Designing Better Events
How might we incorporate design to create better event experiences? As someone who has run events of all sizes for almost ten years, I can tell you there is a lot of opportunity for design to be applied for maximum results. If you think about any event, there is a huge amount of moving parts, and multiple touch points for a customer to interact with the event. These range from the initial announcement, to ticketing on-sale, right through to the actual event itself, and afterwards.
What Is Design?
Event design is a term often used to describe the visual layout of an event, but it’s better to think of design as a process, rather than an output. A very wise Zoe Rose once told me that design is “intentional problem solving within constraints”, and I think that’s a great way to look at how we can design more engaging events.
Design Thinking
While design thinking is not necessarily a new concept, it is still being deployed into new organisations and industries to great effect. There is a lot of scope for implementing design thinking processes to physical environments and experiences, and this often falls under the umbrella term of “Service Design”. There are a number of different methodologies or processes that can be used, however they are all underpinned by one key principle: putting people at the core of what you are doing, also known as Human Centered Design
For the purpose of this piece, I will be referring to the d.school Design Thinking Process, the main elements of which are: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test
Empathise
I believe it is absolutely crucial to perform some qualitative analysis post event. It’s easy to define successful events according to quant metrics like ticket sales, registrations or heads through the door, but by making your attendees your number one priority you will be able to better understand their motivations and frustrations, and to create the best possible experiences for them, which in turn can drive ticket sales and other areas of revenue.
Tools such as affinity maps or journey maps can be used to visualise areas of focus, and give a great frame of reference when it comes time to develop solutions.
In the vast majority of post event analysis I have undertaken in my time in the industry, the most common frustrations that event attendees reported were around waiting in queues and difficulty moving through a venue or space, as well as cost of tickets/drinks/food etc. Waiting in line is one of the worst parts of any event experience, whether it’s getting into a venue, the bar, the toilet, or whatever it might be. By applying design thinking, we are able to put ourselves inside our attendees heads, and try to solve the problem to create a positive experience.
For an example of this, imagine a major event of 5000+ people. Invariably, the bulk of attendees start to arrive during a 45–60 minute window, which can lead to delays in ticket scanning and bag searches, and flow on to impact other business areas such as bar spend. This is further delayed by attendees not being prepared for various aspects of the process, such as not having their tickets ready (People commonly have e-tickets but don’t have them loaded on their phone, or their phone screen is broken or poorly lit, which makes it harder for ticket scanners to work).
Define
This is a problem for business as it can impact revenue, but by speaking with event attendees, it becomes quite obvious it is a major issue for them as it is their first touch point with the event, and could leave a negative perception for the rest of their experience, reduce their desire to return to following events, or recommend the event to friends. We can define the problem as:
“How might we reduce the time it takes for people to get in to our event”
There are some operational activities that can be put in place, such as enlisting volunteers to move through the waiting crowd advising them to have their tickets ready to scan, and that any people with bags would need to have them searched. This prepares the attendees for what is to come and can reduce the actual time our attendees were waiting. But this still means that there is a waiting period involved in the queue. So what if we reframed the question as:
“How might we reduce the impact of the time people have to wait at our events”
Ideate
There are myriad ways of undertaking ideation, for example Google 8’s or Design Studio, but no matter which method you choose the most important thing to keep in mind at this stage is to be open to all ideas. Whether you are working in teams or as a solo practitioner, inspiration doesn’t occur in a vacuum. I’ve lost track of the amount of times that one idea has sparked another, and at this stage you can’t rule anything out.
One idea I have implemented for the problem above was to have roving performing artists, art installations or live painting, or musical acts performing to the crowd. This helps to refocus the attendees attention and reduces the feeling of missing out while being stuck at certain points of the event, especially at places like toilet blocks, which can’t necessarily be improved by adding more staff during peak times.
Prototype
After you’ve taken the time to ideate and decide which solution is the best for your problem, it’s time to bring your ideas to life. Storyboarding can be a great way to illustrate what you want to achieve, and depict how people will react to different ideas at different touch points. When doing this, it’s a good idea to think of the context of use, your customers emotions and other state of mind.
You could be looking at ways to have people efficiently and safely leaving at the end of the event. Some things that could be useful to consider: Has it been an overly hot or cold day, are they tired, is alcohol or drug use affecting their perceptive ability. Are they trying to get home, or is there another event they are going to?
Test
It can be hard to test solutions accurately at scale for events, as it’s not easy to simulate an event with a few thousand people, however there are other tools at your disposal. If you run events regularly, you can think about each event being part of an iterative approach, even if they aren’t necessarily related. Implementing changes and testing event to event can be used to validate your ideas, although be wary of trying to do too much too quickly. If you are able to break down big ideas and bring them in on a smaller scale or over multiple events it can help maximise the chances of success.
Iterate
The most important thing to keep in mind throughout all of this, is that the entire process is iterative. You should always be conducting research post event, to help guide decision making and design of the next event and ensure that you are addressing all of your attendee’s concerns. If you do this, and keep your focus on the people attending your events, you will be able to deliver engaging, valuable experiences that can set you apart from other events.
About me:
Hi! I’m Pat, I am a Melbourne based UX/CX/Service Designer. I’ve recently pivoted to this space after ten years working in the music industry as a DJ, event producer, touring agent and so much more.
I am driven by experiences, collaborative practice, and I am a strong believer in the power of communities. I love meeting new people, and honestly believe you can never have too many connections in life, so feel free to hit me up on Linkedin 😌
