If someone could ascertain what made an experience stick with us, what makes it valuable and transformative, they’d be a zillionaire consultant. Every person who made theater, film, theme parks, etc. would be clamoring for this person to bestow upon them the alchemical process for turning an experience into part of the fabric of a person’s life. Alas, there is no elixir, no spell, no digital secret that allows this. So we try.
We consider our audiences likes and dislikes, their drives and motivations, and we create things to invite them to become immersed in our offerings. Sometimes we’re spot on. Everything we’ve pulled together winds up in near-perfect alignment and our audiences are not only satisfied, but they aren’t the same people who walked through our doors, passed beyond our ropes, crossed our thresholds. They entered one way and emerged another. Sometimes this change is so minute that only the individual notices. They act differently. They move through our shared world with a new countenance. Their approach to living is more focused and considered. They feel that they’ve become more joyful after having the experience. They want to share this new state they’re in so they tell anyone who will listen about what they went through. They are nigh-evangelical about what you’ve done for them.
But sometimes we miss.
We threw it all on the wall and not a thing stuck. All of our planning and creative charrettes amounted to nothing but our audiences feeling as if they’ve been cheated. Oh, our audiences are transformed, but not in the way we want them to be. Trust is broken. They feel nothing but regret. They feel every cent they spent, berating themselves for wasting their money on something that was the very opposite of a value add to their lives. They almost become radicalized, warning away any and everyone from your offering. They are adamant that no one else suffer the way they did.
And sometimes we create a wonderful distraction.
Our wonderfully considered offering is amusing, but not memorable. Our carefully curated, meticulously planned offering is all appetizer, no meal. And definitely not dessert. When asked about what they experienced, our participant has to look at the photos on their phone to recall any significant memories. When asked if they’d attend again or recommend it to others, they shrug in a most noncommittal way. A participant not having a strong reaction, either positive or negative, hurts more than if they Yelp-whipped you for all the world to see.
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How people have experiences is changing every day. AR and VR technology is moving away from Disney’s Tron and closer to Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. Lately, audio has been an absolute joy (podcasting is becoming incredibly interesting, especially with immersive sound design), Table Top Role Playing Games (TTRPGs) are becoming more complex and are utilizing social media, video (streaming) and audio components—many of them are becoming (I’ll use the dreaded word) trans media properties. Museums are making the change from being staid monuments to ‘look and don’t touch’ to more interactive exhibits, and not just the technology museums, but traditional museums are dusting themselves off and taking tentative steps into the now. Look at how many places are bringing Vincent van Gogh profoundly into the twenty-first-century. To be fair, these exhibits are less museum and more of a show, and a bit of show-off, but they are breaking records because the old and fixed has become new and dynamic.
While digital and audio technology have given us more tools with which to make experiences more inviting, engaging and immersive, we should not neglect the old school analog storytelling tours, escape rooms, site specific theatrical experiences, and other kinds of activations—many of these more satisfying than their tech-laden counterparts.
So we’re back at the central thesis: What makes for an effective experience? An experience that a participant will remember, cherish, and want others to have what they’ve received?
After all this, the answer is: it depends. There are too many contextual, cultural, psychological, and emotional factors involved. And it’s this; the ability to create something that gives the most amount of people a satisfying experience that makes all of this so fascinating. There are very few experiences that can equally satisfy everyone who encounters them (Disney and Marvel are getting incredibly close); there are commons we share that experience designers can tap into to reach and positively effect the broadest amount of people.
What follows are what I like to call ‘participant adhesives.’ They are subject to change at any given time—with no type of order of application or deployment. Some of the most successful experiences (included are film and live performances, concerts, et al) have addressed the following. Whether directly or indirectly addressed, the most successful experiences provided two or more of these ‘participant adhesives.’
Acknowledging the Folk. Taking a cue from Folklore Studies (as conceptualized by Alan Dundes) when developing an experience/event, we must ask ourselves: Who is the ‘who’ we want to serve? Who are the folk who will move through our space? We don’t want to niche down to the point that we aren’t serving the largest amount of people—thus limiting our audience and income. But when considering our potential participants, we should consider them not just in their commonality with others, but go a little deeper and touch on their specificity. We’re not talking about catering to participants because we can prioritize the specificity of our happening/event. Think about gangsta rap. White kid’s consumption and promotion of gangsta rap far outstrips any other group, despite Black and LatinX creators producing the bulk of it. The gangsta lifestyle is so outside the cultural specificity of many white kids, they have no other choice but to peep through the safe windows of music and videos and proxy themselves to this world. But the rappers are telling stories that are culturally hyper-specific. If an event is hyper-specific in it’s aesthetic and philosophy (see Meow Wolf), it acts as an invitation to wonder. When a happening considers the cultural and contextual specificity of it’s participants, it can act as in invitation to home; it engenders a sense of belonging.
I’m a bit loathe to offer the next example, but it’s relevant here. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Yes, it had books and films to cement it’s cultural dominance, but a theme park was a logical extension. With a world so fully realized in the public consciousness, being able to visit satisfied a desire held by so many. While the Wizarding World was ostensibly created for fans of the Harry Potter books and films (a very specific folk group with their own language and customs), it had just enough of an open world concept that theme park lovers (another specific folk group with their own rituals) and non-fans could be similarly enthralled. All of the hallmarks of the books and films were there, but there was just enough fluidity that people who had no idea what a Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, or Ravenclaw was could have an enjoyable experience.
Narrative Agency. In it’s most contemporary usage (beginning in 2016), narrative agency has Ben adopted by some feminist scholars and theorists as, “a subject’s capacity to make sense of herself as an ‘I’ over time and in relation to other ‘I’s, is a precondition for identity formation.” But in the early 1990s the term and concept was presented to describe a subject’s ability to dip in and out of a specific narrative event or context, be swept along in it, or contribute to the narrative event in a way that was different than other ‘I’s’ in TTRPGs and immersive experiences (e.g. Renaissance Festivals). Giving participants the invitation to become story-agents allows them a measure of control over their event but, as always, you’re in charge.
Surprise/Discovery. No need to get too in-depth here, as this adhesive is self-explanatory. Too many event creators conflate ‘surprise’ with startle or scare. While this may be a tactic that is called for in a specific activation, surprise can (and should be, if not in a horror context) whimsical, or joy-inducing, or something that will become one of the participant’s happy memories. It’s those moments of surprise (Oh! Did you see that?) and discovery (I had no idea that you could do that with this) that can convert participants into evangelists for your happening. They want their friends to experience what they did. These moments can also encourage participants to repeat the experience.
Invitation to Curiosity. Curiosity seems to be on a spectrum between two poles. On one end is, we’ll call it ‘the curiosity of function’. This type is all about figuring out how something works. It’s why the magicians Penn and Teller have had such long-lasting careers. They will show you how everything works, but they are so skilled that your still amazed when they pull off the trick and you still have no idea how it’s done. They’ve invited you in, showed you the nooks and crannies, yet still managed to astonish you. On the other end, far, far, down the spectrum is ‘floating curiosity.’ It’s the kind of curiosity that isn’t mechanical (figuring out how something works, or having some kind of end in mind), but it’s the kind of curiosity untethered to anything. It’s the childlike curiosity of experiencing a thing just to have the experiences, to be moved by it in whatever way you’re moved by it, without expecting any kind of pay off.
The Implicit or Explicit Ask. This adhesive is contentious for the simple fact that many creators, rightfully, believe that their happening is enough and that once the participant is done, they’re done. Some view the asking of anything more as an imposition. Let’s reframe this. Aside from an enjoyable time, what do you want your participants to take with them? When they exit, what do you want on their minds and hearts? Using The Wizarding World again, their implicit ask is for participants to try and live a life of awe and wonder—to find their core strengths and talents and to reaffirm their commitment to being a fan. This is reinforced by the frequent mentions and visual cues of overcoming obstacles, having adventures, standing by your friends, and reifying Hogwart’s as a place of growth and development: Bravery, Loyalty, Intelligence, Ambition. If The Wizarding World were wholly mercenary, they could frame their ask as a recruitment of others to fight against a great evil. They’d ask you to recruit one or more of your friends or family members and return with them to the park to participate in the aforementioned battle. There have been some events that have asked participants to rest more and more often, to write letters/record messages for elders, to engage in an ocean cleanup—If framed correctly, meeting the participant at their values, the explicit ask won’t be an imposition or burden. They will be willing to be connected to your world, your happening, long after they’ve returned to their mundane world.
Invitation to Reflect. So many of us have been to an event/happening where it was so prescribed that we felt propelled by the ego and cleverness of the creators. There is nothing for us to do, aside from charge headlong into the next thing. Strategic pauses throughout the event can go a long way in allowing a participant to situate themselves in their current circumstances. So many museums and theme parks drop people into a gift shop at the conclusion of their time there. Others are all about the forward momentum. When you experience it, it’s one thing after another. You’re always off guard and when it’s all over, you may not have a full recollection of events. You know you’ve experienced something, but the details are fuzzy. From time-to-time, give the audience a little bit of time to absorb and process what they’re experiencing.
Mantratic Assemblage. Admittedly, this is very clunky phrasing. Mantras (a short phrase or sound) are repeated during meditation to help a practitioner concentrate, to be more mindful during their meditations. Mantratic Assemblage is the strategic application of repetition to foster a change, or induce an effect. In a site-specific happening, it could be the repetition of colors, sounds, symbolic motifs. In a story-tour, it can be the repetition of key words and phrases with a payoff at the conclusion of the tour. In a dance event, it’s the repetition of body positioning that the audience sees played out in the finale. That’s the Mantratic part. The Assemblage is there are more than one of these mantratic effects—they are interconnected with other mantratic effects that can provide the audience/participants with another level of experience and meaning. Mantratic Assemblages can help answer the question, ‘Who are the folk we want to move through our space?’
These participant adhesives are just reflective of the time. They may only be valid for a year or two, or they may be valuable for a decade and more. With the shifts and twists in how we experience theater, film, installations, immersive work and the rest, there will need to be new ways of thinking about how best to serve your audiences and participants. Despite this being written and imagined during the pandemic, one day the pandemic will be over and people will be clamoring for all the experiences they can handled—but we won’t be the same people we were before the pandemic. How are we thinking about serving people who have been mourning the loss of some many things they love? How are we going to help each other ease back into to the communal, no matter the length of time we share space. How will we honored their bravery in returning and trusting us to give them the experiences they need any deserve?
There aren’t the truth or a truth. What these ideas are, are a philosophy of experience and engagement. They are ideas to consider when creating anything for audiences or participants. While there are differing opinions about whether experiences should be more curated or open-world, I’m of the mind that it doesn’t matter as long as whomever experiences whatever you’re offering are changed, compelled to take an action, return for more, and/or file away their time with you as a cherished memory they will happily share with others.
S.D. Taylor
2021