Issue 57

EVENTS
Staging
GETTY IMAGES
Matt Kirby puts us in
the customer’s shoes
as he talks us though
delivering experiences
Experiences
THE RECENT Spring Equinox heralds the
end of the UK winter, and these longer days
enable us all to look ahead at the activities,
travel and events that we so much enjoy.
At Falmouth University, Cornwall, we now
enter a significant period in our academic
year as our BA (Hons) Creative Events
Management students are finalising the
dates and details of their live-assessed
event projects.
As the course leader I have the pleasure
and privilege to attend all the live events
that our students produce in and around
the Falmouth area. The course has been
running since 2010, so my personal studentplanned
event tally is fast approaching 300.
Within our teaching practice we strongly
believe that ‘learning by doing’ is a very
effective way of developing our students’
team-working, problem solving and time
management skills. Alongside this practical
work, we introduce management theories,
consider best practice along with planning,
finance and legal considerations, health &
safety, marketing and promotion. We also
embed some principles of sustainability,
accessibility and wellbeing to ensure that
our student event managers consider both
the positive and negative impacts of events.
But in these times of pressurised
household incomes, any time and money
spent on leisure activities surely raises the
question of ‘are we getting value-for-money,
and are we getting the opportunity to really
experience something that is different to the
routine and ordinary?’
EXPERIENCE ECONOMY
We entered the notion of the ‘experience
economy’ over 20 years ago. This is where
all experiences are recognised as an
important part of our lives and represent
a key design element for event managers
and business professionals. Think about a
typical high street coffee shop experience
as an example – you're paying for so much
more than a coffee. You’re paying for the
cosy ambience, comfy seating, and for the
skilled and friendly staff.
An ‘experience’ is not a vague construct;
it is as real an offering as any service, good,
or commodity. In today’s service economy,
many companies simply wrap experiences
around their traditional offerings to sell
them better, as in the coffee shop example.
To realise the full benefit of ‘staging
experiences’, event management companies
and hospitality businesses must deliberately
design engaging experiences that require
paying for – at a fair price. The transition
from selling services to selling experiences
will be no easier for very established
companies to undertake and endure, rather
like the last great economic shift from the
industrial/manufacturing to the ‘service
economy’.
Within event management there is a
great deal of interest in understanding
our attendees’ experiences because this
often relates to satisfaction. Quality event
experiences will encourage attendees to
return, to speak well of the event to their
friends and family, and to showcase their
experience(s) on their social media pages
for even more people to share, enjoy and
comment on.
TYPES OF EXPERIENCES
Before we talk about how students and
event management professionals can
plan, design and stage event experiences,
we should briefly consider the various
‘experiences’ that exist.
PEAK OR MEMORABLE EXPERIENCES
There are peak or memorable experiences
that can be managed by businesses and
professionals. These usually relate to one-off
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