- Catalyze audience participation at an art & technology event.

- Create symposium for multi-media art and food festival.

- Rescue a Web 2.0 viral marketing project by creating a better teen ideation session.

- Increase attendance at national Music & Arts Festival by 16%.

- Catalyze organization development at non-profit artspace.

- Prototype a co-working space.

Situation: The program manager for an art & technology based non-profit in Manhattan was organizing a 2 day party with an Olympics theme. They had invited artists to create interactive games for the audience to play.

Critical Issue: Past events looked good but where hit-and-miss as participatory experiences for the audience. The program manger needed someone to catalyze audience participation overall, direct the theatrical elements, and manage the “user experience” of the event.

Reasons: The organization had space, technical resources, and artists who could create an exciting visual experience, but a limited budget and tight management resources often got overwhelmed with logistics and lost focus on the overall audience experience.

There was also tendency among the technologists involved to put too much focus on the technology and forget about the users. Visitors unfamiliar with the culture of the event would feel excluded and shy about participating.

Vision: Create coherent user experience that began at the front door and lead the audience deeper into the experience during the event.

Support the host organization by designing the user experience and directing the theatrical elements of the evening.

Support the artists by providing an audience excited to participate in their games.

Results: We provided those capabilities. We supported the artists and organization by providing an audience of people ready to play.

Our interventions included leading the audience through an immigration process after buying their tickets which gave them the identity of an athlete from one of five fictional nations. Then they were led deeper into the role through by participating in a simple training session with a team coach and participating in a opening ceremony. We directed the opening ceremony involving over a hundred audience members each night in a “parade of athletes” and “artistic program”.

Throughout the evening a team of performers acting as the “press core” were directed to catalyze additional participation by interviewing audience members and helping them maintain the fiction of their national allegiance.

Audience reported that this was one of the best parties the organization had put on.