The Art & Heart of CX

Season Finale with Lucy Keeler

• Georgie Stayches • Season 1 • Episode 8

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What if the best tech in the room is not the headline, but the quiet partner to story, sound and people? In the finale of Season 1, Georgie is joined by Lucy Keeler, Board Member at the National Art School, former curator of Vivid Sydney Light Festival and until recently the Head of Strategy Experiences at Luna Park Sydney, to discuss this very question.

This episode sees them talking about designing feelings first, why audiences tire of spectacle without substance and how the most memorable moments still hinge on human performance.
 
It is the perfect episode to wrap up the season as they discuss culture, sensory design, storytelling, why rest spaces matter and why handcraft, drawing and live skills are resurging as audiences seek authenticity they can feel, not just see. In fact this episode includes many side quests, each as fun and as interesting as the one before.
 
Tune into this episode and you’ll leave with practical ways to use sound, pacing and narrative to lift memory and meaning, plus a reminder that the cast, not the console, carries the promise. 

Enjoy the episode, share it with a friend who builds experiences, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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

Curiosity As A Creative Career

SPEAKER_00

Hello, I am very excited to be here with Lucy Keeler for the latest episode of The Art and Heart of CX. Lucy, welcome. Thank you. And we were trying to work out how do we describe what you do? Because you've got an amazing CV and experience having worked in arts, in sort of immersive experiences, Lunar Park, vivid arts councils. How do you introduce yourself to people? I avoid the question.

SPEAKER_01

Look, anybody who works in our sector, in the length and breadth of all of our creative industries, we all are on an intrepid journey. I don't think I know a single person in our creative sector who has stuck to one thing and done it for life. We're little adventurers that explore curiosities across different bounce from one silo to the next unashamedly. So I, you know, I I represent having, you know, embarked on a journey for 20 years. I I have a trail behind me that's been to many places that I absolutely didn't plan, and I don't actually know what where I'm going next either. And um being comfortable with discomfort and excited about the possibility of having no idea what's coming is really, I suppose, what I do and who I am.

SPEAKER_00

I love do you know what when you were saying that I was thinking, you're right, you know, a lot of the conversations I've had on the podcast is around, you know, your customers just aren't one segment, they're a whole lot of things. And so you got me thinking, why do we, why do I perhaps try and box people in when I introduce them and say they do this, this, and this? Because you're right, there's so many facets to what we do, and it's not always in a job title or in the experience that we've done. And I love what did you say? We're in intrepid travellers for curiosity, or something. I thought, oh my gosh, I might steal that. And you've worked across some really amazing things. Most recently, you're at Lunar Park. Yes. And I'd love to chat a bit about that.

Leaving Theatre To Build Worlds

SPEAKER_01

About how that happened. Oh, that was a surprise in the first. Oh, yeah, well, there we go. Yes. I mean, look, I started as a set designer. I went through NIDA as a set and costume designer. I'm the world's worst costume designer. But making spaces that make you feel something, a space for a story, is is really, I suppose, the place where where I found my thing. Yep. But then I graduated into theatre in Australia, which is is not right for me. We have, I mean, my I have family in the theatre industry. I grew up in the theatre world, and it's really while while I have a lot of love for for theatre, I don't belong there. It's not my thing. I need to be working out what's coming and how to combine things with other things to make something that even I don't know what it's gonna be yet. I I need to be, I've got to not know really where it's gonna end. And in theatre, you really do. Like you know exactly how that curious narrative has to get from one end to the other, what every scene needs to be from one end to the other. Like it, and it's a it's a it's an inherently group team experience, which I think is the greatest benefit of all is starting at nitrate, and starting in fifth theatre means that from a fundamental point of view, you you are only as strong as the people that you work with and that you collaborate with and the other minds that you meet. That's where the greatest work is made. And if that's the the one terrific lesson that I learned right at the start, it's that there is no such thing as a great personal visionary. You're actually you are the people you meet minds with.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So I stumbled through, you know, odd jobs. I've had some wonderful jobs. Like cleaning vegetables at six o'clock in the morning in a in a like a mental health facility. Yep. And and all kinds of wild and wonderful things.

SPEAKER_00

But they all inform, don't they? They do inform. And and I um it's so interesting to say that. I don't know if you know Gary Vaynerchuk. He's a Boston, no, New Yorker. New Yorker, oh gosh, I may have insulted him by saying Boston. New Yorker of Russian heritage. And he star his family had a wine store. He's now got you know a following of how many million, and you know, he sort of talks on all sorts of topics, but and he set up this media agency. But he worked in his family, had a bottle shop, and so he talks about where he got started. And at college he used to work in that bottle shop, and he used to sit behind the desk and he would watch the behaviour of how the customers came in, what they did, how they purchased stuff, and then he moved it online, and then that kind of took him off into a sort of bit of a digital revolution way. But he said if it was all that human behavior that I watched. So each role that we do, we don't know it at the time necessarily, or and sometimes we do, it's adding to that experience and how we view the world and that curiosity.

SPEAKER_01

The length and breadth of of humans, the light and shade. Because what one end of my family is like theatre world is the the the large bulk of my family world is in hospitality. My parents run a hotel, okay, yeah, a little boutique mad wacky hotel. Like they basically are the cast of faulty towers, and they get more and more eccentric.

SPEAKER_00

Do people go there because they know they're gonna get that experience?

SPEAKER_01

Well, do you know they have a lot of regulars that go at the same weekend every year and they actually have this wonderful extended friendship? But gee, they've seen it all. Like you've seen the best humans and you've seen the worst humans.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

I couldn't do what they do, but gee, it's I mean, it's decades and decades and decades. And is that where is that where is that hotel? That's in the Hunter. In the Hunter Valley.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, yeah.

Projection Mapping’s Rise And Lessons

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's yeah, with the snakes and the floods. So look, I mean, we've if you put all the pieces together, I I then essentially left theatre world as soon as I started. And I ended up stumbling into at the right place at the right time, large format projection design. So I had the great fortune of landing in this tiny little couple of weeks job at a place called the Electric Canvas, and I was determined to turn it into a full-time job, which I did successfully do. And I actually worked on and off the electric canvas for eight years. And what that did is it it put me in a position which is pure luck, where you are in a place where a genre is evolving. Yes, because at the time we were still hand-painting sprocket-hold film for the old PG projectors. Yes, when digital projectors were getting bigger and brighter, and then this one fateful day you could double-stack digital projectors to be as big and bright as an old PG projector, and the whole thing flipped. Yeah, and then this word projection mapping was born, right? So big, large format technical projection became projection mapping, and that was about making a building come to life.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, and and for you know, listener who isn't sure of these terms, if you think of any building that's had Christmas projection put on it or any kind of you know, branding or launch, whatever it is, as you say, it's bringing that building to life. But there's a lot of science behind projection mapping.

SPEAKER_01

There is, and it's becoming also now, if you fast forward another 10 years, it's also becoming increasingly automated. Things that we that took us years and years to learn as a technical exercise. You can now learn on YouTube, and there's probably an app for that. So what you need what what that does in in in context, and the reason why that's really important is because it was changing so fast and so furiously and so quickly that you're always moving and seeking it onto the oh, but how can like how do you use this thing? This is a really interesting set of tools. Yes. So you go from really garish buildings to actually really beautifully nuanced and quite delicate projection on unexpected surfaces and spaces. You know, it could be anything. You could now all of a sudden project on anything. So from a you know, the Olympic ceremonies world and where the places where we were technically trained, you can now do these beautiful little storytelling worlds. So fast forward a little while, and that evolved from the electric canvas. I started an animation firm with a a dear friend, and he ended up adopting that and moving forward to do, um move into like film world and make beautifully handcrafted pieces. That's ample projects.

SPEAKER_00

All these things that you bring together, you like it's there's multidisciplinary things, isn't there? And you sort of, you know, when I'm thinking of the projection that you do, but you're working in with buildings and you're working in with the exp, you know, you're not just projecting something onto a building, it's all those other elements that come together.

SPEAKER_01

Look, it's driven, it's driven by what is the audience? Like what does the audience need? What and and what you'll what what what's very quickly discovered is that it can't be about the the I suppose tools that you use. Once you've seen a big bright building, the audience is like, oh yeah, I've seen that building lit up before.

SPEAKER_00

So that was gonna be my question when you were talking about you know work working in with the technology that's evolving as you're working with it. Yeah. And an audience, your customers, your audience are kind of are evolving with you. Yeah. And as you say, they might be seeing it somewhere else. So you can't just keep doing the same thing. What's that like?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, it's it's it it's look, this is where it this is where our industry, I suppose, separates into tech chasers and storytellers. And what the the the basis of everything that you do, right, in in our little creative world that we're all in together, is that you the point of what you do is to to to tell a story or to make someone feel something or to make someone just stop for a second, or to make I don't know, make someone step out of their miserable life for just one small moment of awe. Then you've done your job. And actually, technology and it has nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

Audience First, Tools Second

SPEAKER_01

It has if you're in love with your big fat light and you light your building, good for you, it will never make someone feel something. So it's great that we have all of this fabulous technology, very excited to explore it all to see how we can use it, but unless it's anchored in the point, yes, and the point has got to be what is it doing? What is it trying? What's the point of it? What are you trying to say? What are you trying to help people understand or to make people feel? This, I suppose, is where you get to the learner park. So, this you get this wonderful adventure of the this growth and evolution of light's not enough. Why don't we also introduce music with the light? Why don't we put sculptures within the music, within the light? And you start making these narrative journeys through vivid Sydney. Like Torongo was definitely the first. In in Australia, I'd say it was like it was a 1.2 kilometer narrative light walk, which was completely now the word is immersive.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And that was in 2015 and 16, like it was it's 10 years ago before anybody had a word for it. So, in the same way as projection became projection mapping, putting people inside an all-encompassing sensory experience became immersive experiences.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So, fast forward today again, let's skip forward another couple of years. Luna Park Sydney is one of only two heritage amusement parks legislated to the level of protection that it is. Only us and Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen have legislated by government to operate as an amusement park. What that means is that we have this very precious little icon, which is essentially an art deco period experience that is owned by the people. What a responsibility. I mean, what a custodianship and what an incredible opportunity, but what a responsibility. So I was engaged by John Hughes, who came over from he was head of Fox Studios, running Fox Studios for Disney. And he was brought over in 2022 to transform the amusement park. And essentially what that means is we had to work it out. So what does it mean to transform an amusement park? It means what is amusement now and what is the people's experience of amusement into the future. Roller coasters are not everything. Some people love a roller coaster, some people don't. That's not amusement to some people. That is just horror, and I'll hold your bag while you go to the ride.

SPEAKER_00

There's two types of people in the world, the ones that go on the ride and ones that hold their bags.

SPEAKER_01

And you know what? I'm a hold the bag.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yeah, I'm a ride person.

SPEAKER_01

I've worked at Luna Park for three and a half years, and I refuse to go on the ride. Yes. I've been on one or two of them. I was tricked horribly in the middle of a meeting to go in the Big Dipper once. I've now been on it twice, and I'd never need to do that again. No, amazing, remarkable, beautiful piece of engineering, really respected as a ride. I just don't need it. It's not my idea of fucking.

Inventing Immersion At Vivid

SPEAKER_00

But that's customer sequence, isn't it? You know, not everyone that comes to the amusement park wants to be scared. So there's the ultimate change. I love rides, but I don't like spinning ones. So put me on like the scariest roller coaster. Yep, but don't put me on a grabitron or something. Roach is not for you. No, correct. Exactly. And I know that I'm very well aware of that. And I with Lunar Park, where you recently worked, it or you know, recently you were there for a few years. There's a nostalgia to that, to Lunar Park as well. And most people in Sydney, I imagine, and and you know, even other states have a particular memory. You know, for me, I'm from Melbourne, so my memory was actually working at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. The staff after, the staff party, the rap party a few days after, well, probably wasn't a few days after, you know, sometime after the games was at Luna Park. We've run conference dinners here. Other people remember coming when they were young, you know, catching the fairy cross. So you're balancing, you've you breathe in new life into it in a contemporary sense of what amusement means. But there's some nostalgia, I imagine you've got to balance with that for people's expectations, is they want new stuff, but they don't want it completely devoid of what their memories of Lunar Park is.

SPEAKER_01

So for for from a customer strategy, I suppose, through that lens, to preserve the midway, which is the technical terminology and amusement world for like the main street through an amusement or theme park. The midway is a is a heritage experience.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

Luna Park’s Heritage And Future

SPEAKER_01

So there's heritage performers who have learnt traditional clowning, juggling, hula hooping, sword swallowing. We do have fire breathers, we have magicians and tarot card readers, like this beautiful fleet of traditional carnival performers dressed in very traditional 1935 performance outfits, costumes. They're in the midway, right? With the audio that is from 1935. And you should step back in time when you step back into the outside experience of Lona Park. But then when you step off the midway, this is the bit which takes, I suppose it's rolling the dice onto what we're betting for the future of the park. And the immersive big top, which used to be a concert venue, is now still a concert venue, but it's a concert venue unlike any other in the country. So it's a completely beautiful immersive audio system. It's a projection mapped room, but it's actually a magic box. The way that we built it is that you're not, there's a lot of layers in there that very technical production folk can use to tell stories, and you don't necessarily understand how they did it. And that's combinations of technology with 39 projectors in there. Um, but then there's also a huge automated automation system moving a series of blinds, there's holo gauze layers, there's automated LED screens that move all kinds of ways so that you can essentially do anything, and then a spectacular psych behind the whole thing, so that you can create multi-layered depth in this extraordinary room. So now we build shows and experiences within that space. Yes. And at the moment we've run Dream Circus Experience, which was the first one, and it is an absolute masterclass in projection mapping. That that show has run more than two and a half thousand times and still brings back very reliable audiences every day, and some people have seen it many, many times. So that it'll be that at in the morning, yep. And then in the afternoon, it flicks over to Squid Game Experience for Netflix, which is the like it is now the longest running Squid Game in the world. It is the best reviewed Squid Game experience in the world.

SPEAKER_00

And what do you think? What makes it the longest running and the best reviewed?

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's still going, so that's the longest running. That's just everywhere else. It's had a short season and gone.

SPEAKER_00

But but you've obviously it's been popular enough to kill it. It's still going. What is it do you think that has differentiated this one from other I'd say cast.

SPEAKER_01

I'd love to say, oh, you know, it's it's all how brilliant we are, but actually it comes down to those who hold the experience in the palm of their hands. And what what we did right at the beginning is that we put the call out to the best in the city, right? So the graduating year of NIDA and afters and a couple of others came to a call out audition, and we cast this incredible group of actors. And they, you know, all their auditions went to head office in Netflix in LA for sign off. And then the head office team flew over. They did a lot of work with us to make sure that that they're really comfortable with that cast because the Squid Game Experience is a really unique one where yes, it's scripted, yes, but you also need to be able to carry that one audience, that that group of 25 people from one end of the experience to the other. And some of them might be little kids. Little kids do come. Like I was surprised by how young it sits. I have no doubt. And then you'll all you'll have a bucks party going through the halfway through their bucks. So you do get a really varied audience, and it's highly competitive. I've seen Adults get frustrated with our staff because it seems like the the pink guards are being more lenient to the five-year-old. My gosh. You you see it all.

Inside The Immersive Big Top

SPEAKER_00

But that all I mean that speaks to the experience, doesn't it? That they are so invested. Correct, so immersed and so invested in it that they've forgotten they're actually in an experience at Lunar Park. But I when you talk about the cast, I mean it comes back to that, you know, technology's great, but it's not everything. And when you were talking about, you know, using new technology for the sake of it instead of understanding the experience. I mean, it just made me think of, you know, in those days of PowerPoint where you could tell that the presenter had discovered some new animation because things would be flying in all over the screen and then it would fade and then it would pixelate. And it was, but you have not thought about the customer who's watching your presentation. You had forgotten the point of your whole presentation. Correct. You've got so well. Wow, it's gone. Exactly. And so when you it doesn't surprise me then, actually, when you say it's the cast that makes it, because you you need the technology for these things. We're not discounting that. But it is this that human element is so important, and you can't automate everything and take that role of the human.

SPEAKER_01

100%. Having said that, I just need a small caveat there that that that immersive big top room is a$15 million technical rig. Like it is a spectacular thing. Correct. You need it. It is everything, but the soul that's right.

SPEAKER_00

Soul is back to the people. Yes, yes. You couldn't do it without the technology, but it's as you say, it's the soul and heart that bring it in. Yeah. What I mean, I'm just thinking back to how competitive people are. You've worked in, you know, from years across these different, whether it's Lunar Park, as I said, or vivid or, you know, whatever kind of design with the the projection mapping. What have you seen in the change of and and if you have, can you sort of see how the customer, and you will use the customer, but the audience, their behaviours have changed and their expectations have changed, and something that you know you could get them through Squid Games now, but maybe 10 years ago, it was who advanced for them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it would have been too much. There's one that stood beautifully the test of time, and that's the Stranger Things experience, which is running parallel to Squid. That's actually been running for a number of years, and we are its 11th city. We're just hosting it. Yeah, okay. Um, but that's the most complex technical rig I think I've ever seen in a covering show. But even if you haven't seen the show, you're completely lost in that world. And again, it's down to the cast. Yeah. But you know what? Another way to answer your question is there's a real return now back into handcrafting, which is very nice to see. So I took myself off to because I hadn't learned how to you know be a real artist. I went back as a spectacular personal indulgence to do a master's of fine art in painting as an adult. Yes, you know, I had little children, and I really needed something for me. So I went back to actually get the technical painting skills as an artist. And what I've noticed in the years since, and I've kept a great relationship with the National Art School, and I'm now a board member. Yes, yep. There's a really interesting movement now, which the yes, technology is evolving to the point where artists are not hands-on in crafting the digital artwork as much as they used to be. And that's certainly going like a lot of the animators I know don't are finding it really hard to find work now. Yes, as you can well understand. But what what is happening is that there's this beautiful movement back, and like that the basis of everything is drawing. Drawing is the beginning of every building, it's the beginning of every painting, it's the beginning of everything as a small sketch on a piece of paper.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So actually, if you if everybody gets back to drawing, then we can almost start again and find out where we end up. Yes, you use all the technology, but if you can be back into handcrafting, that's where we're gonna start again.

Dream Circus And Squid Game

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And there's two things I want to pick up there, because I think there is a sense of nostalgia. I have another podcast about pop culture with a friend. And so we were talking about nostalgia, and you know, there's a lot of talk that Gen Z are a very nostalgic generation, but I would actually say Gen X were very nostalgic because you know, growing up we had a lot of things around the Vietnam War that we hadn't lived through. But we, you know, we had show Happy Days, the Wonder Years, you know, we there was a lot of nostalgia from a time we hadn't lived through. And it's a bit like, you know, the audience of Stranger Things didn't live through the 80s, a lot of them, but they have this nostalgia almost for it. So do you think it's a bit of a nostalgia going back to that handcrafting, as well as a little bit of a not a rebellion against technology, but I think it is.

SPEAKER_01

I think it's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00

And there's a lot of talk around events and in-person things are going to become more important the more we're saturated with videos that we can't tell if they're AI or not. There's gonna be that rebellion back to more human connection and interaction and in-person things.

SPEAKER_01

Do you know what? Do you know every every time now this is a total side quest, but oh, we love side quests on this podcast. Now, when you see someone playing a musical instrument, do you know how lucky I feel? Yes, I feel so and I'll always stop and listen. If no matter where you are or what you're playing, or how good you are at playing it, but the fact that I get to hear someone who has put in huge hours to mastering a skill to then give it to an audience, like to give it to me. You know, you're playing for other people, and I get to hear that.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, and it just, you know, I mean, there was a recent show on ABC where they had the piano in it and I can't remember what it's called, and they've got now the the portrait one where people portraits art, portrait art portrait artists of the year, yeah. And it is going back to those that that that skill and that chance to see something or hear something in person.

SPEAKER_01

Because there's awe in it, right? Yeah, seeing someone who can do something that you can't do. Like some of the paintings coming out of that show in that four-hour sitting, like it just like that's just magic.

Cast Over Hardware Every Time

SPEAKER_00

That's right. And you're seeing something, whether it's the portrait being painted, you're seeing something be created that you can actually understand and see because we've all painted at school. You know, we all tried to learn the recorder or the piano, whatever at primary school. And I, you know, with the piano one, yes, yes, they're playing a piece they may have played 500 times, but each time they play it, it's it's it's standalone performance. So you're getting this individual experience with them. The Australian Open, you know, I mean, huge event, you know, they've got lots of text, you know, there's all sorts of stuff. But what I love is each year go into the Australian Open and the things that are, I mean, everything's popular, and obviously they've got amazing activations, and you go down to Grand Slam Oval and it's all amazing. But it's the totem tennis poles, you know, the old school the kids and families are playing. It's you know, there's table tennis tables, it's they're the things that people flock to as well. It's that because it's hands-on, and for the Australian open, it's about getting a racket correct racket table. That's right.

SPEAKER_01

So totem tennis pole is the equivalent to tennis, but drawing is to not.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yeah. It's you know, so I think sometimes in the rush to kind of have to make these, you know, all this technology, we've got to use it. Yes, look at how you it can elevate, but don't lose that that human creativity in that and how to, you know, that access that we can relate to. I can't, I can watch a projection and go, wow, that's amazing. You know, and I go I love Christmas, so I always go and look at, you know, the Christmas projections. This year it's on the Meyer building, so that's new. So I'm keen to see how that works in Melbourne. But I'm also just as happy to go and watch someone make an amazing gingerbread house, because I can make a gingerbread house, not amazing, but so you know, I think you are drawn to those things that you can access and you've got some kind of callback to. Talking of projections, and you know, we've you've you've seen it sort of evolve, you know, even from your time at say vivid or any other projections you've done when it was probably quite static in the early days to now it's more animated. What do you do you find? Uh and it might be a sort of horse and cart thing, but it's how much you've got to innovate for the public, but also how much the public need to come along for the ride and be introduced to new things at the same time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I suppose there's um there's a how much control of the space do you have is is a key one there. Because I suppose in the public space, like in major event space, you need to make it to be seen by people who didn't intend to see it.

SPEAKER_00

That's so interesting. Yes, because in the the the big top here, you've got a fit.

SPEAKER_01

Totally controlled environment.

SPEAKER_00

Totally controlled.

SPEAKER_01

I can scare the bejesus out of you and I won't get into trouble.

SPEAKER_00

And you also know that they're going to come in here, this door, and they're going to move in that direction. Yeah. To the listener, I'm making visual cues with my hands as I'm sort of weaving around. But I'm thinking of when I've, you know, gone to, well, you know, light projection in Melbourne or Vivot Up Here, you've got people arriving from all different corners of Circular Key. Let's just say they're different heights, they're looking up, they're coming at different times during the night. So you can't.

SPEAKER_01

There's two things you've got to care for your care for your customer in that particular way. There's a safety world and there's also a creative safety world. So you'll find that large-scale major events stick to thematics that are accessible, yes, and not entirely challenging. And certainly where we work in in Sydney front row, it's essentially a tourism event. That's its key key objective. You you need to make things that people like but are not entirely challenged by.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

Handcrafting Returns And Drawing

SPEAKER_01

And that's a very conscious curatorial choice because you don't want to upset anyone any more than you want to thrill someone. Yes. Because that that that's the responsibility you have for, I suppose, the creative care of that. You need to also celebrate the building and respect the architecture. It's a very fine line. There's been some spectacular shows. We saw the the the little MLC mushroom building that we all love, um CTA building in Martin Place grew out of the ground as a tree. Now that is a very delicate gesture and comment on how little greenery there is in Martin Place, but on the same on the same vein, it's entirely celebrating that architecture. Yes. It's something that no one's going to look at and be offended. Yep. Or look at and be, you know, horrified by.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. I went to the Christmas markets in Sydney last year that are sort of set like a European Christmas market. So each of the marquees, you know, was sort of the faux wood, like you are in a German Christmas market, and there, and I can't think of the name of the church, but there was projection on the church.

SPEAKER_01

I think St. Mary's Cathedral.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think so. And I mean, that's an obvious one. You you're projecting onto a church at Christmas time. So you're going to have to make sure that not only is your projection not offensive, because you're not there to shock, because the whole purpose people come to a Christmas market is that warm, fuzzy, you know, in the heat of Australia. But but that it is appropriate for the building, while not being stereotypical, you want to challenge a little bit but not offend with that.

SPEAKER_01

And then from a you can also use the content from a from an operational and safety point of view. And this is something that not a lot of people know. For the years that so I did uh 12 vivids. Wow. And I worked at Destination New South Wales as the light curator for my last three. Two of those were forensic undoings of cancellations. But look, what we did do, which maybe no one knows about, because we there's a there's a crowd control problem for vivid almost every year, and that's that's really due to the nature of the you know, the way that that street streetscape is. Yeah, it's it and it flows, and there's a lot of people, and there's a lot to see, and a lot of things in the way. And what we do is we built some of the key buildings like the MCA and the Customs House. We for a number of years built two versions of every show. So there's the the the the full show, beautiful end-to-end narrative that you can sit and watch. But we've also made uh a flip version, which is like a 30-second length of a commercial loop. And we only flick to that if we need to clear the area. Wow. Because you don't want to move on unless you feel like you've seen the look. Oh, we all wait until it until that vision comes back and we go, oh, yep, right, yeah, back to where we joined. Yes. Well, if we've got uh, you know, a couple of hundred thousand people and a crash problem and the police are concerned, we'll give you a 30-second show and then that crowd starts to move.

SPEAKER_00

But you're still giving the choice. They the the customer is making that decision, you're not pulling it away from them.

SPEAKER_01

You don't have people saying you've got getting the show, correct? But it's like a highlights reel.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. I'm just where I was recently where the person said, Oh, no, that's right. It was at lights, I think it was at Lightscape in the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, and we were sort of told, you've got to move on, you've got to move on. It's like, but hang on, we But that's against everything. Correct.

Designing For Public Vs Controlled Spaces

SPEAKER_01

You need to design it exactly to control pace. So the other thing that you can do, even in a major public event world, is surround soundscaping. Yes. So for Torongo, for example, there were parts of the zoo when we were designing that it's a uh what 1.2 Ks of light wall. There's some really tricky parts in there if you thin ramps and there's bits with animals that we can disturb. And it's it's important to keep a really gentle, calm audience flowing through at the right pace. So we designed the music to move the crowd, feeling how we want you to feel at the pace we want you to walk. And it was uplifting and stunning, yes, and really gentle. But we found people were talking to each other really calmly and like you go first. No, you go first, because we'd surrounded them and told them how to behave.

SPEAKER_00

Pardon the pun, but this is music to my ears because I am really fascinated in how our senses impact, you know, how we feel, how we experience, how we recall something, and particularly sound. And I just don't think we use sound enough, and I don't think we always use it in the right way. So I was talking to someone about, you know, you go to a massive international expo floor and you're meeting people every five minutes and you're exhausted and you're overwhelmed, and then someone's got a DJ at their exhibit, you know, and it's like really that beat is going right through me. Maybe it would have been good in the morning, but in the afternoon. So why are we not using classical music to, you know, calm people down? And I think that's so important. I was at Adelaide Airport the other week, and you know, they've got a piano that people can play, but they also had a DJ. And I I liked the concept of it. I mean, the poor girl was working her little butt off because not everyone's just walking past trying to get to their gate. But I thought at an airport, everyone's a little stressed, a little anxious. You're trying to get to your flight, and now this DJ is actually revving me up, which is actually going against it. And and not to say there's, you know, pop music doesn't make you happy, but I just think there's other ways they could have done it. I mean, they could have done a piano bar sing-along or some kind of community thing. It just, you could see someone had the idea, but it just wasn't quite working with the environment that it was in. So I love that use of sound to use it. We we work on an event, sleep at the G. So people get to sleep at the MCG overnight, and we have all these things. But they they're not sleeping on the field, they're sleeping on the concourse downstairs. So it's all concrete. And you know, we turn, you know, we have to turn the lights on. We obviously there's emergency lighting on during the night, but turning those bright fluorescent lights on. So we actually play bird sounds over the speaker, and people love it. Yeah, and we you know, we always make sure the birds are relevant to Melbourne because we thought one day we'll get a bird, I forget what the name is, you know, that's we used to call them bird nodes at the zoo. Yeah, but there we go.

SPEAKER_01

They'll know the trickiest keepers.

SPEAKER_00

They'll tell us if it's the wrong bird, and we we don't start it off really loud, we gently introduce the birds in in timing with when we start to bring the lights up. I mean, that's what they do on the plane. Actually, correct. They wake hands up gently. That's right. Yeah, they make it freezing cold. So we've got it. So I love that use of yeah, how you can how you can impact people's mood. I mean, one I was chatting to on one of my earlier podcasts, we got talking, and I must look this up because Anita, my guest, was saying that, you know, there's research that people who play fast tempo, you know, like rock music, uh often end up speeding because of the music they're playing in the car, is that really fast up-tempo, and you know, to do with the beats. Whereas, you know, there's other music that we know calms us down. And and I always say to people, look at a day spar. A day, you know, a good day spar is your perfect example of customer experience. The scent, yeah, the music, the slowness that the staff walk in, the floating clothes in very neutral time, everything connects to how they want the um customer to feel.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it's escapism.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, that's a classic example.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. You're stepping into their world. That's right, and then you step out of their world transformed. I mean, it's it gets to the core. Yeah. And it's a day spar and it's it's it's demonstrating the point.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. In your time, what is what's maybe, and I don't know if you can answer this, but maybe some small changes that you've seen made, whether it's you know, uh at Luna Park or in any, you know, Chironga Zoo, wherever, small things that were tweaked or created but actually had a huge impact. And I mean, maybe it was the music.

SPEAKER_01

Music's vital. Um and that's the that's the one place I think it would be nice to see people take more seriously and where they do invest the technology. It's not in my bigger, brighter light. It's actually the things that you feel you don't feel you don't great audio, you don't hear it, you feel it.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Little things that make a big difference. Audio definitely. Maybe pace. Pace is really important. Yeah, pace is critical. And when we s when I first started at Werner Park, the philosophy had been no shade.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

Soundscapes That Shape Behaviour

SPEAKER_01

And very bouncy fast music. And also And no shade because they didn't want people to linger. Because we don't want you to rest. We don't want you to sit. We want you to be hyped up and excited. Yeah, okay. So that you have a really fun time. Now that's all very well and good until you're in the experience of being a parent, taking a bunch of kids there, and it's deeply impractical.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it's my friend, one of my friends and I always talk about orchestrated fun. Like, don't try and orchestrate.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, don't tell me how to feel correct. Give me the place. I mean, I say that when I'm the master manipulator, it's telling you how I'd like you to feel right now, but only in a way that is lifting you out of sadness. I want you to lift into a lovely place. And actually, if I mean people are getting this now all around the world, where you're gonna have frenetic, fabulous high moments, and then you need a rest space. Correct. And that's gonna give you longer dwell time. Yes. That's gonna extend your day from a customer and a revenue point of view. You may even get that family group over a meal time, and then you've got a meal in there too.

SPEAKER_00

It's all it's it's I often talk about plot points, you know, in that story of where are your plot points and what are people doing.

SPEAKER_01

That's exactly how you should look at it. Because if you're giving everybody the grand finale from the start, they're exhausted within a couple of pages, and I'm sorry, kids, we've got to go home. Plus, the parking's expensive now is you don't even notice how much time you've spent there. Exactly. Your parking's gonna be way more expensive.

SPEAKER_00

Do you know what we do on when fetching events works on conferences? We always work with our clients about the the speakers and the program. And you've actually got to build a story in your speakers. You don't just go, we want that speaker, that speaker, that speaker, and we'll put them here, here, here. I always say, but you've got to, you know, how do we want people to feel going out to the morning tea break? Yeah. How do we want people to feel leaving at the end of the day? And you there's some speakers that, you know, position themselves at the end, the the the closing speaker, and some at the opening. You're not going to have your driest speaker as your opening speaker. They're like third. Correct, you know, and we always say, you know, don't have in the morning. Exactly. Really limit the housekeeping after a speaker and before a break because you it's like sort of bringing the curtain down. You know, you've had this great speaker, and I mean, I've certainly been to these conferences, you've had an amazing program. And then someone stands up for 10 minutes and talks about housekeeping or the boards making an announcement, or whatever, and it's like, you may, we've just forgotten what that speaker talked about. I want people walking out of a conference session buzzing. I just want to hear voices talking and discussing that session. Yeah. If that if that's what how we wanted them to talk about. Two them to think, you know. It's not kind of then have the curtain pulled, you know, the lights turned on, and it's kind of, oh, right, okay. You know, we're back to reality. And it just reminded me when we're talking about the projection of, you know, Melbourne, it is hard to project on buildings in Melbourne without being interrupted by a tram.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So that's part of the magic.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's it. And I mean, you you, you know, it's going to happen in, well, perhaps not as much. We will have a bit more space to step back in the Burke Street mall, but when it was on the town hall, the Christmas projection, you you had to stand on the other side of Swanston Street and you just constantly have trams. And you know, but everyone kind of laughed and it was that sort of joke. But I felt they probably could have built maybe leaned into the fact that there was going to be trams and built that into the projection. That would have been quite funny.

SPEAKER_01

That would have been hilarious.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. What are some of the things that maybe you've seen that you thought, oh, that won't work, or things that you've been and then were really popular, or things that have surprised you that didn't you didn't think would have the impact.

SPEAKER_01

It's a hard one.

SPEAKER_00

I know, sorry.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's a really hard one, but not not your question, but the timing of your question. Uh we're in we're in a phase in the creative space, and I'm talking from films, theatre experiences, events, everybody where our little our lovely, beautiful little industry is the most volatile of everything. There are some things that should be a sure thing that go really, really well, and they just they just are lukewarm.

SPEAKER_00

And is that the execution? Is it human like customer behavior is changing?

SPEAKER_01

I spend a lot of time thinking about this. Yeah, because it is our job to make sure that there is culture for the city. And I mean that everybody, yeah, but it's certainly not my job alone. This is all of our job is to work out what the city needs, because everything needs culture, and I think in a lot of ways, Melbourne really has a much more natural relationship with that concept than Sydney does in the critical nature of culture for the people. See, I have a theory on that.

Pace, Rest, And Dwell Time

SPEAKER_00

No, my well, it kind of is tied into that theory. So I and and I'm saying this is you know very patriotic Melbourne, but and this is no disrespect to Sydney, obviously, but I sort of say you see Sydney, like you get out of the plane, you get to the CBD, and there's the Centre Point Tower, there's the opera house, there's the harbour, you know, there's the bridge. Like you'd we Melbourne will never compete. I mean, I'm I don't think I'm controversial in this. We don't have a harbour, we don't have those iconic kind of views. You know, we've got the MCG and we've got Flinder Street and we've got the Brighton boxes. And I mean, I Melbourne born and bred, I absolutely love it. But you have to, I do think you have to work a bit harder in Melbourne. And so I often say you live Melbourne. So you see Sydney, but you live Melbourne. Like you've got to scratch a bit more. And so I wonder if that's where that cultural thing, you know, our laneways, those, you know, our pockets of, you know, the Greek quarter and the Vietnamese area, and you know, our different, we've kind of, I don't know, maybe we've had to, we've created that because we don't have this sort of outwardly visual like Sydney has.

SPEAKER_01

I think, I think more widely spread across Melbourne. And I mean, I don't think it's gonna you're not far behind us in a lot of ways financially from an unattainability point of view, but there's we some of our areas are becoming less and less diverse. Like we're quite, yep. We we're we're very village-y, we we very much live in our little village within our city. I think more so than Melbourne. I think so.

SPEAKER_00

Sydney's always sort of quite, you know, we hear about that, that it it's you know, crossover most.

SPEAKER_01

So what you'll what you'll find is that I mean, Sydney is is is very difficult now to live in. And what that means is that the people who can't earn enough to live in Sydney can't afford to live in Sydney. So that's what you get from a fundamental point of view is that people who make their work, like the like the person playing their instrument for us.

SPEAKER_00

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

The people who make stuff and play stuff and create stuff to give, yes, are not always the people that earn a lot to own.

SPEAKER_00

And that's just made me think of, you know, you'd hear stories, and I'm sure it still happens, in those when the mining boom happened in WA. So you'd have these small, well, not small, but you know, these regional mining towns that would be flooded with the FIFO workers or whoever. And of course, the pricing of housing went up because it's limited housing, you know, you're in the outback. So the person who ran the fish and chip shop can no longer afford to live in the town. You know, the person who ran the post office. So, but they're the people who are in the footy club, who are in the community group. And so then you were starting to lose the essence and the heart and soul of the town because they were being priced out.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That might be a really nice microcosmic way of looking at the bigger problem. We've lost a lot of our creatives to outskirts to other regional towns. I mean, there was a huge exodus from 2020 to 2023 with a lot of our creatives moving south.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, okay.

Culture, Cities, And Creative Flight

SPEAKER_01

A lot of the artists that I know that were in the family stage and having children just left Disney. Yeah. And if we don't have creatives making work in Sydney, then what we do have is people in other sectors who just go for a glamorous glass of wine and they'll just go home and watch pre-made content streaming from the US. They'll just have this curated life which has no handcraftedness about it. Yes, it's got no musical instrument, it's got no It's not authentic. Yeah, it's no roots in the ground. That's right. It's very polished. And I suppose it's getting further and further away from us. And I think, look, the thing with art and culture education now is that we actually have to start at the beginning in the um tertiary space to create professionals who are ready to step into a sector and thrive as creative professionals so we don't lose them. That's right. Yes, otherwise, they're gonna be in hospitality, they're gonna be in whatever else it is so that they can survive and live in the city they want to live in.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Because people will say, I want this. And it's like, well, we lost that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and we all suffer. And we lose that creatively. We all suffer.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yeah. Oh my gosh, we could try and solve the world's problems. We could give it a shot. We could get I think I think we are I think we've started the conversation. I mean, when you were saying through all, I mean, I just you know, I've got friends that have moved, well, sh not quite Tilba Tilbur or Tilbur on the the South Coast, but around that area. And there's a you know, Naruma. I mean, we used to be great fun. Yeah, we used to go to Bermaguy and Walliger Lake when we were growing up, you know, 10, 15 years, and you'd the highlight would be going to Naruma to the picture theatre with the old, you know, it's the old Art Deco Picture Theatre with the stars on the ceiling. But then she'll tell me what's happening in Naruma with um, well, I think Justin Hems has got an establishment down in Naruma. And and I was like, the Naruma, it would, it's just not the Naruma, you know. I mean, still got charm, obviously, but you kind of go, oh wow, it's really getting out into these areas. And then where does that local community experience go that people are going to these towns? You know, it's it's a sort of the gentrification almost of you want it for this, but then it's if you all move there, you're gonna lose it.

SPEAKER_01

Well, that's it, right? I mean, you can look at gentrification anywhere, and then it becomes the artists are in there first, and it becomes cool. Yes, and then everyone wants to go and live in the cool place, and then what do you know? It's no longer cool, it's just Pilates factory. Exactly. Yeah. Um and the artists left because they can't afford to live there anymore. That's right. Correct, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but then you know, and then irony. Yeah, how does that you know impact that customer experience of going to those places? Well, yes, yeah. I don't know, if you can solve it, great. Well, we'll we'll we'll we might resume for season two. We'll check in in season two of the um the podcast and see where we've got. But Lucy, thank you so much. It's been so lovely to meet you because I've only just met you this afternoon. I've been following you on LinkedIn and stuff you've been doing, and certainly heard a lot about all your amazing or board-winning work. And I just want to really thank you for your time. And I think it's given anyone listening to this some food for thought. And I know there's certainly nuggets I'll take away, that use of sound to impact those emotions and even the use, you know, flipping that use of the medium to actually control your crowds as well. I think it's fantastic. So I can't wait. I'm gonna come back. Luna Park's not open at the moment, but I'm gonna come back and look at some of those shows that you worked on and can't wait to catch up with you again and see what amazing things you're working on.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you, Georgie, for having me. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Such a pleasure.