Experiences have the power not just to entertain but also to transform people. But it's up to experience designers to make an extra effort to unleash that potential.
The industry legends on Bob Rogers' Legends panel at the IAAPA Expo this year made their cases for the power of attraction experiences. This year's panelists were:
When asked by Rogers about her book, Kerrison said, "I thought I was writing for writers, but the people who've come up to me have been scientists, marketing people, directors - all walks of life, and they have said that you've given a framework to help me think about creative challenges and creative problem solving, and that's what we do in this industry. We try to find new methods, new ways to innovate, reimagine, reinvent and push the boundaries of what has been done before, so that we can experience something new and differently every time."
One of the keys to that innovation is to expand the circle of people on a project. Kerrison said to Weis, "you're probably one of the better people who look around and say someone's missing or that we don't have a representative of this aspect of the experience. And you will admit people with all very different experiences and backgrounds to access that combination of different ideas and perspectives."
"In the listening process, you discover those things that everybody seems beholden to aren't necessarily the case," Weis said. "If you never ask a question, it's easy for one group of people on one journey to kind of convince themselves of things that aren't necessarily true."
Speaking of truth, Pine kicked off a rousing exchange about authenticity.
"There's real-real, fake-fake, real-fake and fake-real," he said. "That's what Disney is, a fake reality. It is not what it says it is. It's not a magic kingdom. It's not Cinderella's castle. If you sprinkle pixie dust, you're not really going to fly. But it's amazingly, wonderfully true to itself. When something is true to itself, that can be perceived as authentic. Even if it's fake-fake, it can be perceived as authentic, because if it's fake and we like it, we simply call it faux."
Weis responded with another example of a fake reality.
"Colonial Williamsburg, which we think of as incredibly authentic, was built in the 1920s and 30s. It was a way for people to experience colonial America, but it has been rebuilt and rebuilt," Weis said.
"What is the authenticity of place? I think it has to be, 'Am I telling a great story and am I doing it consistently and clearly?' Not so much that I have to have that thing on the ceiling because that's what they had 1,000 years ago. What supports the story in an authentic way, even if you made it up - even George Lucas made it up - are you telling it in a clear, concise way without contradictions?"
"How can we say what's authentic or not, when our emotions are real?" Kerrison said. "When we're experiencing something, when I feel joy and happiness, I don't care where it comes from. I feel joy and happiness, and that's authentic to me."
Ultimately, experience designers must remember that their goal is not just to express or please themselves but to serve an audience. That means respecting their experiences as you look to craft new ones.
"It's not about you, it's about them," Weis said. "What I learned dramatically from the signings that I've done in the last couple months since the book was released, is this huge reminder that we are the stewards of other people's memories."
"It is really, really important to them that you know that you're a steward. That you know that they trust you. They know that you have to move forward, and they know you have to move into the future, but they want you respect their past and their memories at the same time."
Here is a complete replay of the 2024 Legends panel.
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