In 2020, billions of consumers were enjoying the golden age of experiences just before human race started going through its mightiest challenge in a century.
A challenge our generation and the one before us can neither fathom nor effectively explain.
So before we explore the post Covid-19 future of events, activations and experiences, it is important to recognize the progress our planet has made in curating and delivering bespoke experiences which came to a sudden halt at the end of Q1 2020.
The experience economy has grown many folds over the last decade alone and it’s not just traditional experience providers that are addressing these new consumer expectations, but it feels like every local business is competing to win its fair share in the Experience Economy.
But will the future of the experience economy be as promising as its recent past, well, the short answer is, Yes.
But the way experiences will play out in the short term and the medium term are a bit more complex than they ever have been and maybe a significant piece of this change is here to stay.
The short-term and medium-term future for events, activations and experiences is the evolving of a hybrid model that blends the best of physical and virtual experiences we so enjoy in our day to lives.
The long-term story is a bit trickier than that, we will surely retain the best parts of virtual experiences that make their way into this hybrid model, but this will be an upgrade than a stark change from the existing digitization of IRL experiences.
Humans are inherently social beings and love everything that comes with it, being the sense of community, belonging and familiarity.
Huge swathes of research now point the deep link between social connection and community to overall happiness levels and greater longevity.
Even though we are faced with the worst pandemic in a century, we have been fighting the glow-face epidemic for more than a decade i.e., everyone is now addicted to their phones and if anything, the pandemic has only given an unprecedented push and rise to this phenomenon.
This is not only damaging individual wellbeing but also eroding the sense of a shared social space and if anything, we need the IRL experiences and spaces to fight this unhealthy trend and reinstate the social fabric of the larger community.
The long-term future of IRL experiences and spaces is not just +ve (pun intended) but also the need of the hour.
– Arun Adnani
Also read : Being an Event Planner in the Middle of a Pandemic
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