Last week I wrote about the anticipated cultural swing away from digital life and towards live and in-real-life experiences. People with their finger in the wind of cultural change are reporting that people – especially younger adults – want meaningful IRL experiences to make “core memories” with friends and family. I’ve heard exhausted arts professionals interpret this as a pass to just keep making the same old stuff they’ve been doing and the audiences will finally return. I don’t think that’s the right interpretation. The experiences need to be special, and you need an online presence to get them there in the first place.
Here are three fun examples of IRL I’ve seen over the last week that rely on creativity and connection alone to deliver a meaningful experience. Two out of the three are pretty silly.
If you read about these and say, “wow, I have no interest in that” or “that sounds stupid” or “why would someone do that”, then I just remind you of a few things:
–> Different art appeals to different people. If you let yourself “yuk their yum” and dismiss what someone else likes, you limit your learning and won’t ever be successful at marketing.
–> There is no one audience for the arts; there are multiple niche audiences, even for the same event.
–> Absurdity, humor, and satire have been around as long as humans have been making art. Absurd experiences can just be fun or they can be powerful social and political comments. And there’s nothing wrong with just fun.
–> These experiences are popular and/or unique enough that they have gotten the attention of some thousands of other people. Step back and try to understand why they’ve reached that level of attention in order to help you further your own goals of communicating and connecting through whatever it is you do.
Now – on to the fun:
#1: “Watch me fold a fitted sheet” performance at Edinburgh Fringe
Dan Boerman, a comedian from New Zealand, got 1,000 people to show up to watch him fold a fitted sheet. “Chaotic Kiwi Comedy” he calls it. The fitted sheet is the focus of his hourlong interactive performance about the end of a relationship, delivered in a style that he calls uniquely “Kiwi”. But the 1,000 people to came to watch didn’t know that they were coming to a meditation on the human eperience. His flyers only said:
“hey
come watch me fold a fitted sheet
this Friday at 6pm
calton hill
this event will not be live streamed”
What is so special about this? Aside from any skill, talent, and charisma he brought to the performance itself, he leveraged his spot at a festival that has big competition for IRL attention in a clever way (which is an art of its own at Edinburgh Fringe). When he got people there, he delivered with a show that was funny and meaningful. Then he ran with the attention he got, giving poised interviews to media. Hopefully he gets a career boost from the success.
#2: Pay this guy $5 to draw a terrible portrait
In Chicago, Jacob Ryan Reno sets up a table selling a product that just shouldn’t work, but it does. “Terrible Portraits $5. 5 Terrible Minutes”, his sign says. He turned a spontaneous party game into a running joke, a way to connect with strangers, and just a bit of fun. Jacob sets up in a local park or other area, and people pay him to draw a bad portrait of them. This is actually a really human moment he’s created. What he’s offering recognizes that it’s an uncomfortable situation, to be stared at for five minutes. He’s not a trained artist at all, he’s putting himself in a vulnerable position, too.
Why would someone do this? Social capital: You get a conversation piece you can put in your home or office and a funny story you can tell at parties or while standing around with the parents at a kid’s birthday party. And you get to meet Jacob, who seems like a lot of fun – wholesome fun.
#3: A Chorus Line Flash Mob
A Chorus Line, the iconic musical from the 1970s, premiered 50 years ago. Leading up to a celebratory charity concert, there was a flash mob of alums from the show to do some of the famous choreography in the plaza at Lincoln Center. It has nostalgia, it has a fun and welcoming vibe, it’s tied into a larger project that’s happening, it’s tapping into the broad fandom of Broadway. People who were there IRL or watching any of the zillion videos of it get to feel a part of something bigger across time and a peak example of an art form they love.
One of the points of my previous post is that IRL events need to be special. Each one of these is a great example of that. Don’t worry if you don’t have the budget of Louis Vuitton to do a whole building transformation or the access to take over Grand Central Station like Apple did with the cast of Severance.
What can you do with what you have now to make a little, memorable experience that will give someone something to talk about and remember you by? That experience is its own thing. It’s also branding.
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Hannah Grannemann 