Concert Experience Design
"Trade & Connect!"
Overview
The Problem
Find design opportunities in concert experiences that could achieve any of the following effects: improve concert experiences, increase costumers, or increase revenue.
Who it's for:
Live Nation
- collaboration between RISD class & Live Nation to produce interesting business ideas for their venues across the U.S.
Time Frame
4 Weeks
Team: 2 people, Remote via zoom (2020)
My Role:
Decisions and planning for the team.
Both of us did an equal amount of work for the design of the project.
Process
Learning Goals
Setting up Interview Objectives
On interviewees who have experience in going to performance venues, ranging from once a year to twice a month.
15 Questions, lots of "Why"s in respond to their answers, and 2 activities
Interviews
7 Interview
On interviewees who have experience in going to performance venues, ranging from once a year to twice a month.
15 Questions, lots of "Why"s in respond to their answers, and 2 activities
Synthesis
Analysing Interview Results
1st Stage: Sort through Interview notes & convert relevant insights to post-it notes
2nd Stage : Sort Main Insights into Categories
3rd Stage: Create Opportunity statements: where are the areas of opportunity for design?
Design Opportunities
Within our top three opportunity areas that are derived from our major findings, we started generating design ideas.
The 3 main opportunity areas are:
How might we create interactive activities between strangers for them to feel connected?
How might we and make use of time-spaces (waiting times) for audiences to feel more engaged?
How might we deliver unique artifacts to the audience to create lasting memories?
Final Concept
A trading Experience
Allow the audience to trade fan-made DIY items and exclusive trading merch.
This concept exists at the interaction of the 3 design opportunities we arrived at from our research:
By allowing audiences to trade items, we are creating opportunities for these strangers to connect, making use of the empty time spaces in between performances, before, and after the performance, and leaving the audiences with artifacts for lasting memory
Existing Consumer Behavior
We looked for existing consumer behaviors and motivations that validate our concept
K-pop concerts are usually filled with fans hours before the event begins. Fans self organize in an open space they found, and set up booths or simply walk around to hand out free fan-made stuff to each other. Some of them connect on Twitter beforehand and meet up at the event to trade with each other.
Disney is filled with Pin trading stands where pins are sold, around the pin stands, there are often small tables for people to lay down their pin book and trade with each other.
From the introduction of trading pins to now, Disney greatly increased the number of pin merch. It has become one of the most commonly seen products in Disney. This is a testament to how profitable the trading merch are.
Design Process
Application to Physical Locations Research
Pain Point- Audiences hate lineups ->Self Check-out System Ideation
Remote Work + Quarantine (2020) = rapid sketch prototypes
Purchase Location Design Ideations
Making use of exiting store and
adding new merch stores
carry-on trading
Vanue Flexibility: Portable merch booth
Modeling & testing size & height
UIUX Design Sketch
Modeling & testing size & height
Concept Walkthrough
The Trading Items:
Fanmade DIY Items - free trade
Fans can post their finished items on social media, browse through each other's items and connect to schedule a trading meetup on the day of the event, or simply hand out items and trade at the event,
Merchandise for trade
We choose to have patches as our trading merch for their cheap manufacturing cost, small size, and most of all, the fact that it can be attached to fabrics. Our patches would be "slapable" where during trading, fans could slap their patch onto their cloth, hat, bag, etc. We would also sell clothing and accessories that would work the best with these slapable products.
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How Do We Sell Them?
Painpoint - Audiences reflected in our interviews that although they love buying merch from concerts, they hate the line-up
Solution: Self Check-out systems that reduce line-uptime & increase audience engagement with the products.
Increased touch/engagement with the products = increases product purchase rate
Where to Sell them?
1. Walk-in Patch Store are bigger stores that can be placed at the entrance and exist of big indoor venue locations. The interior design of the store can also be applied to existing merch stores that most big indoor venues have.
2. Merch Booths can be scattered around indoor and outdoor venues. Their small bodies are portable and easier to set up, allowing for flexibility for application to different venue locations, and for easy costumer flow around the booths
Walk-in Patch Store
Merch Booths
- Light
Interactive Opportunities that promotes Trading Activities
We brainstormed some interactive station concepts that could be incorporated into the patch trade ecosystem. These concepts would be something we explore further into once the trading design is complete
Application
Close to the Omnichannel shopping approach, we design our customer experience in a broader view, creating a seamless experience across all platforms online and offline.
1 App do all
Our application is used by audiences to view and book tickets for live performances, connects to others socials for sharing trading items and plan out trades, scan QR code for purchasing self check out items at the event, and storing traded item information for the audiences.
Merging Online & Physical Experience
Before the Concert
Find and browse upcoming performance events
Book Ticket for events
Check out your event info
All info you will need about your event is here. Going to a Micheal Buble concert? Check out what activities and exclusive merch would be available on the event date here! While at the event, use the same page to see the event timeline and venue maps.
View goodies posts to find other audience and fans to exchange items with on the day of the performance
Post your DIY fan items or merch or even snacks on the platform. Find other posts of items that you are interested in. Start messaging the other audiences to schedule a meetup or simply to connect.
With these functions, we are generating audience engagement with the event and with eacgother before the event even started!
During the Event
Use the same app to interact with our self check-out system: scan QR code to purchase and release trading merch
Reduce line up and increase audience engagement and therefore purchase with the merch.
After the Event
Scan your traded merch to input it into your collection & check item info and trading history.
Look! there's a message from the previous owner of the merch!
Go to "My Collection" to see all trading merch purchased today, traded today, go the extra mile, and record what fanmade items you collected today!
Store your trading merch and fanmade items. Feel satisfied and excited. Remind yourself to return to these experiences whenever you see them.
Buisness Value
Support other branches
Locational brand based design.
The system is implemented to a brand. The users are encouraged to visit each chain venue because each venue would have its unique locational product. This not only increases customer flow for all branches of the same venue brand but creates more value in trading for the customers.
Attract contracts with performance artists
Each artist can have a set of unique merch designs
each performance would have 1 or a few of its own unique patch design. This encourages users to trade and try out new performances. This also encourages the artist to go to the same venue especially if they are doing a world tour - the same set of design could be used at each location & it would allow the artist to make maximum use of the product, artists can collaborate and have each other's patch at their concert.
Major outreach expansion
User self generates outreach and free advertisement for the event by posting trading goods on social media and by connecting with each other for trading purposes.
Incerase Customer Return rate
Increases overall audience engagement online and offline, the online engagement does not have a time limit and would continue to drive users back whenever their connected audience friend post a post about upcoming events. The nature of the trading also encourages customer to come back to collect more exclusive merch to trade.
Generates Revenue
The trading merch are a great source of revenue
Disney over the years had increased the presence of their trading pins from a few booths to booths everywhere in the park as well as having walls of pin displays in their stores. They also added trading tables around their booths.
Moving Forward
1 : 1 Scale Testing with audiences
Create High Fidelity Prototype in a similar or real environment of the performance venue. Conduct user test on how audiences flow through space and interact with the designs.
Stimulate a similar environment as the experience design by performing the same services during the test.
Meeting with Investors
Discuss experience design implementation:
- feasibility of project: budget and time limits
- phases of implementation to create the full experience