Among the many elements that go into creating a successful event, music may seem less important to some yet it’s actually tantamount to creating the perfect event. People consistently respond powerfully to music (often without even realizing it) and here’s where being the maestro makes all the difference.

Scientific psychologists like David Huron have posited that “music contributes to social cohesion and increases the effectiveness of group action.” Think about how work and war songs, lullabies, and national anthems have brought families and nations together and you’ll realize how music is the “social cement” in myriad experiences. What people hear influences how they feel.

With this in mind—and because our own experience has shown this to be true, time after time—here are some of the most important considerations about music at events to take into account.

Setting the emotional tone

First and foremost is creating the music that attendees will hear while entering and exiting the ballroom or theatre. Music triggers the emotions for your audience from the get-go and conveys a strong message about what to expect from the day ahead.

Like lighting, color, signage, and stage design, the musical “score” will help your audience get into the mood; the frame of mind you want them to have. Typically, you want an upbeat, excited, optimistic and cheerful one, of course, but whatever attitude and mind-set you want your audience to be in, we put a lot of thought into ensuring you make it happen with the right music.

Yet, if we polled attendees post-event about what they heard, they likely won’t remember everything that was on the playlist. What they’ll remember is the overall mood and the ideas and new thinking it supported. They will remember how the music made them feel. The response to music is subconscious yet it’s a powerful influence, nonetheless.

Best mixtape ever

A customized soundtrack is extremely important in triggering the desired response. Stock music can sound like it was slapped together unthinkingly. Even worse, it can feel manipulative and commercial, inducing attendees to tune out.

When we’re curating music, we take your audience’s demographics and the tone of your business into consideration. We aim to disrupt expectations, just as we do in every other aspect of event production, so that your audience passionately engages in a compelling, unique experience they’ll remember.

Let’s say, for example, that we’re curating primarily pop music or rock music for an event. We might play a contemporary hit followed by something 30 years old, such as The B-52s’ “Roam”. Even young people will respond to the mix because they think, I’ve heard this before. I’m not sure where, but I like it.

Some attendees will hear a song they haven’t heard in a while and fall in love with it all over again, evoking the sensation of being in sync with the time and place. Some will have no idea why they are inspired—they just know they are.

And like everything else that goes into event production, it’s important to curate a bespoke music score that doesn’t sound like a radio station or an arbitrary Spotify playlist, riding in an elevator or zoning out at the mall. When your audience leaves humming a tune or moving to the music, they take the context of the event with them. For them, you’ve made it “Easy” (like The Commodores’ hit of 1977! Or “Easy as ABC”, as The Jackson 5 claimed in 1970. . . . We could go on and on!

For more ideas on how to curate the right soundtrack and music for your audience, talk to us.

What is it about the juxtaposition of two seemingly incongruous styles that helps keep an audience’s attention? The answer is part art, part science.

In 1996, scientists concluded that “seeking novelty is a well-identified human character trait, possibly associated with the dopamine D4 receptor gene.” This is echoed by authors Tania Luna and LeeAnn Renninger, who claim in their book, Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected, that “we feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they’re not.”

That’s why you’ll see us surprising you with unexpected elements that keep your audience on their toes, too. And here’s one way we do it.

Contemporary meets heirloom

When designing a stage setting, we’re always looking to achieve a balance between the familiar and the new, the contemporary vs. the traditional.

For example, if we’re creating a forward-thinking look for a tech or pharma company, we bring in elements that amplify scientific thinking and precision with a futuristic feel. The colors may be light blue, white, or gray, all typical for this type of event and industry. That achieves the familiar.

To balance that, we may add components that remind the audience of an earlier time, features that evoke the nostalgic, emotional side. It could be an antique or an artifact that is surprising in the setting, something subtle, like a filigree frame around a giant screen. Not only does this create a soothing effect, it reflects a blend of the future meeting the past.

And, more importantly, it delivers the unexpected. That’s critical, because when we’re setting the stage for an event or conference, our goal is to stimulate ideas, captivate attendees and suggest that anything can happen.

Taken together, this balanced design keeps the audience more engaged, less likely to think they’ve seen it all before. That’s great when you’re delivering new messages and want them to retain your takeaways.

Ditch the formula

We don’t have a playbook or bark out commands to a short order cook, like “gimme a number 2, hold the slaw.” We consider each event you do as a stand-alone affair and take into account dozens of ideas in creating the look and feel.

Sometimes we turn our thinking completely upside down to ensure you’re never taking your audience for granted. We help you defy expectations to bring an excited energy level into the room and, at the same time, balance it with a sense of delight and possibility. This is what keeps you fresh—and it’s one of many reasons why clients seek us out time after time.

Authenticity is everything

If you’ve ever gone house shopping, no doubt you’ve walked into a home where everything is perfectly staged, designed to create a dreamscape version of life. It’s lovely yet it may make you feel uncomfortable because there’s no real human element. No photos, no family heirlooms. It’s pretty but it doesn’t feel real.

Reality can be stunning when it’s thoughtfully crafted with elements that “feel real” in a big event. Here’s an example: if you wanted a room to have a particular period look, say something from the fifties, we’d advise you to include furnishings from the thirties and forties, too, because it reflects real life. People bring parts of their past with them as they move through future chapters in their lives.

A stage needs to reflect that sensibility, too. It needs to evoke comfort, familiarity and authenticity so the audience feels connected. Arranged side by side with modern, digital, and futuristic elements is what helps keep the audience tuned in.
For more ideas on how to deliver the unexpected to your audience, talk to us.

Not surprisingly, with the spread of Covid-19 and social distancing becoming the norm, the events industry has come to a halt. Yet there is light at the end of the tunnel.

As countries see success in flattening the curve and explore opening up again, we’ve had our thinking caps on about what’s next for industry events. We believe strongly that there will be two major themes at play when we get back to interacting in person at events such as product launches, leadership summits, sales meetings and employee meetings. One is a return to the basics of human interaction. The other? The need for novelty. Here’s our thinking.

The power of gathering

The world has been isolating for months now and new paradigms have organically cropped up everywhere, from Zoom happy hours to spontaneous serenades from balconies all over the world. It all goes to show how social we are as humans. We’ve yearned for recognition of ourselves and to be in each other’s company like never before.

Yet will technologies such as Zoom and Facebook replace the yearning for in-person interaction?

We say no. In fact, we are certain that, as the world begins to come out of social isolation, audiences will crave a richer way to connect with each other as human beings. This notion has already gotten us thinking of new ways to delight attendees when it comes time for events to bring people together again.

Even though technology allows us to connect remotely, what we learned when webcast technology first came about, for example, is that, though expedient, it just wasn’t the same as being in the room with like-minded people.

One of the main reasons is that webcast events don’t offer opportunities to truly network. Even though attendees may complain about having to travel, surveys emphatically indicate that eventgoers prefer an in-person experience because of the energy exchange that occurs. At a live event, your audience adds value to the messaging they just heard by interacting with each other spontaneously and then again immediately after. It’s a shared experience that has yet to be duplicated in cyberspace.

So the need for being in each other’s presence will come back stronger. We simply will not outgrow our desire to be among other people. What’s more, we’ll want new ways to wake up our senses when we get together.

The human brain is a “novelty detector”

When we were building this business a couple of decades ago, we immersed ourselves in learning the most innovative approaches to theater production, performance art, and live concerts. What we learned early on is that the most satisfying, thrilling, and memorable experiences were ones where a sudden left turn was taken. And research backs us up.

Scientist Daniela Fenker and her colleagues have used MRI scans to measure the activity of brain regions based on blood flow. They found that novelty enhances memory. The hippocampus—the part of the brain that regulates motivation, emotion, learning and memory—actually triggers dopamine (that “feel good” chemical in our brain) when it compares new sensory info with stored knowledge.

In other words, surprising your audience with the unexpected sends powerful impulses to them through the brain’s “novelty detector.” It’s what makes an experience unforgettable and stimulates inventive thinking, two reasons (out of many) why clients count on us to bring new experiences in all the right places.

A bigger opportunity

We’re very excited to roll up our sleeves and, instead of panicking about the current pandemic situation, use this time to bring people together to connect in a deeper, more impactful way. We have a chance to shake things up, to build events differently and to use unexpected approaches to trigger the coveted dopamine for attendees.

Want to learn more about how we can help you harness the hippocampus to fulfill needs for novelty while enabling all-important networking at your next events? Talk to us.