An Empty Cathedral
First Time, Long Time: Episode 3
Long before the pandemic changed almost everything, I had a conversation with one of Faculty’s favorite clients. We were discussing an upcoming project that aimed to create an authentic experience for his brand and suddenly he got all wistful. He said, “you know it would be so much easier to just build a waterslide or a roller coaster and just hire some seventeen-year-old to push a button every four minutes, but I want to do something bigger than that, something that matters.” I laughed and nodded and eventually we moved on, but that statement has lived with me since.
Months later, Julia and I were discussing the shape of the new season for “First Time, Long Time” and as we discussed soccer and fandom and things that we love about the spaces that are created around sport, we stumbled upon a classic sports cliche: “stadiums are cathedrals of sport.” At first I dismissed the idea as just a cliche but as we talked, it became apparent that there was actually something there. Something that was connected to our client’s notion of wanting to build something that matters.
Cathedrals tell incredible and complex stories. They are designed to instill awe in the divine, to be expressions of the holy and, yes, the frescoes and stained glass and epic architecture are all fundamental to that project, but so are the pews. The pews — the actual place where one sits and reflects and imagines, and congregates with one’s neighbors, and connects to something larger than oneself — are just as important to the story that a cathedral tells.
A cathedral without pews is just a pretty hall. And a stadium — even the most spectacular stadium — without fans is just a hollow shell.
These two conversations are at the core of the new episode of First Time, Long Time.
This time we’re looking at the last European soccer games played before the pandemic: one played in front of fans and one played behind closed doors. The lessons we learned while exploring the role of singing and fandom and connection are ones that filter directly into the work we do here at Faculty.
It’s relatively easy to build a button that instills superficial joy in a user. It’s relatively easy to create an experience that’s one-size-fits-all, requiring nothing of the participant and nothing of the brand. We see that all the time. But we’re capable — as people, as brands, as an experience design agency — of so much more. We’re capable of designing spaces that allow for a co-created experience — one that is authentic and challenging and, in the words of our client, one “that matters.”
Personally, I’ve always been excited by that challenge. But researching and writing this episode has only deepened my conviction that when you design for spontaneity and authentic relationships, you find a more fertile ground than you could ever imagine.
In other words, it was never about the waterslide or the cathedral or the stadium. It’s about the community forged in shared spaces, the magic that has always emerged when we get together as a people. That’s sports and fandom and experience at their very best.
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