Many “experiential” events are just razzle-dazzle

Experiential events that aren't: a photograph of two pairs of people facing  each other sitting in chairs suspended from the ceilingBeware of “experiential” events that are just razzle-dazzle.

“Experiential” has become a buzzword to use to describe hip events. Instead of listening to speakers, you’re going to have — wait for it — experiences! Sounds so much better, doesn’t it?

The problem is that most events touted as experiential simply add irrelevant novelty to a familiar event process.

For example, the much-hyped C2 Montréal.

C2 attendees have:

  • Sat back to back wearing virtual reality goggles, conversing with one another’s avatar (2015);
  • Shared an umbrella under fake snow with a stranger (2016); and
  • Been given the opportunity to talk to four other people while sitting in chairs suspended from the ceiling (2017).

These “experiences” are simply gussied-up conversations held in novel visual and sensory environments. What is the value, other than novelty, created by adding virtual reality to a conversation between two people in the same room? By conversing in a fake outdoors setting rather than taking a walk outside? By talking to people from a chair hanging from the ceiling?

Conversation is a human practice so old we have no idea when it began. C2, and many other “hot” events, add expensive technological glitz to a conversation, slapping a skin of irrelevant novelty onto a core human activity. Rebrand the result as “experiential”, and voilà — you have a hip FOMO event.

All this is a slightly more sophisticated version of what, unfortunately, passes for creative event design these days. Adding an entertaining overlay to what happens routinely at an event and calling it “experiential” is ultimately no different from defining “creative” event design as novel decor, venues, production, or food and beverage.

What to do instead
Every event provides experiences, so all events are experiential! So let’s decouple the term “experiential” from what are actually “glitzy” events. The right question stakeholders need to ask is how well the experiences events provide fulfill attendees’ actual wants and needs.

For example, every event provides opportunities for conversations. So how can we design an event to create the best possible conversations?

You don’t get better face-to-face conversations in virtual reality or by suspending participants from the ceiling.

Instead, focus on finding and offering the best questions and topics for conversation. This includes providing group and session processes that support participants in uncovering and choosing conversations that will be most useful and meaningful to them.

Also, concentrate on providing supportive environments for ad-hoc conversation. So quieten or eliminate background music during meals and socials, supply a variety of quiet places close to session locales for participants to meet, avoid large rounds and assigned seating at meals, incorporate plenty of white space, etc.

Ironically, such meeting design tweaks cost little or nothing, unlike the flashy C2 examples. So you can provide a significantly better experience for attendees for less cost by applying simple effective meeting design principles. (Unsubtle hint: Working with someone who knows how to design and facilitate relevant attendee experience could be the most cost-effective improvement you could make.)

There’s nothing wrong with novelty. But instead of putting tons of time, effort, and money into dressing-up meetings with novel razzle-dazzle, concentrate your efforts on functional meeting design that provides genuinely useful and meaningful experiences to participants.

Give attendees experiences, not things

Give attendees experiences not things: a black-and-white photograph of a child with her mouth open in excitement, on the end of a seesaw. Photo attribution: Flickr user shahiran83Give attendees experiences, not things.

Branded pens, tee shirts, mugs, tote bags, water bottles, and other tchotchkes are scattered around my home. Piled on shelves, they are eventually consigned to oblivion without a thought. Yes, it’s hard to attend a typical conference and not walk away with schwag.

All these promotional “things” cost organizers and sponsors significant money. Is this the best way to spend money on attendees?

I’d argue—and research backs me up—that giving relevant, immersive, interactive experiences instead of presents leads to superior long-term outcomes for both participants and conference stakeholders.

Cornell psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Amit Kumar found that:

“…experiential purchases (money spent on doing) tend to provide more long-lasting hedonic benefits than material purchases (money spent on having…”

“…the satisfaction [experiences] provide endures by fostering successful social relationships, by becoming a more meaningful part of one’s identity, by being less susceptible to unfavorable and unpleasant comparisons, and by not lending themselves to deflating regrets of action.”
We’ll Always Have Paris: The Hedonic Payoff from Experiential and Material Investments, Thomas Gilovich and Amit Kumar

Let’s look at the benefits of providing great experiences at conferences.

Fostering successful social relationships

Giving everyone the same tee shirt to wear at an event doesn’t generally foster anything except a kind of uniformity. But have you ever kept an event-themed tee shirt and worn it with pride long after the event was over? If so, you’re undoubtedly doing so because the tee shirt is a representation and reminder of a great experience. For example: that Feb. 14, 1968, amazing Grateful Dead concert at the Carousel Ballroom, or the communal excitement of Spot-The-Fed at Def Con 15 that says to the world “I was there! Were you?”

Experiencing something remarkable together bonds participants. For example, it’s no accident that many of the folks who participated in EventCamp 2010 and EventCamp East Coast are still in touch years after these experimental and experiential event industry conferences. We participated in something new together, and the memories and connections made still have power.

Powerful experiences have few downsides

Part of the reason we seem to get such little enduring satisfaction from possessions is that we quickly habituate to them. That moment when you unbox the latest iPhone you’ve just bought may be exciting; using it six months later, not so much. Even if an experience is negative, going through it with others provides bonding.

Everyone who was present remembers the communication problems that surfaced at the close of EventCamp Twin Cities in 2011—either because they were helpless with laughter at the comic scene that unfolded or because they were frantically trying to make things work. As Gilovich and Kumar say, “Even a bad experience becomes a good story.”

Fear Of Missing Out motivates!

Finally, research indicates that Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) can be an important motivator for experiential sessions at events. Again, Gilovich and Kumar: “…material purchases tend to prompt regrets of action, whereas experiential purchases are more likely to lead to regrets of inaction.”

Translation: Marketing the appropriate, exciting, and fun experiences you will be offering at your conference is a much more effective way to get registrants than to promise them schwag.

To conclude

I have seen so many useful, important, and long-term connections made through relevant, experiential, participatory conference activities. The resulting connected souls become champions of your event: the core of an engaged and loyal conference community that returns year after year and encourages other peers to attend. Investing in experiences, not things, at your events is a smart choice. So, the next time you’re considering providing promotional items to attendees, you might want to allocate some or all of your schwag budget to well-designed event experiences instead.

Photo attribution: Flickr user shahiran83