Australian Events Industry Collective

Ever left a venue thinking, that could have been so much easier? In this episode, Georgie is joined by Derrin Brown as they dig into the small, human decisions that turn chaos into calm and moments into memories.

Previsualisation, crowd science, pressure points, pedestrian flow, language, personas, sensory design, toilets, hand gestures, signage and are just some of the topics they cover. 

From the first sign you see to the last word you read on your way out and everything in between, that can enhance or diminish the Customer Experience. 

They talk queues that flow, wayfinding you can feel and the art of building anticipation so well that the experience starts before the doors even open.

They unpack the pressure points everyone encounters: confusing registrations, single-point bottlenecks and signage that accidentally creates anxiety. 

They explore how active participation outperforms passive luxury. 

They discuss Robbie Williams concerts, Cirque de Soleil, cruise ships, Contiki tours, Bathurst, Disney, Doha and so much more.

The throughline is simple: remove friction, respect attention and design for how people actually behave: tired, excited, distracted, hopeful.
 
This episode will inspire you to soften a queue, rewrite a sign or simply place a guide at the right escalator.

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

Coffee, Christmas Trees, And Observing Crowds

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Welcome to the latest episode of The Art and Heart of CX. And I'm so excited to welcome Darren Brown. We're recording this in Sydney. We're very grateful for your time. And I was trying to think, how do I introduce you, Darren? So I've written down Creative Consultant. You've worked across events ranging from Sydney Fringe, FIFA World Cup in Australia, all over the world. You've worked in the arts and culture, including Opera Australia, Cirque du Soleil, you work with local councils, you've worked across cruise ships, and I'm sure we'll talk about that. And there's so many ways this conversation could go. And we've already been chatting probably for about half an hour before we even hit record, which is great. So welcome.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Well, thank you, Georgina. It's lovely to thank you for coming to Sydney too. And on this glorious day here in Martin Place when it's all happening.

Flow, Queues, And Risk Mindsets

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Exactly. And look, you know, it wouldn't be a conversation of people with an events background or sort of an experience background without walking out to get our coffee and then looking at what's going on, what's the activation in Martin Place, how people are moving, all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

And the Christmas tree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

The Christmas tree. Look, I didn't tell you, but I'd already taken photos of the Christmas decorations in this office block. But it's kind of a an occupational hazard, isn't it? Being from when you work with people and experiences and design that you can't go anywhere without studying what's going on and what you would have done, not done.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

I think when we do what we do, we develop the muscle memory to be observant and then critically thinking. And I think that's and also, you know, it's also part of a risk assessment. Like we can't help that. So whenever we see lots of people moving around, we go, like, where are the exits?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Exactly. I remember to a Robbie Williams concert years ago at what's now called Marvel Stadium. And and we were on the ground, on the field. And to get on the field, we have to pick up a wristband. But to pick up the wristband, we had to go to an office. And like any arena, the you know, it's a it's a round concourse. But the queuing was was instead of following the concourse, it went across the concourse. And so everyone who was trying to walk around the concourse just kept butting into this queue that we were in. And I mean, I die when I think about this, and my sister who was with me died, but I went up to the person running. I said, Oh, I think it would be better if you moved the queue there. Now, I mean, no event manager likes being told what to do at their own event, but it was just that I was watching it in motion, going, no, this is just working against every kind of crowd science.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Well, it wouldn't I I imagine you'll agree, Jordan, because like we're very experienced, both of us, and put on all sorts of like gatherings of people for events. You know, what is an event? It's a gathering of people for it with intention. That's how I understand it. And you never lose, and yet it's so often overlooked, and that's an example, and we've we've got, I'm sure, many more. You never lose if you can imagine what it's like for people to attend. So sometimes it's called pre- or used to be called pre-visualization. I've got a really a good friend, Ian Morrison, who's the imagination collective that does pre-visualization. Yeah. Oh my goodness, invest in it. Yes. And like pre-visualise. We have the technology now to look, and it can be as simple as just where you pick your wristbands up in a stadium. Correct. What is the movement of people? How do they cross over? How do they intersect? I hope the people, the good burgers that run Federation Square could invest in a little bit of that too, for the flow of people, but more so just to think about each pressure point. I I think of it as signal paths. So each, because of my you know, technical background, but there's all these Nexus pressure points along the way that are barriers for people to have a good experience. Yes. And if you can think, if you can bring yourself to think of, you know, that person, Bob, or Alan. I usually call them characters, and they're arriving at the where are they getting? Yeah, they got the it's from the ticket, the tickets are promise. Where do they go from there and what are their barriers?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Exactly. And it's really understand, I mean, as you say, it's removing those friction points. And, you know, often when we're working on some of our events with fetching events, it's okay, well, which door are they going to come in? You know, that might be the main door, but we actually know everyone enters through the side door into this hotel because it's easier access. And then what's their vision cue? And I always sort of say with signage actually, yeah, for for sort of wayfinding. You've always yeah, so my thing is you've as long as you can see the next person, just tell them, go up the escalator and you'll see someone at the top of the escalator. My dad was in hospital last year, and he for whatever reason was put in a ward that he shouldn't have been because he had the flu. And I remember getting to the hospital and saying, How do I get to this, his ward? Oh, you go up the elevator to level three, you follow the blue line, you turn left, you jump five times, you turn right, you spin around, you go up another. And I I just looked at them and anyway, they then gave me a little bit of paper and I clutched onto that paper with directions. But so we always make sure at our events that we say, as long as they can visually see, if if they're able to, the next person, the next guide, that gives them comfort. They're not going to remember everything from the first time you tell them something.

Wayfinding, Signage, And Comfort

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, and all of that just describes like barriers to a good experience. Yes, yes, all of that just raises stress, anxiety. If you're if you're attending something with like whether it's students as I sometimes do now or with my children, I don't want that stress. I want it, I want certainty, I want to know where to go, and that it can be alleviated and enhanced and even can be fun with great wayfinding. Yes. I'll give you an example, and you know, I have no fear, but at South by Southwest, which was at the ICC, they had one registration point. You had to go to the registration point, which was down one end, the sofortel end of the ICC. I, like many others, arrived at the other end, which was where I sort of walked in from. Yeah. But there was no registration desk there. And at any other larger conference that it or trade show that'd been paid at, there's always two. You know, they're on buildings. It's really two. So people got very confused. There was no signage to say, like, hello, at this event, South by Southwest, there's only one, and it's down that end. Yes. It was kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

It it is, and that just reminded me. We held a an event at the ICC this year, and on one of our site visits, there was a corporate event on, and they just had paddles, like auction paddles, and it was so simple. And they had their staff dotted. And I mean, I come from, you know, the background of big events like the Olympics and stuff, where you would plot out, even you know, I mean, if this is 20, 25 years ago, but you would plot out with coloured dots on your CAD maps, you know, like spectator services or where people were, and you'd work out that flow. And we do that with events because, you know, people arrive. I sort of always joke with conferences, in particular, this conference brain. So people have worked, you know, really hard to take the two days out of the office. Yeah, they're not reading anything before they go. They'll literally arrive on site and just it's like they've they're on a tour. Tell me where the toilets are, tell me where I eat, even though it's right in front of you. And so I say to, you know, as a team, we know not to get frustrated or kind of like, can't they read the toilet sign there? Because it's they're in, they've changed their mentality. For the two days, you're gonna tell me as conference organizers everything I need to do. You're gonna tell me when I need to go back into the room, all those kind of things. But it's understanding those kind of those pressure points of their movement around the venue.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

And when we think about, like again, if you can envisage yourself as the person or in communications world, like the persona of the persons, the people that are attending your conference. They're not all homogenized, they're not all one person. Correct. There's people that really want to go there because the content's great, like let's hope so. The programming's amazing, there's diversity, they're gonna hear something new. Yes, not the same government speakers doing the same speech again and again and again, and but we'll leave that until one tonight. And then there's other people that are like are there because their companies tell them they have to be there. Yes, and then there's others that might just be passing by or something like that. I don't know, but just as three quick types of examples, you've got to address each of them. Yes, yes and like one mode doesn't suit all. No, there's different characters and different or different personas in different ways that are attending for different reasons.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Exactly. And that's really interesting about understanding your your customer segments. And I was chatting for a previous, you know, for an episode recently with Karen Clydesdale, the head of CX at the Australian Open, and they've got really clear customer segments around people, I can't remember them off the top of my head that, but you know, the people that just want to go and watch the tennis, the people that are there for the socializing, that you know, so within each one, you've got different customers, and I think people forget that when it comes to experience. And I was saying to KC around automated check-in at a hotel, I like to speak to someone when I get to the hotel. I'm tired, may have traveled far, just want to see, you know, I don't want to have to work out a key lock or a system. I want a person in front of me. I'm happy to do the automated checkout, but want someone there. But then there are people who would just want to race in, do the automated check-in.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

So it's it's choice and having it's that persona work that helps you give better customer experience. Yes, yeah. And like, why is it that it's only the fancy hotels? You know, I've been lucky enough to say it's some of the the best. And I was recently in the Rich Carlton and Riyadh. Like, why are they the ones that show you to your room? Yes. It's like that just removes it. Like, because these hotels are kind of large. Yes. I mean, I don't know. If you're in the smaller hotels, you probably figure it out. But once it gets to that point where it's a little larger, you just you you it's probably taken a long time to get there, particularly in the international ones.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

You you probably need to do things when you get there. So you just want to get that done so you can free up the experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yeah. And you were just talking about like disembarking from cruise ships. And, you know, I'm keen to talk about that because I always find, and I was saying this to Casey, you know, the the airport experience, there is so much pre so much built around the pre-boarding. But when you disembark, you're on your own, correct. And it's like, good luck, you know, hope your bag comes out on the carousel and no one takes it, you know. So it's all this high security and high interaction and personal stuff, and there's nothing at the other end.

Registration Pitfalls And Simple Fixes

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Isn't it fascinating? Like, like the general model is you have a more voluminous area when you're doing the the check-in and the onboarding, but the debarking is more compressed and small. Yes, yeah. It's almost, I mean, I could I'm sure we can all imagine, and all the listeners can imagine. Like, there are places, you know, like you're arriving at, I don't know, Bucharest or Prague or LA or New York, where it's it's it almost brings up a bit of fear, like what's going on, who's gonna rip me off? Absolutely. How is that a good experience? Yes, but even even dare I say Sydney, like it's not great. Yeah, it's not great. I have I have hope, I have absolute hope that the new Western Sydney Airport, and let's just take a moment to remember, thank you, Tony Abbott, for breaking the cycle. I mean, it's hard to believe, but he was the prime minister that permitted the federal land to be used for it. And let's not let's just park that for a side. But Western Sydney Airport's opening next year. They've got an opportunity now to get a lot of this right. Yes, and you know, a lot of the visitors that come to a city, their first impression of a city is that airport. That's right. A lot of it's not adequate. No, who does it well? Singapore. Singapore does it brilliantly. Hong Kong, great, Qatar, Qatar, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Excuse me. It's the Sydney Air has given me a tickle in the throat, and I'll say Qatar. You know, you walk out, well, within the airport. Sorry, Doha, yeah, in the airport. And I mean, I was in Doha in 2006 for the Asian Games, and the airport was nice, but it's nothing to what it is now. They've invested the biophilic design in there of that calmness. And you know, you can there's little pods that you can sit in amongst the trees, and it just changes the whole weight.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I mean, let's just put up, you know, I get it's just it's like therapy to talk about it, but smart gates? I don't know if they're they're probably at Melbourne. Yes, yes, yes. Like they're not working, like we need to replace them. How and you know, like again, I I hold Singapore up as the gold standard. Yeah. Somehow they can look at the manifest of the plane and anticipate, again, it's an anticipatory space. Like, we've got so many people coming, therefore, we need so many people to do the check-in.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

We can anticipate the volume of people coming to reduce the amount of queuing to go through. And then the opposite is like LAX, where I don't know if you've ever arrived there at 6 a.m. and it's not good. Not good. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

But that do you know what that just reminded me of a Kentiki tour? I shouldn't say I wrote all these notes, but I I I don't even know if I'll get to them because we're off and running, and I'm loving this. We might have to bring Darren back for season two. Oh I remember doing a Kentiki tour of the Northern Territory when I was like 22, and we stopped at this roadhouse, you know, kind of from Alice going up to Darwin. So this roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. But and we all arrived, and it was, I mean, I've never seen people so flustered. It was called the Rock Hard Cafe. I remember that, and I thought that was hilarious. But we were like, hang on.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

It was from Brandon. Correct, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yes, they'd got around the uh licensing. But we were all like, hang on, every two weeks, they will this Kentucky bus would arrive. Right. You know, the Kentuck tour doesn't change and there's nowhere else to stop. So this is not a surprise that but it was like, oh my gosh, a bus has just arrived, quick, you know, run around. And even as you know, backpackers and 20-year-olds, we're like, but hang on, this wouldn't that they should have anticipated that this will happen each time.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yeah, like when you think about it from that that the user experience, the customer experience, like how often do we hear the discussion about like how do we get people to buy tickets early? And you know, like it, you know, that now they're selling tickets for concerts, you know, a year and a half in advance and all the rest of that. It is what it is. Yeah. Wouldn't those people that are doing all those things kill for like a manifest of certainty? Like, these are the people that are coming. Yes. So the Contiki people would know how many people are on bus, they would know the schedule, they would know they can anticipate missed opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Missed opportunity. Maybe it's improved since then.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Well, it's memorable though, isn't it? Well, correct.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Exactly, yes. There's a lot of memorable things.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

It's like it's like when I went over to the UK in that was a long time ago, late 80s, and for the first time as like a very young, just out of high school, I remember the I'll never forget this. The immigration guy there, he said, welcome home to the mother country. And I thought, wait a second. That's where my republicanism really was engaged.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Can I just say they still do it? I've had it not that long ago. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Oh, I've got so many good friends in Britain, but they need to work on that shortly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

But it is it is interesting that, yeah, that first point. Well, it's not the first point in the customer experience because the c, you know, if we're talking about air travel, it starts with when you've booked when you go to book your ticket and that kind of journey. But the physical customer experience is so big on what your experience is and what your perception is. You know, we were talking before we came on air about the Atlanta Olympics, and anyone who lived, you know, sort of can remember the Atlanta Olympics, it got a lot of bad press for being a tricky Olympics. But I know various people who worked there and worked in different places, and they all had a different view of it. But it's it's what that perception is, and it can really taint it if that first port or you know, port entry and point of call just completely throws you.

Personas, Choice, And Hospitality

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Oh, absolutely. And like if we can talk a little bit about that anticipatory space, like the I I find one of the most, if not the most, exciting is that anticipation. It's like for my kids, it's that expectation before Christmas and opening the presents and stuff like that. It's the anticipation you've made an investment. Yes, you've made an investment in the ticket to do the the cruise or the flight or the or the concert or the event or the conference or whatever it might be. It's and so you you're invested, you've committed time, you've you're gonna do this. And then it's up to the producers, the owners of the event to help make it like they're surely they've not the first time they've done it, surely they've captured some data of frequently asked questions, surely they can be anticipatory on their side to anticipate the questions and the needs. When they do that right, it's wonderful. I'll never forget my my mother, who all her life saved up to do circumnavigation cruise on the Sun Princess of Australia. Yes. And what Princess Cruisers were doing is she booked it a year in advance, and they said, like, six months, you've got six months to go, you've got three months to go, you've got two months. Yeah, yeah. They sent her little, like, not too much, not too little. It's the Goldilocks of market. It wasn't spammable. Correct. It was like they gave little nuggets of frequently asked questions, sort of information, like when you get to Milne Bay, you can do this, this, and this. When you get to Darwin, you can do that. And it just built up the whole experience for her. And I remember listening to her talk about, and even afterwards, they said, it's now been a month since your cruise. How do you reflect on it? Do you I thought this is brilliant?

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Absolutely. One, I think, country that does the well, not the disembarking, it does the departure well, is Japan. Right. Because they stand on the tarmac and the ground crew wave. And I'd forgot, I mean, I'd read about it, but I'd completely forgotten about it. And my partner and I were in um Japan at Christmas just passed and New Year, and we were flying from Hiroshima to Seoul. And thankfully it was daytime. So we could and he said, look out the window, and there they are all for the listener. I'm waving my hand, I'm doing a visual here, all waving, and that stays with you, you know. And my sister is in Japan at the moment, and I need her to take a photo of the ground crew waving because what a simple thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

I haven't noticed that. I'll have to do it next time in Japan.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

I thought it was a bit of an urban myth, but no, there they were, all waved. I couldn't get my camera fast enough.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

If I may, the counter of that is the uh the gay the travel experience on Eva Air from Taipei. I remember I once, and I'll never forget this, it was memorable from the wrong reasons. I was doing Taipei LA, and they booked me on the EVA Air flight, which was the Hello Kitty theme. And it made me so I got I almost became aggressive. Like it was so overwhelming. Like everything from the physical ticket to the outfits of the staff to the boarding gate to the plane to the food to everything was Hello Kitty. And I was like, this is too much.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

And but never I mean, it is a sensory overload, you know. Whereas Japan, I think, has like we went on a couple of themed-ish trains, but it was just enough. I one of the funniest flights my partner and I have been on was Boxing Day. Now it was like a 7 a.m. flight. So we'd had to get up at, I think, 3:30 a.m. to get the 4 a.m. bus to the airport. And it was Reykjavik, Iceland, to Dublin.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

And we were, you know, my partner's like, what? What were you thinking? Booking a flight at this time. I'm like, I don't know. It was the only time I could get. But we get to the um to, you know, Reykjavik Airport's very nice. It's a massive hub. It's I didn't realise it's such a central air hub to America. It's so, you know, a lot of people just sort of fly through Reykjavik. But we get no idea. We get to the plane. I think we had to walk up the stairs. I don't think it was an airbridge. And the flight attendants. And I mean, I can't think who were flying. It was a nice airline. But they were just obviously as thrilled to be on the flight as we were. And they were just standing chatting. And we we were the first one. We literally, I don't even think they looked at our ticket. I mean, the gate people must have. And I think we ended up saying, should we just show ourselves to our seat? And it was the I mean, it was very relaxed. But we still laugh about that. That they, I mean, they weren't even at the front door, they were just standing chatting in the seats, not in a kind of Ryanair kind of way. I mean, they were beautifully dressed and you know, lovely. I'm not saying poor old Ryanair, but you know, it wasn't it wasn't a budget airline, but it was just the strangest experience because you're so used to getting to, you know, they look at your tickets, say repeat your name, you know, welcome, or you know, yeah, it's like a security procedure.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Yeah, no, I'm sure you don't end up in Austria when you're going to Australia or some you know, it reminds me of when we worked, when I was touring the Cirque du Soleil Grand Chapiteau, the the big shows around the world, one of the things that we did is we always engage local staff.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

So and the one of the reasons we did that is because they spoke the same language as the customer. They, you know, just made a lot of sense. Yeah. And and I kind of think if if I was given the task to improve the user experience at the airport arrivals, I would make sure that I had a whole range of of the most common passenger nationalities and language, multilingual staff there. Yeah, because if you can't speak the language, you're really in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Absolutely. I I want to hear more about touring cirque de Soleil around. So it's pretty amazing. Yeah. What I mean that and talk about a show with sensory. I mean, I remember the first Cirque du Soleil I went to, apart from taste, it felt like every sense was, you know, I could feel it through the floor, you know, you could see it, it was the noise, it was just it, I mean, it was a lot. And it was the first time Cirque du Sleigh, I think, had been to Australia. How do you uh I mean, what was your role? And what's the role of sort of customer experience in a show like that that itself can be really overwhelming?

Airports, Arrivals, And Anticipation

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah, I I was um, I forget the title. It was like senior production manager. I was production manager. I was one of the the code. Code means the the collection of directors on the tour. So I was myself, the the let's the company manager, the HR manager, the front of house person, uh and security. And like we were all we were a code. We were all and we're all it was very collaborative. Yes. And what we did as members of the code is we were the director on duty. So even though my role was the technical and production side, looking after the oh, and the artistic director, of course. Haled Marion, if you're listening to this, and or Neela, and we rotated being the directors on duties. That was the director responsible for every performance. Like you are the director on duty, you were responsible for everything, yes, from the customer experience to the performers to the evacuation of emergencies, the everything. So you just had to be good at it. And I had that experience from working at the Sydney Opera House before that, and then at the Royal Opera House before that, etc. etc. And so you just own the experience. And what the culture told us at Cirque du Soleil was don't fight the little things. If people don't like their coffee, just give them a free one and a cup of coffee. Yeah, it's like don't fight the little things, make the experience good. We control, like we invested a lot in not a survey uh post-event, but like talking to people, not in a survey sort of way, just just speaking to the customers and asking them like, how did you like the show? What could have made it better? Like just a couple of targeted questions. Yes. And over time they built up a good database across the world. So we got a good feeling for the passengers. Oh, sorry, passengers, the customers. You know, we the the plumbing of the toilets was the most valuable thing that the that the audience enjoyed. Yes. That was nobody should suffer a chemical toilet. Yes. So we toured our own in America and hired plumbed toilets. And yes, yes, we put like a 20 to 1 ratio at female toilets. Because no, we can solve these things. Yes. So we did all that to improve the experience. And a simple thing, I remember never forget this. The simple thing was we just made a sign on an A-frame at the end of it and said, thank you. Thank you for coming. Yeah. And people remembered that.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

It was wonderful. And that's it, because I think sometimes when people hear customer experience, they think it's going to be big budget and it's got to be all this science. And obviously there is research and data and science, but it's the little things. It can be the smallest things that actually have the biggest impact.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

That's right. And there were they had some advantages. They'd worked out that the Grand Chapiteau with the big tops from C to 2,700 seats, 10 shows a week. You do the math. It was a very low break in. It's really great. We invested a lot in our HVAC, the heating ventilation and cooling, to maintain the temperature for the safety of the performance, but also the user experience. Yes. 20 to 21 degrees Celsius was what it was. And it was we made it a comfortable experience. Yes. So that that wasn't your focus. Your focus was on relax, enjoy the show. The conceit of the show was that you weren't burdened by language. Everyone could understand what was going on or would release the necessity of their brain to understand what what light from yonder window broke. No, no. Yes. Oh, this is you know, this is a character remembering his life from his perspective at the funeral. That was Cortea.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Yeah. Wow. And as you're talking, it just, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to find it on my phone, but it just made me think a few years ago, it was after COVID, event colleague and I went down to the for now, I've got to remember what year it is, the Formula One motorcycle down on Phillip Island. Yeah. Might have been 21, 21. And, you know, it was one of the sort of first events back. And they had, and I'm just scrolling through my too many photos here, but the it was the sign on the welcome marquee, and it wasn't called like help desk, it wasn't called welcome. No, I'll have to look for it in a bit. But it was just the way that changed the language automatically drew you in and went, oh, they're going to look after me and they're going to help me. And you know, that's an event that's, I mean, I think I have referred to it as a paddock, which is a bit crude. You know, it is on Phillip Island. It's a racetrack, you know, and it's all grassed areas, it can get really muddy, it's at the end of the year. And toilets is, and it you know, there's a joke in an event group that I'm in about the fact I'm always fascinated by toilets.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

And are there enough? What type they are, all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

All the backs.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Exactly. And, you know, the the crowd is not 90% men, but it is a higher ratio of males. But we still had to queue as females at the toilets. Not good enough. But they had a screen.

unknown 29:49

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

So while you stood like a with showing the racetrack. So while you were queuing, you were just watching the track. Somebody well, I don't know if it happened by accident. I I'd like to think that thought about it, but I thought, how simple. Because the time went, you didn't even notice you were in the queue because you were busy watching. And that's what you're there. You want to see the motorbikes. And if you get taken away by standing in a queue, you're getting A, you need to go to the toilet, but you just want to get back to the action. You don't want to miss out. Correct. And you're and if they can bring a screen a portable screen in and you just watch the televised footage there.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

I mean, hopefully you solve those queuing systems that we talked about in 3D, but if you can't or you've got issues with that, then yeah, improve the improve the experience so they're not missing out. It reminds, I don't know a lot about the the motorcycle on Phillip Island, but I I know about Bathurst. Oh, yes with the the car race up there.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yes, yes, Mount Panorama.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Mount Panorama. Yeah. And like that's a great model for the investment by the local authorities and the state in event infrastructure. Yeah. It used to be a really, really bad user experience. Like it was pretty possible. It was tin sheds. They couldn't even, there wasn't enough even space for the pits, you know, the the um the car pits. And so they invested in the event infrastructure to improve both the user experience of the races. Yes. Yeah, the pits are custom made, and the community, the people, the attendees. And what do you know? It's it was designed so that the community can use it outside of racing times to enhance the experience. And now it's a really pleasant, easy experience. I hope I I kind of believe that's what happens at the Australian Open as well. Very yes. Hopefully they can do that on a Philip Island.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yeah. Well, I've just found the photo and the marquee, the heading just said here to help. Wow. That was it. Wow. I know, instead of sort of, you know, help desk or information, here to help. I mean, I um remember because I think language is so important in our experience. Yeah, going to it was actually the same site visited the ICC where people had the paddles. We went, oh, they look good. Is there was a conference on.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

And they had a pull-up banner and it said, for any issues or difficulties with the app, come here. Oh wow. Well, what correct, but automatically you're like, oh, so there's issues and difficulties with the app. And just it was like that was setting up the negativity in that if they just changed the language slightly.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Here to help.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Here to help, here to help.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

It reminds me, yeah, it's another negative, but again, South by Southwest, the big flagship event up here in New South Wales, and you buy the tickets to attend from the ticketing people, and then somehow they communicate with the event organizers to send you a code that then gives you access to the app. You without access to the app, you can't get full visibility on the programming. Yes. I'm sure you can understand why this is a problem. Yes. So yeah, I'm sure the good people that organize it are taking notes and fixing this in the future.

Cirque Lessons: Own The Whole Experience

SPEAKER_00 33:01

And it and it comes back to also understanding, you know, when people are logging on and when people are going to access that. And certainly with any hybrid or online things we've done, we know human behavior. People just want to log on five minutes before it starts. And I'm that person, right? Where's that email with the log on details for this? But what we would always try and do is we try and do is get people to log on as early as possible. And we would track the percentage because what it meant is okay, they're on the system, they haven't had any issues getting in. Because what we don't want is a thousand delegates at 10 to 9 on the first day, all trying to get in. And and you know, most don't have an issue, but it's so you know, working out, okay, if we can get them on here, give them an incentive of why you should log on. And again, Georgina, that's that anticipatory space.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

You're thinking ahead. You've you've thought about the problems that could happen, maybe from lessons learned. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Again, it works when you what browser to log on.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Have you checked these settings? You know, we would kind of have our FAQs of what we know people will come to us with the issues so that we could easily troubleshoot.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

But big believer in debriefs that cracked from FAQs from before and posts script lessons, and they should and then even more.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

So look at that debrief the next year.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Right. What about the debriefs that go in the drawer? My brain just went there. I sort of got a bit depressed in my thinking. Because a lot of council events, what happens is there's usually this council shuffle of event producers that happens towards this time of year and the beginning of the tenders go out. I've got a lot of friends working in councils, but you know, it's the same five events that they do per year, maybe six, and and they sometimes call them major events. And and you know, they'll they'll they're basically you know, they're they're quite busy, their demands are pushed to so many different places, and then it comes up and it's like, oh yeah, in six weeks we've got that event. We better pull the file out again. Yes, yep. And they just it I it feels to me from and I say this from experiencing the events as a as a customer, as a participant, yeah. A lot of the times they just do what's done before because they're under-resourced, yes, they haven't had the time to like think about and answer those questions. They probably need it you in there.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Well, I'll give them my number. There you go. Um, but it's it's it's we find with um you know different experiences that we work on that you've you've got to innovate, you've got to have enough fresh, yeah, but you've got to have enough of the old as well because people come back for a reason. Yeah, but if it's too similar, they're gonna say, Look, I don't need to go next year. I'll sit next because I went last year, maybe I'll go in a few. So it's that balance of having enough of the new, but enough of the old that gives them that familiarity of why they go to that event.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

And I'll do a positive, we should do a positive as well. Hats off to the team that do Lacemba Nights in um Halden Street in Lacamba, which is one of the purple flag precincts. Right. We can talk more about that if you like, but they do a really good job for incremental improvement with uh you know working with the community and making that good. And another, so hats off to the team there, Brad Canterbury Banks Town Council. Yes. And the other one is and and I and you know, City of Parramatta by Lightville LGA. Yes. They did something very interesting this year for their flagship event, Laneware. I think it's quite old now and tight and probably needs to be refreshed, shall we say? But what they did, again, I I haven't spoken to any of the organizers, they're very hard to get to talk to, but I spoke to some of the counselors, and what they did is they they did a curation of the social media influences of the different cuisines of the cultures within the diaspora. Wow. So the people that live in the communities had like, you know, so many Greek, Italian, liberal, etc. etc. And then they got the influencer that speak to those communities and then did pop-ups from those restaurants. And I thought, well done guys. So that was really it was an interesting place. Yes. There were flaws in it because there wasn't enough bathrooms again. It always comes back to the things that we're all gonna need, especially with kids, like going up to the top of the car park. Yeah. And then having to, you've got a food order in and you're queuing, and then you have to go, there's no bathroom, but you have to go down the bottom and you've lost your food and all the rest of it. And but the other thing they did, unlike previous years, is they that somebody thought about the flow of people through Parramatic Square, which is the Walker Corporation's um billion dollar investment, bit of a wind tunnel, bit of a heat sink. Yes, they're slowly improving it. Yeah, and they didn't have like the main egress being cut off by cues this time. So kudos to them, they got it better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

I love that. It just made me think of actually leaning into behaviors and not fighting against the way a space works. One thing I saw in Japan when we were at Tokyo station, about to, you know, jump on the Shinkansen. And I mean, gosh, it you can talk about customer experience with the Shinkansen, it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

You know, you buy a little bento box and you know it's a whole thing like that.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

But Georgina, sorry, how confusing is it, especially if you haven't done it before, that when you get on the Shinkansen, you need two tickets. So you get the ticket for the train, and then I think it's the ticket for the seat. And this is just mind-blowing. You have to put one on top of the other to stick it into the machine, and that is not intuitive. You know, why would you help?

SPEAKER_00 38:35

You know, but I just didn't even attempt it. I would just go to the where the ticket box was and just plead, you know, dumb going, I don't know what to do here. But uh, yes, actually, that I had completely forgotten about. I think I'd wiped that from my brain. And I would be the holder of all the documents. So I'd be like, which ticket goes with which ticket? And are we on the right carriage and which number? And but I remember there were stairs at Tokyo Station, which obviously people sit on. So they've made half the stairwell with planter boxes and a deliberate seating area. No, so you and the barrier. Correct. So you still had the the side of the stairs that you walked down, but you had the one, and it was like they had lent into what the behaviors of how people use that seat.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

So instead of you walking down zigzagging amongst people who've decided to perch on these big steps as their seats, that actually trans, well, I'm assuming it's so simple.

Toilets, Temperature, And The Little Things

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Well, it reminds me of a lot of the trade shows I go to where they where the focus from the event organizers is all on like get as many people in as we can to cover our costs and make money and all the rest of it. The user experience is often overlooked for a lot of the things we've already talked about. But one basic thing just let people have somewhere to sit and to gather. Yes. Maybe a baguette or a croissant and coffee, you know, maybe just gathering clusters to sit around the trade show floor.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Oh, that cafe little pop-ups, and it's happening. I think do you know what I think has really improved that? And I saw it a bit at the meeting show is though in London there's the pop-ups, and I mean it's at a lot of trade shows, but the headphones, you know, so you can like the silent disco headphones. Right, right. So you can have these little pop-up workshops, plenary sessions in the middle of anywhere. Yeah, and everyone can just sit on their little cardboard, yeah, you know, stools with their headphones on and kind of network, but have that space to sit because people just want places to sit.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Yeah, and it's very effective. I used to we did that at the uh for the Amazon World Service Forum at the Horton Burlium with George P. Johnson a few years ago, and that was the first time I'd done it, and it was so effective. Yes. I recently went to one, I won't name that, and they had like let's say there was you know the typical uh trade show floor layout, they had four different speaking areas. Yep, three of them had the headsets on for the talkers, the speakers, the presentations in smaller groups. Yep. Very good, very good. One of them didn't, and the speakers on that were so loud that it just went went over the whole thing. I'm like, what'd you do? Run out of headsets? Like it's just bad.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Why wouldn't you do it? Yeah, and uh that just took me, it gave me a flashback to another part I saw in a trade show, and they'd done a censoring quiet space, and I went perfect because these trade shows are overwhelming. You've probably got appointments, you know, every 15 minutes, you're exhausted. That was aim, wasn't it? Yeah. This one was even I mean, aim does spread you out and you get breaks, but this one, which I went to overseas, wasn't it was pretty It was crazy. Like, I mean, it was just too much. And and then you've got, you know, the local tourism bureau from this region decides to have the DJ pumping out heavy beats. And what we know about music is, you know, what music does to our moods and to our brains. It's like, why is someone not just playing some classical music? Which would actually just harm us down and actually Atlade Airport the other week has some pop-up music thing. And and that's great. And it's near the departure lounge. There's a it's next to the piano. They've got a DJ. But she's, you know, everyone's a little rattled at the airport. And I thought, oh, I mean, I love her music. I'm just not sure that's what we want to be playing here while everyone's getting a little edgy. But the quiet space at, I mean, they did have a little room, but outside they had a in theory, it all was great. A patch of grass, or you know, astroturf, some deck chairs.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

Sensory.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Sensory. But it was pretty much in the middle of a walkway.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

So A, it wasn't quiet, but B, you kind of would have felt like you were, I don't know, watching people at, you know, Brighton Pier walking back and forth along the thing. So it's thinking about an exhibition. Correct. You can't just say I'm going to create a relaxation space. It's got to be where are you putting it? Can people find it?

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Where does it feel like it? You really do. That investment in time to think about it will pay off. Yeah. It's so right. You remind me as well of this other one with the headphones and the three that did and the one that didn't. They also, it was in the ICC and they turned up the lighting to be like surgical light. As if you're in an operating theater. So like mood and feeling influenced by not just the sound that should be curated. It should be, and maybe it's not one thing. Maybe it's multimodal. Yes. Maybe different types, like the cafe rush at the beginning and the end of the day are perhaps too different feeling within a uh a modal sort of thing. But also the lighting. And also, yeah, and I mean I work a lot with the amazing Tammy Bernstein with her scent work. She's a scent curator, and I highly recommend her work, scented storytelling. Wow. Which is just brilliant. It just adds memory making.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Absolutely. And scent is our strongest scent. Scent is our strong smell is our strongest sense.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

And memory inducer.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Correct. So we recall longer and stronger from scent rather over visual. That's right. I was walking, I keep talking about Japan, but Japan just throws up so many things. But there we were walking along the Philosopher's Trail in Kyoto. And I spotted this little shop and it said, what was it? I'll have to find it. Because admittedly, it wasn't very busy, which did upset me because I thought, oh my God, the it the everything they are doing is what I often talk about. But it was it was around scent. And I'll try and find the photo. I snap everywhere we go, I'm snapping photos to here. We go. It was called Flashback Passport, Memory Mist and Fragrance Mist Shop, it becomes the scent of your journey.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

So you could create. But for the listener, I'm showing Darren the photo. Oh, look at that. Isn't it wonderful? I mean, it was tucked away on, you know, in this quiet little street. Yeah. So flashback. So they're all. Well, you must have been able to, we didn't have time to swap in, but create your own scent that you could just take. I mean, it's like, you know, the scent that hotels put out and all that sort of. But I loved that because I thought, yes.

Trade Shows, Quiet Spaces, And Sound

SPEAKER_01 45:17

I see you that and raise you. Well, I love it. An experience in the early 2000s down in South Beach, Miami. I just, I mean, I, you know, I love the my background's in theatre and practical theatre particularly. So the word apothecary sort of grabbed me. And I was like, what is this store? And it was a store in the the mall, the outdoor mall walking mall in South Beach, yes, Miami. And it was an apothecary. And I went in there and I said, like, what what hello? Hello. I'm Australian. I have no idea. What are you talking about? Oh no, we make sense for you. Would you and you know they sort of, it was a bit, I don't know, you had to be brave. They're like, may I spell you? Yes. And they spelled me when they made a scent, and like, here you go. And I was like, they didn't charge you like, you know,$5,000. It was like for 20 bucks, you can get this scent, you can just wear it today, and it'll be good for you. We're talking about it now. I know it's 20 plus years later. Exactly. It's memorable. Yes. I also remember, you know, kudos to the Penrith City Council, Penrith uh Western Sydney. All roads lead to Western Sydney at the moment. And they do a wonderful festival. I'm sorry, I've forgotten the name of it right now, out on the Penrith, out of the river out there. And I remember at the they engaged the library from the council. Like you don't often see them at the festival. No. The library came out and they had, you know, books that you could borrow, an easy sign-up system. Yes. But they said it was called Literary Cures for Your Ailment or something like that. And I thought this is interesting. And it said, like, gave you some choices so you could react to it better for choice making. What is your ailment? You know, are you feeling happy, sad, angry, confused, or whatever? And they had multiple choice sort of cards and a person to talk to you. Yes. So, Georgina, what ails you today? Yes. And then they said, Well, we prescribed these books to you. Yep, yep. And you didn't have to hire their books. You might look it up online or put it on your Kindle or something like that. And I thought, brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

I absolutely love that. And in fact, one of my earlier episodes, I was at Mr. B's Emporium, which is an award-winning independent bookstore in Bath, and they do a book spa, a biblio spa, I think it's called. And you sit down with someone and you just chat about the books that you like, and then they prescribe. It's so wonderful. It's so good. Oh, my head is going in all sorts of directions around.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Another, I will give another notation on that. My good friend Jaclyn Hall. Jaclyn Hall presents. When we were doing the Sydney New Year's Eve, I did the I was an event manager for the first five years. Well, the five years of it from 99 onwards to 2005. And one of the things that we did, it's funny how things are going fine. Yes. This year the vivid people put an activation in Martin Place to draw people away from the sort of crowd pressure. I won't call it a crush crowd pressure down. So we weren't doing that on New Year's Eve back in the day. We used to activate Hyde Park. Yes. And Jaslin brought a concept called the chai tent. Tea drinks. And it was hello. It was kind of like the quiet space. It was just a place to chill out, have a cup of tea. It looked like an Arabian Bedouin style lounges, sit down, have a have a free, like free. Can you imagine this free cups of tea and a little bit of cake or something, or dates or something like that? And I thought, I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

It was just so wonderful. So simple. We've so simple. We've put at our conferences what we call the haven, if we can, if there's access to space. And we say somewhere where you can check your emails, because the reality is you have to check your emails when you go to a conference. Probably want a power as well. Correct. Don't make people feel guilty about trying to. So we'd say, you know, place to check your emails, take some time out, check in with home.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

And they can it doesn't have to be elaborate. It's just around the wording and the messaging that you've got a space, powerboards, and sometimes putting it all on a communal table creates the networking people want. I mean, I've had some of my best networking sitting at a workstation in on an expo floor, plugging into the power, working on my laptop, and suddenly I'm chatting to the people either side of me. And you know, so it's you remind me of AIM.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

So I went, yeah. I mean, the two most impressive sort of trade shows that I've seen experience uh in the last year was AIME in Melbourne in what was that, February?

SPEAKER_00 49:42

February, yes.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

I went down, I was uh guest speaker for the Eventful Life guys, Shane and Brad. Cuddos for them. I'd love to come down and be on your panel. Anyway, and I I got access to the like the buyer's lounge. Oh, the hosted buyer's lounge. We love the hosted buyer's lounge. Yeah, and like I just what I just it was it was like a performance art. Yes. Like in the morning, they're all revved up and ready to go, and then you just saw the battery, the power bank like power down. These people, and they had the DJ playing the music and all that.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

You get kitty cats often in there, yes.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

You've got five one minute, five minutes, and they were like speed dating. That's how I relate to it. It is. The bell goes and you've got to move to your next appointment. Yeah. And I caught up with these people at intervals, and the shall we say, the more experienced buyers said, like, oh no, I'm not a, I forget what the terms are, paid buyer. Like, they didn't pay for the post-quarters. Yes. I'm the self-managed buyer. So I'm not obligated to make all those pressure sales. Yeah. And I talked to both of them, I said, like, do you remember the first one today? No, not really. I mean, that's the psychology of the experience. The other really amazing one, the really impressive one. And it's impressive for participation. Like participation in AIM, the organizer of that do an incredible job. Oh, correct. Just brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Like and we we're so spoiled in Australia because I've been to many trade shows overseas. And you know, we all sort of go, oh, AIM, you know, the app doesn't work all this. But it is unbelievable when you realize what they do compared to what you get at other ones. Well, I recommend it. And each year AIM improves. Right. You know, and they do, and I'm, you know, often bump into Matt Pierce because he lives near me. We often have a little chat, and it's there's so much science. They do think about that floor plan. Yeah. They think about the matching system. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Yeah, very good. The other one I'll recommend to you is the I forget what it's called, but it's like the space one, the astronautical one that was in Sydney. Oh, which was really impressive. Like that was so AIM is like all the tourism authorities, all the states, I mean, including, you know, LA and Hong Kong and Hundred and all that. Yes. The space one was countries, like country space programs. That was at the ICC. That was really impressive. Really, really interesting. I will say, and this might be a little controversial. So, one initiative that I've been asked to create and I've created is the Australian Events Industry Collective, which seeks to be the peak industry body representing the entire events industry diaspora. Which has come out of many conversations about underrepresentation of the majority of the events industry, which is a sole trader in small businesses. And I remember we were down there and we were doing a little survey, just asking people, like, you know, would you you know we had some iPads and all that, and I remember the ABEA people got very upset. They didn't like that. They don't like people stepping on their turf. And they asked me, they said, Why are you doing this? I said, Well, you know, we've got a lot of feedback and a lot of conversations that happened that have and we were just asking the questions to the audience there, and at many other places, like, do you feel represented? Yes, how do how is the industry serving you, etc., etc.? And the answer is they weren't. They didn't the$10,000 entry point to ABEA was off-putting. It didn't seem to give good value. I think there's a really good place for ABEA for that conference and trade shows to fill that world. But the events industry is far broader than that, much broader underrepresented.

Scent, Memory, And Micro-Delights

SPEAKER_00 53:13

Absolutely, gosh, you yes, you just took me back to a situation last year where we had exhibited at a conference, and it was the last day, actually, and I was talking before that before we came on air that we had these pamper packs. And by chance, the things, some of the things I ordered to go in the pamper packs arrived far larger. So we turned it around at our stall that people got a pamper pack, and then they could choose their bonus gift. Really? Bath salts, sleep spray, peppermint foot spray. And people were more excited about the and and we talk about this giving people a role, giving them, you know, that use your own adventure, they can curate their own experience. Exactly. And so they, you know, them in the pamper pack itself had some great stuff in, but they were more excited that they could choose this other bonus gift on the last day. You know, it's the end of the trade tour, you're trying to get rid of a bit of your stock. So I was walking around with my little pamper packs hanging off my wrist and giving them out to people. And I gave them to a delegate and I and then I said, Oh, can I scan your badge? And I said, Oh, you know, where are you from? And she said, Well, I'm from an event company, so you'll probably want this pack back. And I said, No, on the contrary, I think, you know, I mean, we're all of we're all working to have a stronger industry. And I said, Oh, you know, tell me about your event company. Well, we're the largest event company in such and such area. And I was like, Well, that doesn't really tell me what you do. But it was the the competition was so jolting compared to I think how every so many event people I met during COVID, we needed to collaborate and we continue to collaborate. And just last week I did a Famille to the Grampians region in Victoria. And we were just, I mean, it's it's a small, I won't say it's a smallish region, but it's very collaborative region for various reasons. And everyone seems to run seven, you know, the guy that runs a gelato, runs the smokehouse, runs the beer brewery or whatever. But it the collaboration when we went there, you know, it was, oh, if we can't host it, you know, he'll be able to host it at the brewery, but then we can take you at the caravan park and you know, because they've got glamping and they just packaged up experiences. It wasn't kind of like, no, you need to come to our hotel or no, you should only come here. And the experience for us as event managers, and that's I was there with my event manager hat on, is we just walked away going, well, we would want to work with this region because they work together. And you know, people sniff out if you're not working together. And people don't want the drama of not working together, you know.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Yeah. I mean, I don't, I mean, I I I do I've done some guest lecturing at some universities with events students, and sometimes they do projects and they design their ultimate conference and the ones that and I mean it's just a student exercise. Yes. And the ones where they say, you know, they'll have a partner program for the the trade show, the conference, but then they'll have like the the dinner, you know, the big ones, the big trade shows will be in in the restaurant at the conference center. And I'm like, Yes, guys, the last thing that you want to do as a delegate to these things is stay in the same place. If you've flown around the world to come to Melbourne, Melbourne has a lot more to offer.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

Correct, exactly. And I mean, anyone who has listened to an episode of this before knows my passion for natural light and biophilic design, and we get we, you know, these venues stick people in these windowless dark rooms that goes against everything we know about learning and creating these environments with surgical lighting, bad audio, and and just a sense of like rushing.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Exactly. I was up at the Novatel Sunshine Coast, Novatel, the old Novatel Twin Waters, and their conference space is indoors. Yeah, they have an amazing outdoor area, very old fresco, very with nature, but the conference rooms inside. We walk in and and they've got massive, they had three massive LED screens showing views of nature like windows. How easy? Because the research is you can even you just looking at a picture of biophilic design can still have that benefit. So they can't do anything. They can't, you know, the building's built, they can't change it. Yeah, but just by putting these amazing three landscapes of the Sunshine Coast on these LED screens, like they became windows, right? Changed the whole feeling.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Wonderful. I mean, at least they're thinking about they're trying something rather than giving up or conceding to the constraints of what they have.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

Exactly. Talking about participation, and I'm conscious of time, so we'll start to wrap up and we'll save all my note talking points for the next one. But I was really interested, you know, we've talked about theatre and sort of premium experiences and participation. You you had a post on LinkedIn. I just want to read out some of that post because I'm really interested in this, and it was around the most expensive seats aren't always the most memorable ones. We've been conditioned to think that premium cultural experiences mean perfect acoustics, plush, plush velvet and unobstructed views. But research from cognitive science reveals something counterintuitive. Passive consumption creates weaker memories than active participation, which we've sort of been talking about. When audiences move from spectators to participants, their engagement and recall dramatically increase. The brain processes active experiences differently, creating stronger neutral, stronger neural pathways and lasting memories.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Yeah, it it I mean it's so obvious, isn't it? From all we've been talking about and what we've experienced ourselves. A passive experience, like just having stuff, you know, vomited at you or thrown at you or sit, watch, do that. You might be in the most fancy seat that you've got. It doesn't it doesn't improve the experience if it's passive. Yes. And essentially what neuroscience tells us is that is a weaker neural connection. Whereas uh an active participatory one, it doesn't it doesn't have to be fancy. Yep. I mean, essentially it comes down to do you feel it's it's all the the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Do you feel safe? Do you feel welcome? Do you feel nourished? Do you feel and if you can add participation into it, it forms better neural pathways. The neural pathways are stronger, which can create memories.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

Which is amazing, isn't it? Because and and it just as I was reading that post, it there's um a Christmas Carol show, which is the latest. I mean, I think it's coming up to its fourth year in Melbourne, it's possibly in Sydney. It's from the new West End, well, new, you know, probably five years ago, the reinvented West End version. And spoiler alert, anyone who hasn't seen it, tune out now because I don't want to ruin it for you. But they have done it really well. So it's at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne. There's no participation that you get up on stage because that freaks people out.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

But when you're sitting in the seat, you have cast members dressed in Victorian era gear from the Charles Dickens, and they're taking a handing out mince pies. Wonderful. So you're sitting there, and then the cast slowly come out onto the stage and start singing. Yeah. And meanwhile, it's mandarins or oranges and mandarins and mince pies are being handed out. Which so you're sitting there going, this is good, and you're getting involved. Then during the show, they and it's a very witty, I'm not going to say reimagining, but there's some really fun parts. When Ebenezer decides, you know, when he comes good and says, you know, we've got to have Christmas, and he's like, We need this food and this food. And they have like a giant plastic turkey gets handed down, you know, from the back row right down to the front.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

Is it centered?

Participation Beats Passive Consumption

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

It's I'm trying to think it's the center, but they have sent it. We would have you would have sent it. They have fake snow coming out, and they have fake snow coming out of the theater when you come out onto the footpath after. Um, you know, there's a string of sausages, and everyone's like, you know, the sign me off. It's do you know what? So I've been, I'm going again for the third time. And I this the second time I went, we sat in the right seats. We were right where we needed to get involved. So even booking for this one, I said to my friend, I know what seats we've got to be in because this is where we need to get involved. But it I mean, I remember, you know, we took my dad. My dad he you know, he was a performer. He l you know, he had a band, and but put him in audience participation and he froze. He hated it. And we watched it a couple of times at movie where poor dad got pulled out, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

Oh yeah, don't pick me, don't pick me. Don't pick me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

But he could this one he absolutely loved because there was enough participation without you being embarrassed or hauled onto the stage in front of someone.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

That's absolutely wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. That's really I mean, sign me up. I want to go and do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

Oh, you it's it's the most magical show. Um and and I mean, I'm going for the third time. Nothing in the show changes other than the cast, you know, the main cast member usually is a well-known person. It was David Wenham the first year. I think it's Lockie Hume this year. Yeah. And it was, I can't think of his name, he was from Game of Thrones. Oh, but nothing changed. I'm I'm gonna get exactly what I've got the previous years, but I want to go, it it created a bunch of memory.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:33

Yeah, that's so good. I mean, that's that's essentially that's what I do in my work, which is you know, meaning designing events and and city experiences where people can touch and try and interact and be brave, co-create. I mean, sometimes like we have these visions, like I know the solution. Yes, but I've learned over my time my career, like when you're brave enough to collaborate, you may not be the expert at everything. I mean, I've certainly hell hell knows I'm not, but like when you're brave enough to collaborate, more magic happens. Yes, yep. So, you know, for example, the the theater setup where the audience members influence the outcome or have an experience like you described with a Christmas carol, yes, or a city artwork, you know, which is interactive. Yes, we become so precious about city artworks. Like Melbourne's got lots of really good art around, but it's like they're stuck in time. Like that's it, that's the thing. That's not I'm not talking about the sacred A C D laneway or whatever you've got down there, but I kind of feel like it doesn't, like it's just mural art. Yes, you could maybe capture it, record it, and paint over it for the next year. Yeah, it could be on a rotational basis, and then the mural art maybe next year you could light it up and maybe have the artist do a talk about it, like something like that. And maybe maybe it could be VR or AR or interactive in some way.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Or, you know, people come and all add their little bit, like there's so many ways, and and you're so right about the experiences, and I'm conscious we're coming up to clocking on an hour, so I will need to invite you back if you're okay to come back because I want to talk much about the city stuff. But you see the rise in experiences like the, you know, there was an Agatha Christie style one when I was in London. There's certainly ones in Melbourne, the jury experience, you know, where you inform the outcome of the play, and you become the jury. So you become involved.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:31

It's very much on trending at the moment as the you know, the term immersive is overused. I I will just say that I'd finish this on a thought, which is like those interactive participatory elements, the co-creation side. Yes, it it's the these create richer, more meaningful memories that deepen people's connection to culture. I mean, be brave to culture and to place. Yes. I mean, as I get older, the sense of community that came for me out of COVID is means more to me. You want to know your butcher, your baker, your killer maker. You want to feel part of your community, you want to be able to participate and do all those things. Anyway, there's a couple of really cool and innovative companies that you may have heard of, Secret Cinema, and Proach Trunk. Yes. Both of them exceptional leaders in that fully immersive experience. I went, I went to one that was a Star Wars experience. Oh, yes, which was in, you know, every the you know, that there are so many unused properties around our cities. Yes. Surely someone, the council, the state government, would be able to do a map of all the unused spaces. And as we talked about before the podcast, you know, often artists are lucky enough to get some grant money, but a lot of the grant funding just goes to renting a space, so they end up doing something on the street busking. Which that can be solved if with the grant came a space that they can use as part of the grant without costing the money from the grant. Anyway, with that, and so this is what Secret Cinema and and Punch Truck do. So with the Star Wars one, you were the pr the anticipatory stuff was like, you know, in in two weeks, in three weeks, in one month, you're coming up here, show your ID, you you show your thing, you get some tokens. Yes. So you go to buy things in the in a in a market on Tatooine. And then you can buy stuff, and then that led to another experience, to another experience. To you you get in and there's the Millennium Falcon. And then you go to you know, some other dagger bar or you pick the wrong thing, so you had like multiple experiences to bring people to come back. It's it's all on YouTube. I'm sure you can look it up. And do you know about Punch Strong then? No. Oh man, they are amazing. I'm writing them down. So Punch Drunk, dude, the probably the most famous one is called Sleep No More. I encourage everyone to check it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

So Sleep No More. Sleep No More in a warehouse sort of space as well. Yes. Oh, I won't tell you. Look it up. It's just brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant. Yeah. There's more to experience. I I will again be controversial to say that we are so beholden and stuck into a status quo maintenance of presentation of experience that we miss out on a lot, Nick.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:11

I agree. I have worked on a whole range of experiences and events. And I think sometimes people try and put a certain model over everyone. And you know, the Oz Open is kind of a classic example. And I, you know, have been down to Philip Isle and I've been to different ones, and people say, Oh, but the Australian Open say, but this isn't the Australian Open. You know, I mean, I've worked on farm experiences and working horse festivals. It it's got to be high quality, but it it doesn't need to be the Australian Open because that would actually be completely out of kilter with being on the farm and having these clients. Yeah. So, you know, it's it's you've you've each event has to be designed in keeping with where it is and what it's doing. Right. Not this kind of overlay of, well, this is what we've got to do at every event.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:59

Well, and Georgina also, again, controversial, perhaps. Not every event needs to live forever. Sometimes have a life a lifespan, maybe like that. That's that's enough of that. Correct, exactly. I would say Paramedalanes probably needs reinvisaging. I certainly think a re-envisaged paramasala, Southeast Asian celebration would be good for the community. Vivid probably needs a reinvention, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

And that's so, yeah, it's okay. But people kind of get very attached, and it is that kind of well, I think government's sort of risk-averse.

Immersive Theatre And City Activation

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

It's like known quantities. Yeah. I mean, let's be let's do a positive before weekend. There's some really exciting stuff that's happened in Sydney, I know. I think Melbourne and Brisbane. Yes. Where they've got the 24-hour economy people. Yes, yes. We've got Michael Rodriguez up here doing the 24-hour economy commissioner, and they've done this, they've they've got this data analysis publicly, publicly available. Data after dark, it's called. Yes. Absolutely fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:01

And it shows where people are spending, where people are moving. Yes. It's not perfect, it can be expanded. Yes. Particularly for movement of people, which, you know, for some reason the transport people in New South Wales are kind of locking that off. They'll they'll show you how many people checked on at a station, yes, but not where they went to. So it's interesting. But that will be improved, and that is such rich knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

Oh, absolutely. And I uh when Melbourne, obviously, you know, we experienced two lockdowns. More than anywhere else in the world. Well, I see that's a myth because yes, and I get very pretty.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

I've triggered you.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Melbourne, yeah, you have triggered me. Melbourne and our lockdowns. Because it's every there were longer lockdowns than us, but a varying levels. Right. So this is, you know, it's a hard one to map. Scotland had a really long lockdown. Singapore had a lock lockdown, but it was a different level of lockdown, probably. But when we came out, we bounced back faster than Sydney. So the foot traffic research was we came back much faster than the Sydney CBD. It was very clear we came back as a nighttime city.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

But you can't constantly, and I mean, I understand there's coffee shops and they need to make money, but we were fighting against the behavior of people coming back.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:17

We've got to restore the status quo.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

We've got to get paid people back in the day. I'm like, but why? And so I was back in the office pretty much straight away. And you would walk. I mean, I can remember walking out during the first comedy festival that was back, and our office is not far from the town hall. And I remember walking up little columns, and it was like the hot the city was heaving. It was unbelievable. You know, it's it's obviously changed a bit, but that was the first that was that bounce back one. But I kept thinking, why are we fighting against us being a nighttime city? Now, I can understand there's daytime people that need to, you know, they can't just make money at night. But it was, we were trying to restore the status quo without actually understanding the way the behaviors were moving.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:01

So then they invested in this big Christmas festival, and I'm a Christmas junkie, so you know, I heard it, I was there, I went to the presentation. But what I watched was people, families either drove in or caught the train, and it was it was at Fed Square to start with and kind of down sort of Birurang Ma. But so they'd either get out of the car or get off the train, go straight to the activation and go straight home. Oh. So yes, you were bringing people into the city, but they weren't, there was nothing to draw them and spill them out into the retailers or the venues and vendors that we were trying to get. So I find it really interesting on yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

It's kind of like why I don't like food trucks at community festivals. Yes, okay. Because every time, you know, you see, you know, I'm talking about a council, and then I spend a lot of time looking at these. And they, it's just a lack of planning, right? Yeah. The food trucks that are there, they're their own business, they have a right to exist and be in their own places, but they don't support local businesses. And isn't the responsibility of the councils to support local businesses?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:02

Yes. Darren, before we jumped on, we were talking about, well, and we've talked through it uh through here, around toilets and pathways. And I always my bugbear is when you go to a restaurant or a theatre sometimes, and you walk through the door that says bathrooms, and then you get into this long corridor, or you might have had to weave your way around, and there's men's, women's, hopefully unisex accessibility. That's all fine. You find your door, but then when you come back into the corridor, you can't remember which door to get back into the restaurant. And I always think it's a bit like the airport, you know, we have all these signs up until the main event, but then it's kind of you're on your own, find your way back.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:42

Well, that's right. Like somebody again, it all comes back to like it's not genius, right? It's pretty basic. Someone hasn't thought of the user experience, the customer experience. If you can place yourself as the customer, you can pre-visualise it either in your mind or with you know, a CAD thing, a render, then you can walk through and figure it out. Exactly. It's like that event in Fed Square. What was it called again? The band.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:08

Oh, am I in the siffers?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:10

Yeah, someone just didn't think about the flow of people, the volume of people, the managing the access potentially. Yeah. You've always got to think ahead of where are the pressure points, what are the decision points that people are going to make? You never lose if you invest the time in that.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:29

Exactly. And we all, you know, it's always looking at what are the hot spots, whether it's, you know, when people are seated in the restaurant or, you know, when people arrive at an event or when people walk into a store. I mean, I remember, you know, my job in uni was a Maya Christmas casual. And, you know, you had a week's training for, you know, a handful of shifts over Christmas. Like it was so, you know, thorough. But you know, it was back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:55

You made them feel better.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:57

Yes, we we were, you know, really good. But one thing about Maya, and I mean, I must go into Maya and see if they still do it, but once you had bought your item, and once again, listener, I'm doing a visual here, but they would hold up the bag. Yeah. So all you had to do was slide your hand in the handle of the bag and walk off. You weren't trying to grab it up off the simple. So simple. And it was just that friction point because you've probably got other bags. You're trying to put stuff in your purse, and by just holding it up, you know, at the sort of the corners, and all you have to do was slide your hand in that hand, the hole of the handle, and off you went. So simple. It cost any money.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:34

That's brilliant, right? Like there's just a simple bit of customer service. Yeah, right. Hospitality. Yes. It's it's like when the kid, again, coming back to the community events, the majority of events, festival style events that happen the council ones, they're happening every week, yes, all the time. Who's attending? It's it's a broad family diaspora to attend. And yet, so often the kids are only tokenistically catered to. Yes. Oh, there's a kid's tent or a couple of rides or that. Yes. The better councils are now saying when you are when you arrive, here are the children's area that has their own toilets. They're just sort of catered to. And here grab a wristband in case they get lost, so we'll be then able to identify them. But just cater to them a little bit. Exactly. And that and that allows the parents who probably are the ones spending the money, right? Yes. To then feel secure. Kids taken care of. So the diminishing responsibilities are catered to them. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:30

Kids happy, you'll be happy. Yes, exactly. And then you'll stay longer.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

That's right. Hopefully. You might dwell.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:35

You might dwell, you might linger and spend a bit more money.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:37

Pride counsel in again, I'm talking a lot about New South Wales, but that's where I have more experience. They do a wonderful event called Cork and Fork.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

Oh, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:46

And it it's they've done exactly those things. They've got plenty of places to sit down. They've got a kids leader to area. They've got child-minding staff that are there. They say if you've got your wristband, we'll take care of the children for you. Yep. Yeah, you're still in eyesight and all that sort of area, but it works.

Grants, Unused Spaces, And Secret Worlds

SPEAKER_00 1:16:03

It's just thinking through, isn't it? And I think for people designing these, like you say, putting yourself in the shoes, like looking at new, looking at your retail space, your hospitality, your doctor's surgery waiting room, your big event, whatever it is, with the eyes of the consumer and the customer. One of my big bugbears is thick carpet in hotels.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:26

Oh, why?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:27

Why do they have wheels? I mean, apart from the fact for anyone in a wheelchair, it's horrendous. And you know, we've I've done site visits with people in wheelchairs, and if the carpet's too thick, we've cross it off. But to try and wheel your suitcase, I mean, I'm the person that doesn't request a view. I request the room close to the lift because I don't want to have to haul my you know suitcase up and down some corridor on thick carpet. But it thick carpet goes against everything that a traveller needs. They want a they want a surface that they're they don't want it noisy because you don't want to feel like you're waking up everyone in the you know rooms that you're wheeling past with your big suitcase.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:04

This is fascinating to me. This is absolutely fascinating. I want to deep dive deep into that with you because those who hotels are usually in groups, right? Groups of hotels. The majority of them don't make that mistake. So whoever they are that's doing that sounds quite different to the other.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:19

Yes. And you know as soon as you get there, yeah. It's um the other when you we were talking about um Maya and then festivals and it made me think of wayfinding, you know, one thing we it was drilled into us in Maya. Now, for anyone who's worked at Disney, I know this is different, but we could never point. It was an open palm. Pointing's quite rude.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:41

It's rude in every culture.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:43

Exactly. Disney, it's two fingers, because I've worked with people who've worked in Disney, so they're a bit different. But it's weird. If I go somewhere and someone points with one finger, I immediately recoil. But when it's an and once again, listener, I'm doing we need a visual, I'm doing the open palm point. It seems so much softer, so much more welcoming, warm, and friendly than kind of it's over there with your index employment.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:08

I mean, Disney are uh world leaders and brand leaders and and like their queuing systems. And to sum it up, for those who haven't experienced going to Disneyland, it's not everyone's cup of tea. I love Disneyland for the gardening. I just think like the the investment in like things that aren't rides and stuff, the gardens are incredible. The garden maintenance there is well fast. But you know, the queuing system is about not wasting the opportunity to tell the story in that anticipatory sense again.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:40

My children, I I've worked for Princess Cruises and I've worked with uh for Norwegian and Royal Caribbean and all that. My my mum was a traveler, and I've been cruising or going on cruises since I was seven. I I just love the experience. Not for everyone, I get it. Recently, though, I was uh I took my children on the Disney cruise ships that had come back from Disney one. Yes. And the first experience, so firstly, this is this is like mind-blowing, right? I don't know if you've been on a cruise, but it's like the airport thing, like you queue up and it's like takes forever to you know check your documents and all that, and you shuffled through one thing and another. Disney says, now Georgina, if you would I don't know what that language is, but it says it basically says this. I'm paraphrasing. If you want to have a really good experience, we all need to work together. If your allocated boarding time is two o'clock, if you come at two o'clock, we guarantee that you will have an easy experience to get on the ship. And it works. Yes, and people do it. So when I when we go on that ship, it's basically you know, you get out of the car, you drop your bag, you've already got your labels on there being sent out to you, you get a document idea, and you're on the ship. Yeah, and then when you arrive on board the ship, they say, Oh, they know who you are. Yep. Hello, Mr. Brown, and and my children's names, and that and the whole of the experience that you feel. Oh, oh my goodness, I'm welcome here.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:10

Yes, oh gosh, yes. Those queuing systems, but it's it's the it's the messaging, isn't it? And the tone of the messaging, like we can all work together. Because then you're sort of told some you feel a sense of responsibility. Oh, I'm kind of going to impact someone else's.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:27

If you have any empathy, you're more like, I don't want to mess it up for somebody else. If you have no empathy, you're like, I'm just turning it up anyway. There's always going to be percentage of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:35

Exactly. And as long as the you know, you you want the majority of the percentage to do it right. It's like, you know, people logging on early on an app to not log on, you know, at one minute before the event starts. As long as the majority have logged on, then you can deal with the ones that, you know, don't sort of abide by it. But it just made me think of a sign. I was at my doctor's surgery the other week and they had a sign, and it's a beautiful doctor's surgery, natural light, plant walls, like you feel wellness, not illness. You know, that there's a lot of science. I can, you know, I know they've really thought it through, but there was a sign about we don't tolerate rude behavior. Something like we don't tolerate rude or aggressive behavior. Now you see those signs around the place. But then it said, so leave your grumpy pants at home. Just smiled when I read that because I thought you can't not smile. And also to the person who's thinking they're going to be aggressive, it kind of puts them back in their place of come on, let's bring it back into perspective, leave your Grumpy pants at home. And I just thought it was a perfect way to frame that sign.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:44

Wonderful. It's like the most memorable tip jar was at DeGraves in Melbourne. Oh. At DeGraves Lane, I think it is. And the chip tip jar said, tip here. Every time you do Justin Bieber gets hit in the head. I don't know why that appealed to me. I was sort of like, oh yeah, okay. I'll actually tip. I have nothing against Justin Bieber, but it just motivated me.

Night-time Economies, Spillover, And Local Spend

SPEAKER_00 1:22:06

It's it's so it's and that can really make your experience. I mean, you've remembered that cafe. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we'll stop recording and then think of all these other ones that we could have shared. But look, it's been so great to chat with you. And I know, you know, we could just talk and talk. And I I hope I'm going to put you on the spot. I'd love to invite you back for season two because there's so much you're doing in the innovations in cities space around creative placemaking, co-creation economy, playable cities. That was one that really caught my eye. Designing for participation. I'd love for us to come back for season two and do a deep dive into that innovations in cities and what cities are doing. And because customer experience and experience isn't just in a retail store. It's not just in an airport or a hotel or a restaurant or a you know Maya, it's or at the Australian Open or your you know local school fate. It's everywhere. So I'd love to, Georgia.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:02

Oh, fantastic. It's a pleasure talking to you. It's it's been lovely. Uh I hope it's been good for the listeners as well. And I'd love to come back and continue our conversation and yeah, I mean, hopefully improve our communities.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:13

Yeah, perfect. And if people wanted to know more about what you're doing with your because you consult, and you know, if someone's listening to this saying, I need to get Darren into our organization, where can we send them?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

Oh, I'm sure they can find me. I mean, probably the most way people find me is on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:29

On LinkedIn, and it's D-E-R-R-I-N Brown. But thank you so much. This has been a joy. And I'm sure we'll go off this afternoon in our own ways and be critiquing from a good way. We, you know, we shouldn't say that we're always looking at what doesn't work. It's what does work. I mean, I'm always taking photos of things at work.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:47

So and there's a lot of good out there to be discovered. We've got to break our algorithms and find so hopefully we've broken a few algorithms and just conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:54

And it doesn't have to be big budgets andor high technology, it can be the smallest, like the thank you sign. Amazing. It just those things are great. Thank you, and look forward to chatting on the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:06

Safe travels.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:07

Thank you.