World Experience Organisation

Forget everything you thought you knew about what drives our economy. In this launch episode of The Art & Heart of CX, Georgie is joined by James Wallman, CEO of the World Experience Organisation, for an enlightening conversation on all things experiences and customer experience. They dive deep into the revolutionary shift from materialism to experientialism that's fundamentally changing how we find meaning, status and identity in the 21st century. 

"Better moments, better lives" isn't just a catchy tagline, it's the profound promise of the experience economy. Wallman illustrates how we've evolved from agricultural to industrial to service economies, and now stand at the threshold of an experiential revolution that could transform our quality of life as dramatically as the consumer revolution transformed our standard of living.

What makes this conversation particularly fascinating is Wallman's exploration of why some experiences succeed while others fail. It's not about spectacle or technology, it's about narrative.  

Whether you're a business leader, experience designer or simply someone interested in how our culture is evolving, this conversation offers invaluable insights into what makes experiences and Customer Experience, meaningful. 

Ready to join the experiential revolution? Visit worldxo.org to connect with experience creators worldwide and be part of crafting better moments and better lives.

Georgie Stayches, host of The Art & Heart of CX, brings a human lens to how businesses design Customer Experience (CX). She explores how every little detail impacts how a customer interprets, experiences and recalls a situation - from our senses to the built and natural environments - and how this can impact brand loyalty, word of mouth marketing and revenue.

Each episode she invites a special guess from all works of life and industries to share what they consider the art and hear of CX.

Want to hear more from Georgie? Her keynote presentations inspire audiences with real-world strategies to elevate CX, understand human behaviour and build lasting audience loyalty. 

Find out more at georgiestayches.com 

Transcript

Introduction to James Wallman

Speaker 1 0:50

Hello. Well, I'm thrilled to be here at Mission Works in Hammersmith chatting to James Wallman, the CEO of the World Experience Organisation. And, james, I love in your bio experience evangelist, which I think is fantastic. You're a strategist, author, designer. You've done countless TED Talks. You've worked with all sorts of organisations, including hotels from Accor to Marriott, arts organisations like the National Portrait Gallery, corporates, including banks, one of the big fours or maybe more than the big four, consulting firms, people like Disney I've done some work with Disney back in my day, so I know what a beast in a good way that is. So thank you so much for your time, because I know you're kind of just off the back of London Experience Week.

Speaker 2 1:37

Yeah, the team has landed. It's taken us about a month to really kind of land after that. It was where she did a wash up call with London and Partners, the London Men's Growth Agency, yesterday because they supported us through this process and we're talking about London Experience Week 2026. Yes, I'm trying to work out if I've got the energy for it. To be honest, it was six months Anyway, but yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 1:59

Yeah, that's funny you pick up that experience evangelist thing because it's weird to say that. But I think Actually I was writing, I'm writing the experientialist manifesto at the moment, which I think is our equivalent of the communist manifesto, not that I'm playing the same structure or space as that, but I think it is what I've, what I've been doing for the past however many years and and just hearing your, your accent reminds you I've got very good friends who lives in, who lived in, actually, and they moved out to somewhere in victoria actually near some ski ski fields and I remember her seeing my first book in a in a shop I think it was in sydney airport actually, yeah, and they kind of thrilled that this thing was kind of getting to different places.

Speaker 2 2:42

I wrote this book stuff vacationing. I self-published in 2013 I'm gonna take it and I wanted to call the book the experientialist, because it's about the rise of experientialism. So I, I, I think because I, because I've been doing this for so long now and it's the kind of you know, my friends are really bored. You're like it's all experiences again, james, just, you know, shut up and I'm like, but I think this is really important anyway. So I think I can call myself that.

Experientialism vs Materialism Explained

Speaker 1 3:07

I think you absolutely can and I loved it when I saw that because I think it perfectly summed up and you know, seeing kind of seeing all your posts on LinkedIn and just the sharing of the different experiences and your interview on BBC prior to London Experience Week, because not everyone understands the experience economy. What I liked is on your website you say for the World Experience Organisation better moments, better lives, which I think is such a perfect way to sum it up.

Speaker 2 3:37

Yeah Well, thanks, it's taken a lot of work to try and get to that. You know. My take on this, and therefore our take, I guess, is that just as materialism and the consumer revolution, especially in the 1920s, starts in the States, but countries like yours and mine kind of like this is a smart idea, let's do it. And then, especially in the 1920s, starts in the states, but countries like yours and mine kind of like this is a smart idea, let's do it. And then eventually, everybody's grabbed onto this idea. What happened then is you you got. It was coming from I mean, it's come from the government, from people and from companies, but loads of innovation was happening, where innovators in different industries were sharing ideas across industries and what that did was led to better stuff.

Speaker 2 4:14

All that better stuff led to this actually unprecedented rise in stands of living for humans. Lucky us. We're all super wealthy, but our lives are abundant, but there's some emptiness. I think, that's where experientialism comes in, and if what we can do is connect the experienced pioneers, innovators, companies, people around the world, professionals making experiences, operating them, et cetera, so they make better experiences Experiences to you and me in our normal lives, as in when we're not working in the industry are moments of our lives.

Speaker 2 4:49

Exactly Monday morning, your Tuesday lunchtime, your Friday morning doing an interview, your Friday evening, your weekends, your vacation time, all of your time and moments of your lives and, of course, those moments add up to lives. So if we can, facilitate, enable, help experience creators by connecting experience creators to make better moments for people better experiences that will lead to better lives and that could be, and I sincerely hope there's an unprecedented rise in quality of life.

Speaker 2 5:18

so if we can keep the rise in standards of living which, let's face it, is awesome, but there's an emptiness that has come along with that is it. We've got disjointed societies. People, you know, work from home. They, they shop from home. Yes, this homebound stuff is a problem for loneliness. It's a problem for societies you get. You get these bifurcations where the right wing, the left wing hate each other, yes, when actually all they're all trying to do is like bring up their kids yes have enough food on the table.

Speaker 2 5:45

Living in a pleasant place and it's okay to disagree. Yes, there's a brilliant piece on this in the atlantic recently by a guy called derek thompson. That's really sort of fired me up, even more to want to do this, to bring people together because experiences are shared. Anyway, I'll stop there briefly, but this possibility, the possibility, the potential of experiences and the experiential revolution in the 21st century is really exciting.

Speaker 1 6:10

Absolutely, and there's so many things. When you were talking there, I remember it during COVID researching past pandemics and epidemics just to see how behaviours changed. And so there's sort of some misconceptions about kind of the roaring 20s, but a lot of it was trends that were already happening. And then the Spanish flu came along and so bouncing out of the Spanish flu was this pent up demand and people started to share culture in a different way and you know, theatre and cinema and all those sort of things changed. And so these moments really have those bursts of sort of history moments. And I know reading about the Industrial Revolution and the moments there.

Progression of Economic Value

Speaker 1 6:47

And I was just in Bath earlier this week at an award-winning bookstore down there. That is really like a community and we talked about the loneliness epidemic that's out there. It's in Australia, it's talked about a lot. And so their bookshop I mean it's not a bookshop, it's a community they have a book spa, when they call it Bibliotherapy, and you just come in and you chat to someone about the books that you like and they sort of joke. It's a bit like therapy, you know, and I was watching one in action and it's just that community that they build and then they recommend some books for you, but it's just people coming into a home.

Speaker 2 7:21

Yeah, nice, what's it called.

Speaker 1 7:23

It's called Mr B's Emporium, so I think two years after opening they won Independent Bookseller of the Year. The Guardian has ranked them in the top 10 of bookstores in the world, and it's two lawyers that wanted to do something different. So for people who don't know the experience economy, can you break it down into layman's terms? For someone who's never I'm sure they've been to experiences, they just don't know they've contributed to the experience economy.

Speaker 2 7:52

Only in the context of the fact that I'm now thinking about the BiblioSpa, I'm thinking about my favorite books. Now I like to talk to people about books and get really kind of weird and geeky about the latest thing I'm reading or my favorite authors or whatever. But I really like that. I really, and just I'm going to pick up on loneliness briefly.

Speaker 2 8:08

I went to the library, 10 Downing Street, to talk about the loneliness problem in 2015. Gosh Off the back of stuffification. I was like, look, we could use this experience stuff as a way to kind of as a salve, as a solution. And you see lots of kind of like you know, there's, you know green nature therapy and there's the art therapy. Yes, and they're all to me they're manifestations of experiences, absolutely. You know experiences where you get to do something.

Speaker 2 8:32

Yes, let me try and answer your question. So the experience economy is and I think I said it next to experientialism. Yes, Experientialism is that shift in values from materialism to experientialism Instead of figuring identity, status and meaning in things. We're finding it in experiences instead, and that's the cultural trend. Really interesting what you were saying before about the pandemic and what happened after that. That's the cultural trend that sits alongside the experience economy, because the experience economy is a business thing yes and obviously coined by joe pine and jim gilmore back in the late 1990s, and it's essentially the idea.

Speaker 2 9:10

Well, the idea at the heart of it is the progression of economic value. It's the idea that we are, we are evolving capitalism, yes, and alongside that evolution of capitalism comes a a requirement to shift what you're doing in order to differentiate what you do from what others do and in order to create more value. And, of course, as a business business, if you create value, capture value as well. And so, therefore, if you want to be successful, ie capture more value in monetary terms then you need to create more value. And so we've gone from the world of the agricultural economy to the industrial, to the service, the experience economy, and Jo thinks we're moving to the transformation economy too. And that doesn't mean that once one comes on, the others disappear. No, it's that the others stick around but bring less value.

Speaker 2 9:59

And coffee and pizza are fairly reasonable ways of looking at coffee is the simple, probably the simplest ways. As an agricultural beans product. Yes, it's not worth that much money. You can buy a file, I don't know. I think abstinence is the big exchange. But you can buy a lot of coffee, yes, quite cheaply as beans, once it's been turned into an industrial product like nest cafe or something you can buy from your supermarket.

Speaker 2 10:23

All of a sudden, you can, you know, buy a jar for I don't know, depends on your currency and stuff, but I don't know. Say ten dollars, I know ten dollars, and per cup yeah, you probably get 50 cups out of that.

Speaker 1 10:33

Yes, yes, I'm making up, but that instant stuff right? Industrial products.

Speaker 2 10:36

And then you've got the service-based economy, where you get a regular cup of coffee in a McDonald's or maybe McDonald's is a bad example, but you know normal coffee and then you've got You're talking to the girl from Melbourne, sir.

Speaker 1 10:48

Oh, of course you guys. We probably don't get our coffee from McDonald's. Yeah, it's flat white, Australia's great export right Conceptually, amongst other foods, that's right.

Speaker 2 10:56

Yeah, coffee culture.

Speaker 1 10:57

Yes, in Sydney too, right, oh, absolutely Amazing, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 11:01

But you know, often people therefore refer to Starbucks and the frappe latte blah blah chino dreadful. It's awful coffee, but whatever. Maybe I should strike that from the record publicly. But whatever, right. But then you get, you know, independent coffee that will charge you more for a coffee, and actually it's partly the coffee which also lets come back to the idea of transformation economy. Of course it gives you a hit of caffeine, so that's transformation. But the other aspect is it's where you're buying it from and the experience that you get there.

The Impact of Loneliness

Speaker 2 11:29

So if you go to a really, I mean maybe shopping of all types, If you go to somewhere that's really cheap and down and dirty. You can get very similar types of food, yes, but you know you don't want to shop in that environment. So you're paying for the experience rather than the thing. And if you think actually about a lot of eating that we do. If you go out for dinner, you're not necessarily going for the sustenance. No, you're going for the experience of spending time with friends, and they're charging you more for the ambiance and the people who are there, et cetera.

Speaker 2 12:01

So we pay for experiences rather than services.

Speaker 1 12:04

Absolutely, and I was looking at some research recently around customer experience and the fact that people will pay. Well, they're ranking customer experience higher than basing their decisions on price or quality of product, because that's what they're ranking customer experience higher than basing their decisions on price or quality of product, because that's what they're putting at the top of their list.

Speaker 2 12:21

Well, it's interesting that I'm going to pick up on that quality of product, because I think that it's not that those things go away. They've become this baseline. This is research by Patti Friedman in the States about this. She goes it's like a threshold of of service which is why bathrooms are so important at festivals in restaurants and all sorts of places right. If you get the bathrooms wrong, everybody notices.

Speaker 1 12:42

If you get them right, nobody hiding I'm known amongst an event club that I'm in for being the bathroom girl, because every event I hone in on the bathrooms, the queue that. And I was actually sharing a story yesterday in a presentation around the Phillip Island Motorcycle Grand Prix. So it's in Victoria International Grand Prix. It's in a paddock, you know, down on an island, and they put the queues. You know they're portaloos. There's always a queue, particularly for women, and they just put a screen there so you could just stand in the queue and just watch the race, like so simple. But understanding that that friction point for us was being removed from the action. No one wants to stand in a queue and miss the racing and so just put it.

Speaker 2 13:24

You're just watching with other people.

Speaker 1 13:26

And you're just not even noticing that you're in the queue for the toilets. Okay, nice, thoughtful.

Speaker 2 13:30

Okay, I like it. Make the experience of waiting, not the, because waiting is another interesting thing that you can play with as an experience, right?

Speaker 1 13:37

Yes, yes, okay, yeah, but no, I always. You know, toilets are just the make or break.

Speaker 2 13:43

But once you get those, then the thing that you know it's the experience that you create and that's how to differentiate from what others are doing. And that's where coming back to that idea of the progression of economic value, that's where you can create more value. If you think about that arc, that kind of curve of coffee, there is more opportunity to charge more for a coffee in a nice place than there is in terms of the service, because also I mean you think about hotels.

Speaker 2 14:09

Hotels used to be terrible generally. If you stayed in a cheap hotel in the 1980s and 1990s, you would pay for what you got. Nowadays you stay in a budget hotel, the bed's comfy it's clean.

Speaker 2 14:22

So the service levels have gone up and up and up. So you can't differentiate what you do by service. You can't say we're going to be more polite or more caring Okay, maybe, but actually then you have to think about the other thing that you do Exactly Also, how these things are measured Service is about you can think in terms of time.

Speaker 2 14:40

Service often saves you time, but really experience is about time well spent. Yes, this is borrowing from Joe. Time well invested is the transformation idea. It's like how is that time going to contribute to you in the future.

World Experience Organization Overview

Speaker 1 14:52

Yeah, it's funny you say that about hotels. I was at the meeting show this week and met with. I was chatting with the brand. I'm trying to think where he was from Germany, I think, and no, the Netherlands, that's right, and he was showing me it was a Chinese-based hotel company, but they have them all over Europe and just the different brands. So there was the very urban hotel brand, there was a music brand hotel, there was then your high luxury so I'm staying Mama Shelter at the moment in Shoreditch. So you know the way hotels have also pitched themselves to different experiences and different levels.

Speaker 2 15:27

Yeah, mama, shelter's nice. I stayed in one. It's a French brand, isn't it? It's Accord? I think so it is Accord. Yes, yeah, okay, yeah, nice, isn't it it's.

Speaker 1 15:34

Accord. I think so it is Accord. Yes, yeah, okay, yeah, nice, I just like to. I always like to test out different hotel brands and just sort of see what sort of member like with your members of the World Experience Organization. Where do they come from? Not necessarily geographically, because we know they're all over the world, but sort of what? Are they from hotels? Are they from a brands? Are they from events?

Speaker 2 15:51

They are from events they are. The funny thing about what we do is that we are in lots of different sectors. So, yeah, events and exhibitions, immersive theater and arts and, like kansas city symphony is a member and industrial lights and magic that people do, the star wars stuff, yes, and meow wolf, big immersive thing in the states.

Speaker 2 16:16

But also lots of individuals, lots of people work in cx and ex yes so we're all across and I think the weird thing about the experience scoring that's what we're trying to reflect in what we do is it's a horizontal rather than a vertical. Yes, yep, there's lots of organizations and this is where it came from, was it just it didn't exist and it you know, you that you've got. There's a theme park organization yes there's the stuff that happens for people in theme parks there's a thing that happens for people in escape rooms.

Speaker 2 16:44

There's a thing that happens for people that do meetings yes but experiences cut all across all of those, and so you know if you think about any kind of experience or think about the people coming through an experience, a customer, guest employee, a patient in the hospital player in games. Yeah, what would you call people that come to meetings?

Speaker 1 17:06

delegates, delegates, right delegates, whatever you call these people.

Speaker 2 17:09

They're a human, yes, and so therefore, the design of an experience for them has a pattern, language to it. It has a beginning, a middle and an end, before, during and after, and what we're trying to do is affect some kind of change, and it might be a temporary change, so it's just entertainment or just distraction, or just enjoyment, or it could be a bigger kind of change, but we're trying to make something that's memorable, impactful interesting. And we're trying to turn on their neurotransmitters turn off some others, etc.

Speaker 2 17:44

And so there are ideas that can be shared and learned across those sectors to make better experiences. Do you see what I mean?

Speaker 1 17:52

Oh, absolutely. And I talk a lot about biophilic design because I'm really interested in the impact of nature in the built environment, particularly if I talk about business events and conferences. We stick people in these dark rooms with no windows and it's the absolute worst for productivity, for concentration, for fatigue depression, anxiety, everything.

Speaker 2 18:11

And for the amount of oxygen in the air, right it runs out Exactly.

Speaker 1 18:14

Yeah, it's awful. And then you know the amazing things that sound can do to you know how we respond to situations. I mean even things that there was a joint research with I think it was Harvard, yale and MIT around touch and how touch informs how we perceive situations. So you know, and they did these studies with people with jigsaw pieces One group had really rough jigsaw pieces, one group had really rough jigsaw pieces, the other had really soft jigsaw pieces. They told both groups the same stories and the groups viewed the stories completely differently, based on you know. So all these things impact how we experience. And I know with conferences we try and work with our clients to, because often you know things. Just they say we want this and this and this and we say it's like a movie script, like it's like a story. You've got to have a start, you've got to actually have plot points, you know, during the event, to create that experience and those memories and those emotions.

Speaker 2 19:11

It's interesting how sometimes people have said to me so how is this different to you? Know, customer centricity, which was a big buzz thing for a while, and kind of you know, designing something, and I wonder, or even if you look at lots of kind of customer journey maps yes, I've talked to you about this I was like, is there any science behind these?

Speaker 1 19:28

and actually there's.

Speaker 2 19:29

There's no science, from what I can gather. I've asked lots of people about this behind a customer journey mapping and I think the closest version and this is where the experiential approach to it is different to the old way is thinking about the hero's journey or the shape of the story and applying that to people. And therefore you know the reason why stories resonate for people is they reflect who we are, our lived experience, that we see ourselves in that process, and so if you design something, use it and the hero's journey is the archetypal model, not the perfect joseph campbell version. I don't really go for that. I think, yeah, I think the kind of like person problem solution. Remember watch that lovely short video, the five minute thing of the man in a hole. He says it doesn't have to be a man, doesn't have to be a hole.

Speaker 2 20:13

Basically, I think the simplest version is a person that we care about vaguely has a problem or a challenge yeah, and gets over that yes and something, and I think that is, and you can use that archetype and you should use that to make better expression. I just want to mention, on the sound thing, it's a brilliant thing the vna today. Oh okay, there's a preview at four, but there's also lots of really interesting stuff they're playing with sound.

Speaker 1 20:39

Yes, and I know the Barbican Centre. I'm going to their….

Speaker 2 20:42

In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats. The sound thing there Okay, but go to the VR thing yeah, okay In. Pursuit of Repetitive Beats. There, american guy, but he's, I think, one of the world's foremost leaders in VR. Yes, yep, and according to Bob, in pursuit of repetitive beats.

Speaker 1 20:59

Yes.

Speaker 2 20:59

And somebody who's very critical of VR, who's a member of the WXO, messaged me the other day to say have you been yet? And it's ongoing. That's interesting.

Speaker 1 21:09

Okay, yeah, I'll have a look at that. It's interesting when you're talking about that. You know the human and the problem. I've sort of really got interested in customer experience and how things impact because I work with polio survivors so you know they've lived through the polio epidemic. They are now in their seventies, eighties, but when we go to find a venue for their they have a polio day each year. We always have to have natural light, fresh air and it needs to feel big and open Because decades later they still are impacted by that. Institutionalized, being shut away in infectious disease hospitals still impacts them. So you know, for them it's really important the experience and it's that community coming together. I mean, the way society treated polio survivors was horrendous at the time. You know they were outcasts, shut away, sent away from their families, were they?

Speaker 1 22:01

disfigured no it's like muscle weight, not unlike COVID in a way.

The Rise of Commercial Experiences

Speaker 1 22:08

So it was a muscle weight sort of waste to muscles but it was so contagious and it was seen as quite a dirty disease at the time. So there's a real as quite a dirty disease at the time. So there's a real stigma, or there was at the time. I mean, and just you know, they were given chemical baths. There's an amazing book in Australia called Iron Wheels, because a lot lived in iron lungs. But just how all these decades later, their events are still run, based on their experience through that and how the experiences now need to solve that problem of how they feel. I like when you were saying that it is horizontal, because I think some people think it is a theatre restaurant or the Mamma Mia party, or we all saw the Willy Wonka one.

Speaker 1 22:49

And I mean London has so many things on at the moment. You just need to hop on the tube and there's an ad for a million different of those kind of I don't know whether I want to say sort of commercial experiences. What do you think's caused the rise in those? Whether it's the friends experience, you know, the harry potter, the paddington bear experience, the, as I said, the mamma mia party out at the o2 oh, I mean so many things I know my background, the way I came into this.

Speaker 2 23:16

I was a trend forecaster.

Speaker 2 23:17

I guess I probably sort of am too. So what's causing it? I mean so many things. Partly, I mean the rise of experientialism, the way to get status through doing something interesting. Social media is obviously problematic, but also really supportive. Something like this because in the old days and if you've ever read torsten Webern's A Theory of the Leisure Class, which was a sort of jokey application of you know, the rise in money and how people were displaying themselves Since forever, the way that people would show their status tended to be and actually in particular, it's what Babel talked about when people moved to cities through the stuff they had. Yeah, so you display who you are through your. You know your expensive watch, your expensive car, the brands that you're associated with, and as people move from villages into cities, you couldn't tell someone you'd been to the opera at the weekend or been to a festival.

Speaker 2 24:16

And actually the sort of panda bear eyes from skiing in the 80s right was a way of saying hey, I've been skiing right and the thing is much though you know we all like to also laugh at this sort of status plate.

Speaker 2 24:28

People do, we all do it. That's what mammals do you know you need that. That's how things work. Social media has flipped that on its head. Now I don't know what brand your handbag is or whatever, but if I'm on, you know although I'm not on Instagram but whatever but if I'm on a social media thing with you, you can say you know, you're at the meeting show in.

Speaker 1 24:48

London.

Speaker 2 24:48

There's a status that's right If you've been to you know Phantom Peak while you're here or you're going to the bar. There's a huge amount of stages of what you're doing, not what you have.

Speaker 1 24:58

There's a flip around, so that's you know you can't do something at the.

Speaker 2 25:02

Well, you can. Obviously you can do something, but also we're super connected all the time in a way that's really kind of surreal. You know, I went to see a friend in a band last night and it was. It was brilliant. He was in Soho, he's very cool. I'm like, oh my God, I know something's really cool. And because I'm not on a, I've come off Facebook as well. So I'm not on a. I mean, I'm on LinkedIn, so I'm on a business social media.

Speaker 1 25:24

That's enough.

Speaker 2 25:25

I'd rather not be on it. There you go. There's a lot of life going on there and a lot of sharing. I get a lot of information from people and I see things that are going on. So it's actually really very useful. But I'm like, ah, I'm not gonna. Who am I gonna tell? I'm like, oh, I'm not, I'm not gonna post about yeah. And then I was thinking because I got this really cool picture of him.

Speaker 2 25:45

Yeah, I'm like maybe I'll post on linkedin because he's my friend, yeah, and I'm like, nah, don't worry about it, and that's you know. So, anyway. So one of the things that's driving it is that people want to post about what they do. The other thing is there is a business model that supports it and in a city like london, because you've got the tourists and obviously a huge bunch of people who are open to more interesting new ideas, you've got people to try out new stuff yeah, the tourists and the locals.

Speaker 2 26:09

So so london is, is what one of the world's epicenters, of experiences for those reasons, and they figured out the business models. Yeah, and that's really, really important you need to think about the demand side and the supply side. And I say that because people have been noodling in this area, because you know if you, if you think about what a theater show is and it's a model that's obviously been working since before shakespeare's time we think about cinema.

Speaker 2 26:35

It's been one model that's been working for, you know, 100 years or so. A lot of these commercial immersive experiences are trying to figure out how to do it. Yes, and there's been a lot of fallovers along the way. Yes, and that's just the way of things. But now it's starting to take off because they're realizing you know the amount of backroom staff you need the, say, the toilets. I mean, there's the guy that's opening. Elvis, for example, gave a talk for us.

What Makes Great Immersive Experiences

Speaker 2 26:58

Andrew's brilliant, and they do War of the Worlds, which is the longest running, immersive experience in London and very successful and they've got models for how much tech to bring in Because you get a lot of overused tech happens all the time, so it works as a business model which means you can get investors to put money in, which means you can make the thing work. And then people come to the business model, which means you can get investors to put money in, which means you can make the thing work. Yep, and then you know, then people come.

Speaker 1 27:21

Yeah, and I'm really interested in that point of you know too much check. It's almost like in the old days when someone did a PowerPoint and they had every animation and you were like, oh, they've just learned how to do PowerPoint. You sometimes see that with these immersive experiences, where they've lost that authenticity because they think it's the wow factor when it's not Some fall over. What do you think if we just look at the immersive for a short moment?

Speaker 2 27:49

what makes a good one and why do some fall flat? I've been to a few fairly questionable ones recently, which I'm not going to name but in Paris and in london, and I think narrative is really important I think, narrative is really considered. Yeah, interesting what you mentioned about spectacle. Spectacle is amazing for a short period of time. That's why firework shows are the time they are. Imagine if fireworks show goes on for an hour and a half after a while. I mean I love fire, it's just be really good isn't that.

Speaker 1 28:15

I don't like fireworks, because I find it.

Speaker 2 28:16

It's just been really good See, isn't that I don't like?

Speaker 1 28:17

fireworks? Oh, okay, because I find it, I've seen it before, I don't get anything new and that's the joke. Waterfalls and fireworks is the same to me. I'm like, yeah, okay, well, I've seen one.

Speaker 2 28:26

you know, I think it takes me back to when I was a kid, going with my dad.

Speaker 1 28:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 28:30

And they're kind of ooh, yeah, short bit, but I'll try like okay, fine, thanks very much, let's go and do something, that's right. Yes, and I. It's amazing what you can forgive if the story is good. Yes, and I was trying to explain to my wife the other day about computer games and I was like, look, I never played them much either. But you know, like, crappy graphics, yes, doesn't matter. You know, even if you think about, you know, playing with a ball on a beach with friends.

Speaker 2 28:59

Yes, it's a really simple game, yeah, and it's fun. It doesn't matter if you're throwing it, kicking it, whatever you're doing with that ball, and you know if you're playing cricket and whacking it with a bat or whatever, you don't need a lot of that stuff around you to have fun. Yes, and so understanding, and this is, you know, coming to this hero's journey, understanding the narrative of the person who's arriving. There's a fantastic piece of work on the. Is it the ACMI in Melbourne?

Speaker 1 29:26

ACMI. Oh, acmi, acmi, yeah.

Speaker 2 29:28

There's a great piece about onboarding there.

Speaker 1 29:30

Yeah, okay, Somebody runs that working with Marshall.

Speaker 2 29:32

Mallow Laser Fee something they've done there. I really like that. So sorry, just thinking about the journey, the person is on, where your experience, and this could be a workday experience, it could be a three-year working for your experience, or it could be, you know, a 20-minute experience in a shop or whatever. Where does that fit in their day? Because they are the hero of their story.

Speaker 2 29:50

Right, they're the protagonist and you are. You could be their mentor, you could be a stopping point, you could be a challenge point, you could be all sorts of different boys. You talked about plot points there, but where does that fit in? And then, when someone drops into your experience, what's the narrative that you have and how much are they going to play? So, playing with immersive experiences is what is their role? There's a lovely piece of work on this, on the seven eyes, of something I've done by peter holst beck and joe pine.

Speaker 1 30:17

This woman, anna Leesk, in Edinburgh, actually looking at the Hamlet immersive experience that happens in the castle Kronborg Castle in Denmark where it was set, and it's a really successful thing where they've like double prices and triple visitor numbers or something.

Speaker 2 30:34

It's been really successful.

Speaker 1 30:35

Amazing because I've been to that castle, but that was about, oh, oh gosh, 25 years ago. Oh, okay, and it wasn't like it was an old, empty castle.

Speaker 2 30:44

Yeah, peter's really brought it to life with this immersive theatre show that you sort of play in, don't play in. So it's this seven eyes about identity. Yes, so once you've got identity, you've got a role.

Speaker 1 30:53

Yes, and if you?

Speaker 2 30:55

yeah, I went to this one the other day and it was supposedly a lucid dream, so what role have I got in that? Yeah yeah, there's no, there's no story as opposed to going to something like. I went to star wars by secret cinema some years ago. When I was there, I was given a role yeah, you know, and this is my role to be, and you can.

Speaker 2 31:14

You know, ip can work really well yes here, and because there's a story that you jump into already, or it can be brand new, but if it's just watching stuff on a screen, well then it has to have a really good story.

Speaker 1 31:27

Do you see what I mean?

Speaker 2 31:28

No, absolutely, I think narrative is I've been doing a bit of thinking, people asking me, because it's not usual, that I'm not very positive and I shared something privately. Within this with WXO, we have this thing called circle, which is our private LinkedIn for experienced people, I wouldn't share my thoughts on LinkedIn negative things but I really did, I let rip and a couple of people said, james, this must have been really bad.

Speaker 2 31:51

I'm like, well, it's uh. Yeah, I think story because we're story, we love story. No, absolutely, and there's two things I think it's because we love story?

Speaker 1 31:59

No, absolutely, and there's two things. I think it's Jennifer Saunders who jokes that you know, if your script writing for a skit isn't very strong, you just throw the bells and whistles in to try and you know.

Speaker 1 32:08

So it's kind of the reverse and I think that's it. People are so discerning, they spot in the bells and whistles when it's not a strong story. I've been to two dining in the dark experiences. One, excellent, I mean you were completely in the dark. The other one you put a blindfold on and one of them you had a role in that you needed to. You had to try and guess what the food was. I mean. The other one you did.

Speaker 1 32:34

But the first one they kind of briefed you. You went in, you sat down and they talked about you know, we want to know what the food is, so that when you came out you had a little debrief, so you felt like it was a full kind of journey. The other one, you sort of came in, they sat you down, they served the food. There was hardly any interaction and then they said, okay, blindfolds off and out the door. And it was such a weakened experience for that. And just as you're talking, I've realized why I had a role in the first one, because we were all like, okay, what's this and then that Versus experience thinking, and what you also picked up on is experiences have got.

Speaker 2 33:04

there's the anticipation beforehand which you were set up there to think about what role you were going to have. Then you've got the participation, and that reflection stage is so important, that kind of storifying, figuring something out. I've got to say the only thing about those Dining in the Dark things is they're just an opportunity to throw food and flirt with people, aren't they? Isn't that what they're designed for? I don't know. Maybe I've missed the point.

Speaker 1 33:26

Look, I will joke.

Speaker 2 33:28

Did you throw food? No, we didn't throw food, be honest.

Speaker 1 33:31

No, I had organized, I was best man. Can we just make sure that for the record, georgina is winking. She did throw food. Do you know what the said? That when I went to with my partner, he and that was the one where you had blindfolds he took his blindfold off and rearranged all our glasses and he was having a grand old time, the one where we were all completely in the dark. You couldn't do that, but I do remember I took I did it for a friend's buck stew because I was his best man.

Speaker 1 33:55

It was was part of a whole day and his friend thought he was sort of just moving his arm up and down the side of his chair. But it was me and I had to say that's me, that you're. You know, like people sit back and they kind of put their arm over a chair and just naturally, sort of you know, rub it, and I was like that's me, you're touching me. So yeah, I mean it is. It's a dangerous thing. What I mean about flirting, exactly, exactly, yes, here I am thinking it was an accident, maybe. Yeah, but it did have that whole story to it which the other one didn't.

Speaker 2 34:28

It the other one felt so transactional isn't it amazing how a simple thing like that doesn't take that much effort?

Speaker 1 34:32

and it's not budget. People think sort of it's not about having a bigger budget, it's being, yeah, that deeper purpose to it.

Human Needs and Experience Design

Speaker 2 34:40

Excellent. Sorry just to remind you about I need to you know.

Speaker 1 34:44

Well, we're almost out of time anyway. So is there anything, any behaviour changes you're seeing in sort of audience I don't want to say audience in humans coming out of COVID that are that is dictating any changes in the experience economy? And we've talked about the sort of loneliness pandemic and people wanting to make connection and community.

Speaker 2 35:05

Great question. I don't know if I'm going to have an intelligent answer I'll try or useful answer I don't know about intelligent, but certainly for you. So, having worked in trends, one of the key things is think about what's changing. But the other thing and I'm borrowing from Jeff Bezos here is what isn't changing.

Speaker 1 35:25

He's having quite the experience in Venice at the moment. I mean full stop.

Speaker 2 35:29

I think he's got this grin on his face that says I've been working really hard. Now it's time to play.

Speaker 1 35:35

I was looking at a photo before the glow up of Jeff Bezos Right.

Speaker 2 35:39

Yeah, he's doing well. Good for him. And there's a quote from him about people always ask about what's changing, but the key thing is to ask what isn't changing, because you can build a business and actually a life around that. Yes, and so you know if you want to build a business, you want it to be around in 10 years' time. Otherwise, what are you building Exactly? Otherwise it's kill to eat. You've got to change it, that's right. So actually one of the most interesting things about humans is the simple truths of what we need.

Speaker 1 36:06

Yes.

Speaker 2 36:07

And you look at self-determination theory and I'd borrow from that and add an S on it Mars right, mastery, autonomy, relatedness, safety, security and status. I saw this thing recently. I can't think of the person, but as opposed to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which Maslow never said and which doesn't work, no modern psychologist will refer to it. So there's a boat analogy that somebody's come up with.

Speaker 2 36:30

that's really you know. The first bit you need is your stability, safety, security and status, and the other stuff is you're playing around in life, but you know if you can provide people with an opportunity to try to be good at something mastery yes like doing a podcast, having a conversation with some amazingly smart australian woman who's turned up and asked questions very bold.

Speaker 1 36:50

Aussie, who just messaged you, and james, come and chat to you. The conversations.

Speaker 2 36:54

That's why conversations are one of the ultimate ways to flow and good experiences, because you're interacting with another human. Yes, you don't know what they're going to say. Yes, you don't know what you're going to say, yes, and so you're. In the moment it's amazing. Your flow is amazing If you can articulate and on-ramp people to flow.

Speaker 1 37:11

it's amazing. I saw this great thing on Instagram in New York and you might know about these where they're taking over bars and having professors come and do just guest lectures, and so people are just going for the night and learning about astrophysics or whatever. It is just completely random and I sent it to a friend. She's like we need this in Melbourne. I'm like I know, so, just so simple.

Speaker 2 37:33

That's a lovely idea. Yeah, I'll find it.

Speaker 1 37:36

I mean, it looked good on Instagram. It might be one that in person, you know, only worked for one night.

Speaker 2 37:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1 37:40

Because people are moving away.

Speaker 2 37:42

I mean, there's you know, guerrilla lectures is a really nice idea. I really like that.

Speaker 1 37:48

And excuse my language, but fuck up nights I mean Melbourne ran those for a while which was a movement that came out of Mexico, of people sharing, you know, when they had mistakes but what they learnt from it.

Speaker 2 37:59

I love it when people apologise before swearing.

Speaker 1 38:01

It's so funny I'm an Australian and we swear a lot.

Speaker 2 38:04

And.

Speaker 1 38:04

I've noticed over here I was telling an anecdote about someone had mucked something up and I was telling my Uber driver and I said oh, they really I thought I better not say it. I said they really effed it up. And he goes what?

Speaker 2 38:25

And effed it up and he goes what? And I said and I said, fucked up. Oh, you know, I'm not in australia. What's the south part with my son? Yeah, and there's this bit where this guy's like fuck. And the teacher's like you can't say that, I'm sending you the principal. It's like why? Who died? What happened? He just said it. And my son now, and he's 11, so between you and I.

Speaker 2 38:33

He's not supposed to watch it, of course, and my mother is not happy. He, he laughs his head off. Anyway, fuck, who cares? Carry on.

Speaker 1 38:41

Sorry, oh no.

Speaker 2 38:44

Instagram. Oh, fuck up nights, you know so these movements of people coming together.

Speaker 1 38:49

James, I could talk to you all day, but I'm conscious you've got lots to do, so I want to say a big thank you.

Speaker 2 38:54

Thank you.

Speaker 1 38:55

And for your time. It's been so great to chat and I know so many people will find this information interesting and, of course, give a plug out if they want to find out more about the World Experience Organization.

Speaker 2 39:06

I guess Google World Experience Organization or go to worldxoorg. But thank you for that yeah.

Speaker 1 39:11

And you have London Experience Week, which is in May.

Speaker 2 39:14

It's going to be I think we're going to be in late April. We're just confirming the date at the moment.

Speaker 1 39:18

You also have awards. Go onto the website because there's so many resources.

Speaker 2 39:25

So Lucy Keeler, who is at what's it called that park in Sydney theme park, I should know this. They're members of WXO.

Speaker 1 39:35

Lucy's going to hate me for this. Luna Park, luna Park, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 39:38

Lucy won our Experientialist of the Year, I think actually. She couldn't come because the boxes that were being shipped from LA to Sydney with Squid Games no, not Squid Games, stranger Things got routed to. Shanghai, of course they did, so it all came late. She was coming, she was on a panel actually oh my gosh. She was speaking about Squid Games. She's messaged us like a week before. I'm so sorry I can't come.

Speaker 1 40:05

I think my cortisol level just went up then with the thought of a delivery for a bumping being rerouted.

Speaker 2 40:13

She was like sorry, but this is not going to happen. We're a thousand members in 47 countries. I'm going into plug mode, but this is not going to happen. But yeah, we're 1,000 members in 47 countries Amazing, and it's a great. Yeah, I'm going into plug mode, but it's a great place to share ideas about how to make better experiences.

Speaker 1 40:26

Yeah, and definitely go on the website and follow James on LinkedIn, because you do. You share so many things, which is great. So a big thank you for your time. Thank you and I hope to see you.