towards virtual experiences? Here is a collection of our most relevant tracks over the past two weeks.
📢 Audio only virtual experiences will pave the way for social event adoption over the coming weeks and months. Watercooler, a new app for Slack, creates pop-up audio chat rooms. Facebook, copycat of the century, launches their “catchup” audio group platforms. This space will be the innovative future for virtual gatherings.
🔛 Back-of-house technical show advice from PSAV.
🔭 Identifying the “drift factor” that disengages participants from virtual broadcasts is key. Technical glitches, overly long content periods, lack of discussion and engagement and keeping experiences shorter are the basic principles.
📍 Revivalism wins. Overwhelmed by technology, seek out simpler experiences.
🏖️ Outdoors, better than indoors! How do you sync virtual + outdoor experiences?
Thinkers and Philosophers 🕵 John Ruskin on Beauty
This past week, one of our favourite installation artists of all-time, Christo, passed away at his home in New York at the age of 84. Christo, and his late wife, Jeanne-Claude were known for massive acts of pure beauty, with no political agenda or motivation. Just to simply strike awe (worth reading his quotes in this piece). His artworks got us thinking about beauty, simply for the sake of it. Is this important?
🎨 John Ruskin, a Victorian-era polymath thinker, philosopher, critic, eco-warrior, artist and philanthropist, believed that the underlying nature of industrialization and capitalism degraded the lives, neglected the poor and distracted. Distracted from what he saw as most important: the power of art to transform the lives of people oppressed.
🧩 Why were we so bad at designing our physical environment? Why were things in the world created so ugly? And yet the more Ruskin thought about beauty – the beauty of things humans make – the more he realized that the quest to make a more beautiful world is inseparable from the need to remake it politically, economically and socially.
The insight and inquiry: how can your designs, in the words of John Ruskin, “honour the dignity and grandeur of the natural world” (source)? How do your experience architectures hold true to the sane, the reasonable and the nature of human decency? And most importantly, what would your projects look like if they were always designed for beauty first, operations last? For these questions, John Ruskin deserves our ongoing interest.
Beautiful event instas to inspire your next project
🟦 Design Group Italia and Refik Anadol’s Intel installation.
🏀 Tangram Int'l Exhibitions’ upside down basketball court.
🚽 Shakirova Julia’s bathroom-inspired eventscape.
💐 H.stories’ une pluie de fleurs poétique.
🌵 Coachella’s 2019 festival art installation highlights.
Hot morsels to ace your next event conversation
🚗 Drive-in digital art exhibition, anyone? Yes please.
🎭 Alternate-reality game storytelling on Instagram.
💰 How to structure a virtual event sponsorship.
🔨 Seven killer experience exhibitions that tell stories, as imagined by graduates.
🔇 It’s OK. The CEO of Zoom forgot to unmute himself as well.
🗺️ The 15 best virtual tours, ranked.
🍿 The future of movie theatre experiences?
End note
This was the sixth edition of the State of Awe digest, and it was a difficult one to author. As a white male from privileged beginnings, I have been doing my best to listen and learn. Witnessing the #BlackLivesMatter expressions stemming from long-term radical injustices have been deeply moving. And the exploration of my own silent structures has dominated much of my thinking in the past days.
I considered a pause on this scheduled digest, but instead tried to articulate positive thoughts and make a few connections at the head of this edition. As always, critical feedback is welcome and appreciated.
If you liked this edition, and think others would too, share with your colleagues and contacts (you can direct them here, or just share this post). It would mean a lot to us.
As Ever,
Jordan + Tyson