The Art of the Journey in Live Events

Working deeply in Creative Technology, you might assume that tech is my first priority. The truth is, when approaching the craft of live events, innovation centres, or theme park experiences, the subject of technology is not on my radar.

At least, that is, until a more fundamental process has reached full completion – the overarching journey we’re trying to build.

If you focus on weaving a proper narrative throughout an experience, you have the promise of ensuring the right messaging and the impact of the experience will form a long-lasting memory for your guest. By creating the right journey, you build the foundations to assist every aspect of the project thereafter, including content, design, and creative technology.

So, good lead up. But what principles do we need to consider when trying to create a great overall experience? Moreover, how can we easily break it down?

For that, I wish to invite you to my living room, this very morning, as I wearily grasped at my much-needed dose of caffeine. Between sips, my attention was diverted to my five year-old son, practically effervescing with boundless energy, singing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. Now, aside from my sheer annoyance that my beloved son had clearly been watching ‘Cocomelon’ again, despite my best efforts to steer him towards more age-appropriate viewing, a penny dropped. The origin of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, dates back to the early 19th century. And yet, the power of some really important characteristics has allowed it to be recited some two hundred and twenty years later by my somewhat unruly and definitely-not-ready-for-school five year-old son.

So, what makes up a good nursery rhyme? If we understand that, how can we apply these elements into designing a memorable user experience?

The following key elements normally exist in a classic nursery rhyme:

1. Simple and repetitive melody – the simpleness of the melody makes it easy for young children to remember and sing along.

2. Engaging and fun lyrics – nursery rhymes often tell a story or involve characters and actions that children can act out.

3. Repetitive structure – this repetition helps children anticipate what comes next and participate more easily.

4. Interactive elements – rhymes that encourage clapping, stomping, or other actions can be more engaging for young children.

5. Educational content- many nursery rhymes teach basic concepts like numbers, the alphabet, days of the week…. Or King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette both being executed during the French Revolution (Jack and Jill, if you’re wondering).

As I write this article, I realise that those last 5 bullet points start with letters that are tantalisingly close to spelling out the word ‘SERIES’, thus making this much easier to remember. So, in the spirit of creating a memorable method, I’m adding ‘Sensory’ into the mix, too – sure, I’ll need to draw up a tenuous link to Nursery Rhymes, but I can definitely place a hugely required emphasis on creating sensory experiences in live events. Heck, it has much more to do with live events than the execution of King Louis and Marie Antoinette and yet, there it is; right in point 5.

So….

6. Sensory experience – Nursery rhymes aren’t just a jumbled concoction of words, for children; they are an activity playing on multiple senses; hearing the melody, the touch of the hand from a child’s friend as they recite ‘pat-a-cake’. And that kind of thing… Look, it’s a solid link, OK?

And look at that;

· Simple

· Engaging

· Repetitive

· Interactive

· Educational

· Sensory

… by magic, it spells ‘SERIES’ – the only word you need to remember, when crafting an impactful and memorable experience. But, to understand ‘why?’, we need to translate this into a live event or experiential project.

Let’s say we’re planning a launch for a new eco-friendly line of clothing and we need to ideate what core elements need to be considered to create a memorable experience.

We start with ‘Simple’. Often, we overthink what messaging needs to achieve and how content needs to be delivered; we try and introduce complex narratives, instead of favouring a simple strong message. So, let’s create a clear and concise theme, instead of overwhelming potential customers with technical details and in-depth content about the fabric, or the manufacturing process. Let’s go with, ‘Fashion that Feels Good’.

It’s succinct, catchy… ok, somewhat derivative. But, it demonstrates what a simple, memorable message may look like. It speaks to what the company is all about and provides a perfect grounding for the theme. By keeping the message simple, you have just created a robust strategic vision to align all key elements to, within your space.

Now, onto ‘Engaging’. We know what framework we need to work within; ‘Fashion that Feels Good’ speaks to the quality of materials and the conscious efforts to manufacture a product that has sustainability and combatting climate change as its highest priority. So, maybe a very easy way to engage your guest is to invite them to try on your products, they can feel the quality,

they can feel good wearing it. You could look at a simple interactive game that invites guests to try and weave fabric on a fast-paced digital loom, all the while providing snippets of information. Here is where you can explain why your manufacturing process and material choices is awesome for the future of the planet. You don’t want to overwhelm your guest, so the info can be bite-sized, but you want to drive that message of feeling good about being a customer of yours. The fact is, you don’t always need a 300ft screen, showing revolutionary glasses-free 3d content (though that does sound pretty awesome) to drive engagement of your brand; it’s the smaller details all speaking to the same message that results in a successful project.

… Which leads nicely onto ‘Repetitive’! Repetition is not about slapping your slogan on every facet of your stand or space, or reusing the same content, over-and-over again. What I’m talking about is the absolute necessity to reaffirm your overarching message at every point of your guest’s experience. It is about joining up all the dots to ensure that the user journey is whole and considered, as opposed to a discombobulated jumble sale, leaving your guest walking away in a state of confusion. You can’t control where your guest will enter your stand, unless you build a literal wall around it, with only one possible entry point. So, with this in mind, keeping every element on-topic means that, wherever the guest starts their journey, you can be sure that they will walk away with the right message in their head – you make ‘Fashion that Feels Good’.

Now, let’s consider ‘Interactive’. “Finally!”, you might be thinking, “This guy is going to talk about tech!”. Nope. Let’s first break down the word ‘interactive’; ‘to interact’. The ‘inter’ part of the word means “between, together, among,” while the ‘act’ part means “to do.” Right, so when someone next tells you that the answer to all your prayers in creating an interactive experience is a single VR headset on a podium, maybe question what part of that interactive experience is done ‘together’. I’m not knocking VR experiences, by the way – done right, they’re incredible. What I’m trying to hammer home is when you’re considering ‘interactive’, think bigger. You can build an interactive stand or experience, simply with lights, or sounds. We recently completed a project for Merlin, at LEGOLAND Billund, where you enter a building and are transported to the Arctic Circle, into an explorer’s ‘Base Camp’. The minute you walk through the doors, you’re immersed in light and sound. The inner part of the building is themed to look like it’s made out of LEGO, upstairs you journey into an Ice Cave. The truth is, while there are multiple elements that invite you to play with LEGO and engage with digital content, the interactive nature of the experience transcends screens and projectors; it’s in the walls, in the lighting. Interactive should be considered as an overarching approach to the design of your experience.

A dear mentor of mine when I first ventured into my career once said to me, “The day you don’t learn anything, is the day you don’t bother getting out of bed”. ‘Education’ should be at the forefront of your messaging. What do you want the customer to have learned after leaving your stand? Is it how incredible your products are? Is it a local community project you recently worked on? Is it that your toys are fun to play with? At every level, your experience should see your guest walk away, having learned *something*, and if they don’t then that’s a huge opportunity missed. With our eco-friendly clothing example, we’ve discussed how to portray the quality of the materials, why it’s important to be conscious about sustainable manufacturing. Importantly, the educational piece speaks to the core message.

Finally, ‘Sensory’. I know I joked about adding this in, purely with the intention of making up a memorable acronym, but this area is a huge, and often overlooked, piece of the puzzle when designing an experience. Picture this, you’re walking down a typical high street when, all of a sudden, your nose practically explodes as you hit a wall of flowery, soapy smells. How many of you are picturing the cosmetics brand, ‘Lush’, right now? If you weren’t, now that I’ve mentioned it, how many of you just know that smell? If we crudely consider basic human senses, we’ve got touch, taste, sight, hearing, smell. With this in mind, to only appeal to sight and, maybe, sound in an experience is another hugely missed opportunity. Each of the senses is attached to different parts of the brain and so, by including a memorable interaction for each sense, you are firing off neurons across most areas of the brain for your guest. Now, considering our eco-friendly clothing company, I’m not exactly suggesting you invite guests to eat your t-shirts (though that would probably raise some interest!) but, more to consider your story and decipher how you can appeal to as many senses as possible. Perhaps you play the sounds of a utopian, natural environment; bird song and other sounds of nature. Maybe consider the product and pipe the smell of fresh linen throughout the space. An experience that includes all main senses is one that has achieved that status of full immersion, and is likely to create a longer-lasting impact on your guest.

That concludes this method and understanding! This is by no means offered as a complete, catch-all, method; each project inevitably will require a specific set of challenges and considerations. The real purpose here is to get in the correct mindset of what should be prioritised when building out the strategy for an experiential project. So, before I go, if you’re about to embark on a new experiential project and need a good place to start, I urge you to consider one word – SERIES.

About Sam Drew

At 2Heads, Sam spearheads the application of cutting-edge technology for global brands, such as Merlin, Sega, Airbus, and Belden. He and his team support projects by featuring innovative storytelling, powered by the latest technology, prioritizing unique experiences and impactful narratives.