How the Hamilton Set Designer Elevates the Customer Experience
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Written by Jessica Xu

@esthermchung
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The Audience Barometer: How the Hamilton Set Designer Elevates the Customer Experience

August 7, 2017

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How the Hamilton Set Designer Elevates the Customer Experience
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Written by Jessica Xu

The Audience Barometer: How the Hamilton Set Designer Elevates the Customer Experience

August 7, 2017

In today’s increasingly digital world where traditional advertising is failing, people are craving immersive, out-of-this-world, in-person experiences.

 

That’s where David Korins comes in.

in-person event experience

As a creative director and award-winning set designer,  David Korins knows just how important it is to create an experience that reaches and influences the right customers. And if anyone knows how to create a fully immersive, out-of-this-world experience, it would be the guy responsible for setting the stage for Broadway mega-hit Hamilton (ever heard of it?), Kanye West, Tony Award Winner Dear Evan Hansen, and more. 

 

All he needs is a chair, a couch, and enough conversation to pinpoint just how his clients want their audience to feel.

"So, tell me how you feel..."

No matter who hires him -- from Kanye West or Lady Gaga to sushi restaurants or Bonnaroo Music Festival -- Korins begins his creative process the exact same way: like a therapist.
 

A therapist tries to understand the problem and then figures out a way to work through it. In events, the problem that needs to be solved is how you want your audience to feel, think, and experience your brand -- whether it's leaving your event feeling smarter, challenged, stimulated, happy, comfortable, or inspired.

The old traditional way of advertising doesn’t work. 60-second, 30-second spots, full page ads in the New York Times... they work but not as much as getting the 12 influencers to see what you made and talk about it. My job is to take that conversation and figure what people want their clients and consumers to feel. Then I Jedi Mind Trick them into feeling and thinking that way.

David Korins


Kanye West found his seat on Korins’ couch after his infamous VMA gaffe with Taylor Swift, sending Korins 50 images (think the four furies: earth, water, air, fire). From those, Korins immediately understood what Kanye wanted: deification. So Korins designed a huge artifact and used monolithic objects to invoke feelings of worship.

david korins set

For Hamilton, Korins received a whopping 25,000-word, 51-song manuscript spanning 30 years and countless locations. Like a therapist, he worked with his clients from a blank slate, designing a space that evoked an atmosphere of aspiration, ongoing change, and progress.

david korins set

For Hamilton, the set was not just visually appealing -- it was a plot device. He built the famous turntable stage, which earned him a Tony Award nomination, to represent America’s swirling political storm. He and his team tested 33 variations of brick to get the perfect color tone to match the complexions of a 99% minority cast. And during intermission, while unsuspecting audience members flipped through playbills and bought drinks, the set expands and grows, representing America’s ongoing development.

 

While he knows most people don’t consciously notice the change, Korins believes it affects them subconsciously and that they can feel it. Sure enough, his meticulous design choices earned him another Tony Award nomination in 2017 for his set design in War Paint.

2. Engagement: Turning Your Customers Into Advocates

Experiences can build community, but they can also make people more vested in your brand. And everyone knows -- retaining customers is a lot easier when they are bought into your brand, especially when they change roles from customer to advocate.


To increase and maintain customer engagement, Equinox looked at how their customers connected with every part of the business. For events, they looked at who attended, what they were interested in, how many times they came back, etc.

 

Equinox leveraged this knowledge to their advantage, combining it with other behavioral data to create highly personalized messaging and offers. But it didn’t stop there. They would look at how their efforts impacted retention rates even after multiple iterations, to figure out exactly what was working.

The "Audience Barometer" and How It Can Make or Break Your Event

Sure, you want to build community and increase customer engagement -- but how do you do that effectively for a brand that has 90+ clubs in 13 different markets and is growing by the minute?

A lot of times, the person who is throwing an event or constructing an experience thinks that the audience is just going to get it. They assume that whatever they created will translate perfectly. 

 

David Korins calls this the "Audience Barometer."

 

Event marketers often fail at this. An example of a wonky Audience Barometer: an architecture firm, hired by a restaurant, that doesn’t pay attention to lighting or angles, and eventually causes the restaurant to shut down (this really happened). Yikes. What went wrong? The architecture firm glossed over the actual patron experience.

 

To keep his own Audience Barometer sharp, David Korins iterates on the 5 senses. A self-proclaimed “science guy,” he knows there’s something real behind the art of design and fengshui. Engaging senses and bringing life to events emotionally attaches people to brands and experiences, a powerful tool in today’s marketing climate.

 

Uncover his secrets for designing out-of-this-world experiences from his talk at Mastermind, our yearly, full-day, immersive workshop. Check it out:

You know what it takes to build a great experience. Now, you need to measure it. Learn from Jon Miller, CEO & Co-founder of Engagio, on how to measure your account-based events.

People may not remember what happened at your event, but they'll remember how you made them feel. Learn how to craft an event message that'll turn your event experience into something more valuable.

author

Jessica Xu

Jessica Xu was a Marketing Intern at Splash during the summer of 2017, assisting with the creation of incredible Splash content. She is currently a student at the NYU Stern School of Business.

author

Jessica Xu

Jessica is

We have tips to help turn your events into an out-of-this-world experience. Check out our Run of Show series featuring our CEO to learn more.

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