Jay Menashe: Most events are forgettable, not because the people running them don't care, but because they're optimizing for logistics instead of memory. I'm Jay Menashe, Senior Director of Strategy and Growth at Exhibitus, and this is Event Experience Experts. Every episode, I sit down with the creatives, strategists, and senior leaders who are raising the bar on what live brand experiences can actually do. If you're done accepting forgettable, you're in the right place. My guest today has spent his career designing spaces where the smallest details are the whole point. Matthew Beck is the EVP of Creative at Exhibitus, but before Trade Show Floors, he was designing yachts, where every inch has to earn its place and every finish has to survive an owner, who obviously notices everything. He brings that same instinct to brand experiences. Build the story an individual will complete for themselves long before you ever think about structure. Matt and I first met back way back in 2018, my first encounter with Exhibitus, and I knew from our first lunch at Ford's Barbecue that one day we would obviously be working together. And like everything else in my life, it took a little bit longer than I originally thought.
Matt Beck: You even remember our first lunch? Wow. Man, what a thoughtful guy.
Jay Menashe: That's how impactful our lunch was on our relationship. I just knew. I was like, This is it, this is the guy.
Matt Beck: When do celebrate our anniversary?
Jay Menashe: That would be, you know, I don't know what time of year
Matt Beck: Okay, I remember either.
Jay Menashe: I listen, I know the year. It was 2018. That much I know. yeah, I don't know when it was. And I know at the end of the first day of my interview, Brad says in the meeting, and I've quoted this many times, he's like, So let me understand this, Jay. we're not interviewing you, you're interviewing us. I'm like, Yeah, man. I'm like, yeah, I got
Matt Beck: Turn the tables, man. Yeah.
Jay Menashe: listen. It's the same way I approach client relationships. Yes, they need to love us. Yes, we need to have a cool creative solution, all the things. But if I don't like you, it I go back to my school days. Like I got A's and B's with teachers I loved, and I got B minuses, C's, and yeah, that occasional maybe a little bit less than that, with teachers I didn't like. Because I just you know, maybe that's the rebelliousness in me. I just don't do well with people that I don't like. So it's like it's always a two way street. We got especially in our business and and I think I have a new term I came up with. It's like It TLT. You gotta have trust, you gotta have likability, and you gotta have transparency. And if you have those three things, you're generally gonna be winning in life. And I think that comes across whether it's client relationship, colleague relationship, friend relationship, and I think again, this is continuing our conversation from pre pre recording where it's like, Yeah, I thought of this while I was in the lift ride back from the airport yesterday. I'm like, beautiful
Matt Beck: Best ideas, man. Yeah. Showers and lift rides.
Jay Menashe: 'Cause I wasn't on my phone, I was just staring out the window and being like I wish I got home two hours earlier like I was supposed to.
Matt Beck: Yeah, exactly.
Jay Menashe: Alright, well so let's get into it. I'm gonna, you know, pepper you with all sorts of really tough questions that you had no preparation to get ready. you know, third before
Matt Beck: What's up?
Jay Menashe: we started, you're like, hey, are we gonna talk before this? It's like no, I'm gonna Firing Squad action is the way I go. All right. You've been doing this obviously for quite a while, and you know, I know your yacht design obviously comes into a lot of how you approach it, but strictly in the live experience space, you know, what's a belief you hold about what we do that most people in the industry would push back on?
Matt Beck: mean there there's a few. but I think I'll just list a couple here because we only have a short amount of time. But one is that I don't believe that live experiences have to be incredibly immersive or totally tech driven. We have a strong belief at Exhibitus that story leads before structure or experience before exhibit, right? but what these experiences absolutely need to be in a live space are consequential. Right. So Understanding audience perspectives, but then there's also something new that we've been experiencing lately where, you know, brands that bow too much to too many audiences get diluted in their message, right? So brands need to have a point of view and a perspective and understand the context through which they're communicating with their audiences. I would ask ourselves when we're speaking to brands and thinking about audiences and experiences, did those audiences make a choice? in that space, so do they have agency? does the experience or the environment respond to my presence or my interests? am I learning something about myself? Because then it becomes personal. did I make connections with other people? Because most of the time people are coming to these spaces not for the immersion or the technology, the flashy lights. It's so that they meet others and learn new things about themselves and those other people. and does this experience change perspective or belief? About a brand and what they stand for. I keep mentioning this, but the most powerful thing in the room isn't the 60-foot LED wall, but it's what is being said on that LED wall and all the things that happen leading up to being immersed in that space. a lot of times what we say around here is that immersion describes the environment. Consequence, as I said before, describes what happened to the people and the and the audiences that attend.
Jay Menashe: No, I like that a lot. I think especially when you talk about like the LED, 'cause technology is taking over our space and it's more and more everywhere. And it can be impactful. But the reality is it should be part of the story. It if is the story, it's like, look at that cool blah blah blah it's like That's not even what you sell. Like that doesn't matter. And it's like and it's actually a lot of what we talked about at the conference I was just at. It was like, yeah, listen, you're gonna come into a space and you may stand in front of an LED that just has a looping video, and this was a healthcare conference specifically, and it's like I wanna know what drugs you have in the pipeline. I want to know where they're at. I want to know what they who they serve and how is this gonna make my practice better? And that is a universal truth where it's like, yeah, it doesn't matter what you do. What problem are you solving? And tell me specifically. you know, I talk about this a lot. It's like, A, you need a layered story. see Lara's gonna hear this. She said he said A, where's the B? You need the layered story, you need to talk to multiple audiences. You can't just talk to one persona when you're coming in the booth and B, see I got the B, I stayed on track here. You have to be
Matt Beck: I'm proud of you.
Jay Menashe: Thank you. You have to be specific with your solution. You can't be like, we're a cloud provider. It's like, what is that? Who are you solving a problem for? What is the problem you're gonna solve? And and what are the results? Like how effective is your solution? It's like, hey, we solved this problem for three percent of the people in this audience. It's like that's not helpful.
Matt Beck: Yeah, these experiences can feel so finite and so so much energy and human capital, creative capital go into those moments. But there aren't many brands or agencies truly thinking about what happens next or what you want to have happen next. We ask ourselves all the time and we ask our partners, our partner brands all the time, you know, if this is a a successful event for you, what do you do next week the way you do the week after? What do you what are your audience to do next week and the week after? So it's a long form conversation that needs to be amplified.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, you need that thread from pre at and post and they ha all have to speak to each other, i even in a little bit of a way. It doesn't have to be like, you know, we're gonna redo our demo over this post show email, but it's like, hey, you're gonna have some really interested people in your space that wanna know what that next step is and connect the dots from the conversation. They should not be getting the same emails like, Hey, we scanned their badge, but there was no actual quantifiable or qualitative information we got from them. It's like, all right, they can get the generic like thanks for stopping by, booth seventeen forty five, for you know, whatever. We gave you. so yeah, no, I think that thread is so important and I think that's a big miss a lot of the time. I probably've talked about it on like half of the recordings I've done too.
Matt Beck: Thread. Yep.
Jay Menashe: So I know you don't sketch as much as you used to, being the head of Creative now, but you know, walk me through how a really great idea survives contact with reality, you know, from that real old school way of the napkin sketch to the show floor. Like how do you how do you keep it there?
Matt Beck: I still believe that starting rough and loose via notepad, I've got my field notes book here. I buy a new one every time I fill it up, and I've got this really fun library of multicolored leather notepads, and I try to get the same size every time because OCD, and I think it looks really great on the shelf. so I do have an ulterior motive there. But I am still sketching, Jay. All right. I gotta stay sharp. And I think at the core I'll use sketch as a word to describe just ideating and coming up with ideas and writing down thoughts and you know, you mentioned being in a lift ride and you know, in those moments where you don't have your device open and your brain, your mind is sort of free to explore. I'm gonna amplify that explore word, because what we lose many times in this industry because of how rapid fire it is, you get asks for two weeks from now, today or for tomorrow for today. And so you're asked to do these Herculean things where in school, in design school, they they have semester long projects where you're doing exploration, you're doing research, and you're allowed to sort of take time to do these things and swim around in different ideas. I still believe in my core that exploring wide and broad early and often and quickly is incredibly important, whether that be by sketch or taking notes or allowing yourself the freedom to to think. is incredibly important because otherwise that first idea is rarely the best one. I know that goes counter to you know some sayings that are out there. but what allows those ideas to survive is that you vetted all the bad ones first. Right? And if you don't vet all those bad ones first, you don't know what's good, you don't know what's high quality. And and we like to do that with our client partners, right? We like to involve them in that process that they know, especially in the age of AI, that there's still a really powerful human exploration component to this, that becomes a much more authentic relationship between client and partner and allows you to find what I call the spine of the idea or the North Star as some agencies call it. can you express this idea in one sentence without describing the shape? can you start to visualize what that looks like in your mind and can you express that visually? and all of this is about pressure testing things early when it doesn't cost a ton of money. You haven't cut anything yet. You haven't deployed anything yet. You haven't started developing any video content yet, right? and then like amplifying spend in areas that matter, right? We're gonna talk about audiences throughout this whole podcast, I believe. And and you have to think about broader audience and what that experience is, but also what are the moments that the individuals are experiencing? And how do you break out? I mean, this is rare for a creative guy to talk about budgets, but I like to think about where do you amplify that budget in the places that matter in those moments that matter, right? and then you ask yourself throughout that whole process, you you check it against that North Star. If everybody stacks hands and agrees upon that North Star, you have a really good compass to guide you throughout the whole experience and the in the whole process. so really the sketch is the hypothesis, but the show floor, the live event space, that's all the proof.
Jay Menashe: No, that that makes a lot of sense. And I'm noticing my one of my constant responses to people that I'm talking to is that makes a lot of sense. but it really does. I don't just say it to say it. But something you said very early on in that answer was about like the first idea isn't necessarily the best idea and you know, people often think it's like, the first idea is the best idea. It's like, yeah, that's cause you didn't see They 10,000 other ideas, and I'm pretty sure you have this book on your shelf, The Creative Curve, by Allen Gannett. And there's a story in that book about you know, very famous song created by Paul McCartney. and it's like, yeah, you have this aha moment and it's like, wow, this brilliant idea just came to light. It's like He literally worked on that song for multiple years before it finally clicked in his head, where it's like, No, I got it. And it's like, but you only see the result of all the thinking and all the work, and I think it goes the same with design. It's like, yeah. You think the first idea is the best idea or that first meeting where we're showing you creative, it's like you have no idea how many hours it took us to get to this spot.
Matt Beck: Well and it's also amplifying there's an old adage or that anecdote about Picasso sitting at the bar and a big fan comes up and says, Hey, can you sketch something for me? He sketches it. And they say and they ask how much and he says something like some obscene amount of money from the perspective of the the fan, right? It was like ten thousand dollars for that napkin sketch, right? And they were shocked and appalled and he explained to them, like, you're paying for the idea. That I can come up with that on a napkin sketch in a moment. All the experience that it took to get to a point to be that good, right, is the value that I'm asking for from you. Right. So I think about that all the time. We're not Picasso, but I think we're really good at what we do. And all the experience, the amalgamation of different disciplines to be able to react quickly in this insane space is part of our superpower. And there's a huge value to that. But it a lot of what we're talking about, the exploration and casting a wide net and vetting out all the bad ideas, make mistakes early, move fast and break things, allows us to hone in on that perfect moment for the audience.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, no, I agree. I agree fully. And you touched on this a little bit earlier, but I'll ask you to elaborate on it. So when you are, you know, we're designing for crowds, whether it's two thousand person audience, ten thousand, hundred and fifty thousand, we always wanted to make the biggest impact for the biggest amount of people, but you also have to design for the the individual people coming through the space. Like how how do you go about that when you're designing for both the crowd and then an individual experience?
Matt Beck: Yeah, you know, a lot of times I mentioned story before, structure before. It's if we have really strong sh story intact, you can scale it up or down. I like to make the analogy of experiencing a brand new movie, The Odyssey. I haven't seen it yet, but right, you go to a theater and that's a different experience than watching it at home on your home theater. Hopefully you have a big enough screen to do so, or watching on your phone or watching on the plane. So These experiences, it's imperative that we're thinking about these, we're thinking about story that it's scalable, right? At at a broader scale, it's an audience context. What kind of things are happening in the culture that you can tap into? And then what happens in those moments when each individual is approaching? How do you make that frictionless? How do you make it impactful? How do you drop breadcrumbs on the way via digital or on the floor or walking through a tunnel that's that's starting to pepper you with lighting that that is synonymous with what's going to happen in the audience experience. What are those nuggets happening as you go to a concert as an example? I mean, music's another good metaphor. You're experiencing music individually through your headphones. You know, new song on Spotify. It means something to you personally. And then when you go to a concert, then you have all the other effects happening. I'm a big fan of Tool, which I don't know how much your audience knows about Tool but we were thinking, we were talking about this earlier how You know, the technology is meant to underpin or facilitate a bigger impact for something that's already there and already has value. So to me, the music that Tool creates, that Maynard creates for Tool is incredible in your ears while you're working out or going for a run. but when you're in that space and you have this digital content that's wild, by the way, if anybody in your audience knows about the digital stuff that happens on screen during a tool concert is it's like you don't have to be taking anything to experience that on another level. that's the kind of experience that goes from personal to scalable big scale really, really well because they understand that that particular band or brand understands where people are coming from and why it matters to them.
Jay Menashe: Talk more about that. So I want to hear more about a Tool. I've never been to a Tool concert, so I have no idea what you're talking about with the visuals. But yeah, and and I don't know, maybe not even talking about from a tool, but I want to go deeper, like in a space. You walk up and you have like there's typically some kind of screen up front, but we want it to play into like talk more about how that would work to like create that journey in the space.
Matt Beck: Yeah, I mean I think like it starts before the space, right? Like a lot of times when we're talking to clients, you know, they I mentioned this before. The interaction or the relationship starts with an event. Like we're aiming for an event. But what are those breadcrumbs that you can send out and cast a wide net out to your audiences, the individuals, identify those tiers. What are they interested in? How do you cater and craft and curate that messaging for each one of those individuals? And then you can start to build the experience once they are live into something that's much more impactful for them. I really love the idea of greeting people and I know Jay, you read this book too, Unreasonable Hospitality, right? And being like hyper diligent about understanding your audience and greeting them as they approach. Right? Like, hi, Mr. Jones, it's good to see you. I know that you're really interested in this. Would you like to come over here and talk to Jay? Like It's just personalized, it makes you feel special. and then more broadly, if you start to build a community, and we talk a lot about this a lot, particularly in the healthcare space, where we think about communities and networks and how you can have this cross-pollination of knowledge and expertise by inviting key opinion leaders into the environment and doing polls and having trivia and having audience participation, and then it becomes it evolves from this individual experiences community centric experience, which when you feel everybody knows that's done crossfit, right? It gets a little like borderline culty, but there's a reason for that, right? Like people go out in the world and they're talk it, right? Annoyingly. But but it is there's something to that associative nature to brands that becomes a lot more powerful once you get the collective.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, and I think there's a lot to that community aspect too. You know, you think about we didn't really ever hear the word community pre-pandemic. That is a relatively new-ish, not
Matt Beck: Certainly became amplified, yeah.
Jay Menashe: And I think a lot of it is 'cause yeah, listen, where I live, there was a lot of isolation if you had weren't in a relationship or had a family, it's like you were alone a lot. And having creating these omni communities. Yeah, and it's like everybody's like, we gotta create a community. It's like, well you can't just it it honestly, so much of it is just a natural formation. People have common interests, things like that. but yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think also seeing I said it again, I'm starting to notice. but when it comes to unreasonable hospitality, 'cause I I can't get enough of that book. I've read it multiple times and I take things from it all the time. You don't need a massive budget to be unreasonably hospitable. Like it's that acknowledgement and you can't do research ahead of time for every attendee. It's make that eye contact, greet them with a nice greeting. And but you can it can be little things like that. It's like, hey, you you can definitely create processes to have autonomous hospitality built into your system. And I actually heard Will Goodar speak at a conference last year. Last year feels like it was a decade ago. And he talked about like how can we create just systems in place where it's like, Yeah, you know what? Technology is gonna ru replace some workers and AI and all that. But it's like we're gonna take those workers. It's not replacing them, it's replacing that position where we can use autonomous technology to do it. And now I can put them in a role that is actually serving the client better or serving your guests better or whatever that is. And I think it's the same for trade shows. It's like or events. It doesn't really matter. It's like you can create moments of hospitality that will again back to what I said earlier about like Building that, they're gonna like you more, they're gonna trust you more. And then you can have the real conversations and be transparent about like this is how we actually help you, and this is what we're gonna do to support you. And so that is how you build community. Cause then then everybody's gonna be like, wow, can you believe what company XYZ did in their space? It's like, I can't believe that that must have cost a fortune. And the reality is it's like, no, it just it costs some effort and some eye contact and a conversation. And that little bit of difference can go such a long way that people I think underestimate greatly.
Matt Beck: Enthusiasm goes so far and it's really hard to train it. I mean you can put all the training in place that your budget can sustain and have all the technology and have beautiful digital content and amazing environment. I like using restaurants and hotels as analogies too. You know, why is it that people will sit in line at a Chick fil A right next to a McDonald's that has no line? Right? 'Cause there's a certain brand promise and interaction, a pleasant one that's going to happen every single time you go there. And the food's pretty good, right? That's a damn good chicken sandwich. It's okay. But like you but but you're gonna have the my pleasure moments. And you and that is something that I think they must. I don't know much about their training, but I imagine they're saying my pleasure a lot. And they're also though weeding out or filtering for folks that are engaged and they have belief and they're they're motivated and enthusiastic about the mission, right? So it's a two way street. It's like you have to, you know, have a mission promise that's strong enough and have a product. That people believe in, like Apple, right? For people to be enthusiastic about enough to get engaged with. So again, it's a two way street. Gotta find the right people, the right staff. I would venture to guess that you could have a sparse environment that costs you next to nothing. But if you have a bunch of enthusiastic staff members that believe in the mission and the product, that's more powerful than having a gorgeous space with a bunch of folks that don't make eye contact, right?
Jay Menashe: One hundred percent. And there was somebody I was talking to yesterday specifically about this. She's like, you we're talking about booth staff. She's like, I I'm not their boss. I can't tell them how to do and and when their boss is there, the boss is letting them do whatever they want anyway. So it's like she's like, That's why I bring in external staff. She's like, It's the best. They're trained, they know the message, they know how to route people. And then I just get them talking to the expert after that and it's like, Like, 'cause I think about booth staff, it's like that's a really big investment to bring staff in, but it's like, well, if you think about the travel, the hotel, which you're sometimes you do have to pay for that also for your, you know, hired booth staff, but it's like, but you are now their boss and they will do it how you want them to do it no matter what. They're gonna ask every question you tell them to, they're gonna route the leads the way you need them to, versus like and I don't say this works for everybody, but if you have the budget for it, I would definitely consider bringing that staff that you can be like this is what we do. Yeah,
Matt Beck: Yeah.
Jay Menashe: yeah, a hundred percent. All right. So we work with obviously a large variety of clients and some have been with us for a couple of years, a lot of them have been with us for five, ten, fifteen years even. What does it take, you know, what does a client or stakeholder have to believe from you or us before they'll give us the latitude to do something? I would say genuinely memorable, but even like something that's like, hey, this is something you've never thought to do before, but like, trust me. Like what what do they have to believe in us to get to that point?
Matt Beck: You just said it and you said it maybe 20 minutes ago is trust, right? And you build that trust by being genuinely curious and engaged and evoking a sense of empathy for where the the brand is in their life cycle, what they're trying to do, getting in their heads. I mean, some of the folks that I've seen in this industry that do best, like you, have like a fierce curiosity of getting understanding of where their clients are. Right. And an authentic curiosity too. It can't be manufactured. So generating that level of trust is incredibly important for you to be able to have the freedom to do things that are outside of what makes procurement super nervous or what makes the president super nervous. Right. We have a lot of industries that are like super corporate and they don't want to go outside the lane of what they're familiar with and they think that's going to cost more money. And it doesn't always have to, right? so you really have to do four things, right? You have to understand what they're trying to accomplish, understand what could go wrong, like you have to understand what the risks are and and stare at those in the face head on. you know how to execute the idea at least a little bit. Like I'm kind of famous for coming up with blue sky stuff and I'm no I know enough to be dangerous to know that our guys will figure out how to do it, right? They created a monster very early on when I designed a booth for Kawneer with my yacht design design language. And they did it and I was like, okay. I guess we can do a lot here.
Jay Menashe: So you're the one that makes a booth levitate and it's like guys
Matt Beck: That's right. If I'm not getting dirty looks in the shop that I'm not doing my job. and then you'll remain beside them when things get uncomfortable, right? When you're in the trenches and you're going to war and things get tough, like if you're side by side with them and feeling the same things they're feeling and addressing them head on, that's when you get the freedom to do some really cool stuff.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, no, I think that curiosity goes a long way and not just coming like, Well, here's what we always do. It's like 'cause when I hear that, my normal reaction I have to like stop myself. It's like I just No, not temper. I wanna throw up. It's like, my god, please no I just
Matt Beck: yeah.
Jay Menashe: I hate the terminology, it's like, we always did it this way. It's like, Well, that doesn't mean it's right. Like you don't have to start over and start from scratch. Obviously a lot of people like, Hey, new year, new approach, but it's like the strategy is gonna be the same. How you approach it is what should change. So that whole, yeah, trust me and this will work out, but yeah
Matt Beck: Yeah, you just you just can't confuse bravery with recklessness, right? Like and I think that's where you have to constantly challenge yourself. look for opportunities to challenge each other when I'm talking about client relationships. I mean, how many people have heard and they have a brief from a client that says, Hey, we want to make a big splash, we got a new product.
Jay Menashe: Innovative. Be innovative.
Matt Beck: Be innovative. Yeah, we want to look like nobody else, right? And looking like nobody else is like you gotta be a little brave. Okay. So, and that's the fun stuff, man. And and I know that you and I have talked about this at length, in other spaces where the thrilling part of this industry is that's different every day. It's different every moment. You're always being challenged by either yourself or the industry or the clients trying to do something new and different. And they hey'd your budget change? No. You know, so It's those dynamics that if you look at the silver lining on that, it just keeps you sharp, man. I mean, it's just like every morning I wake up and I know it's gonna be a new challenge, it's gonna be something else. It gives us the opportunity to be innovative. Next year we're gonna be different than we are this year. And what what better job to have than knowing that in six months you and I are gonna be totally different? Maybe you'll have hair.
Jay Menashe: Hm, I don't know. My kids do say this is a choice.
Matt Beck: Yes.
Jay Menashe: I mean, hey, I can have some hair. It just will be here and here and nothing here. listen, facial hair, I'm a pro. You give me I can shave
Matt Beck: You nailed it.
Jay Menashe: four days later I could shave this and I will be it'll be back. It doesn't take much. That that's my expertise.
Matt Beck: You're a real man.
Jay Menashe: Yes, that's right, because I can grow a beard.
Matt Beck: That's exactly right.
Jay Menashe: All right, so last question, but I'm sure there'll be a few that come out of this. So I would love to this is one of my favorite questions, but what what's an event or exhibit your jealous that you didn't design yourself?
Matt Beck: Man, okay, so there's one that just rises to the surface in my memory because I've been trying to emulate this or replicate it in the trade show or event space for years. And it's an installation by an Italian sculptor named I'm gonna botch his name, Edoardo Tresoldi If you look it up after this, you'll see. And he did this gorgeous scenographic backdrop for this royal event in Abu Dhabi. Okay, and if I can paint you a word picture here, it's a bunch of classical architecture that looks like it's an apparition. Like you could stick your hand through it. It's physical. And he did it with with metal mesh, right? With all the details of the classical architecture columns and archways and everything, and then underlit it. And so it when you look up photos of this thing, it's like it it's just mind blowing because it's a completely modern contemporary take on an architecture that's very classical and very old school, right? Very regal, very royal, right? And I think that was the intent. and it just sticks it's one of those things that sticks in your mind and you can't get it out. And eventually like I'll make it happen in our spaces at some point. Yeah. and my designers laugh at me all the time because every six months or so I'm like, hey what about mesh architecture? They're like, this again.
Jay Menashe: I think you kinda did it. you know, our booth at EMS and Exhibitor Live had the the metal mesh, kind of, to a certain extent and
Matt Beck: Yeah, yeah. Gotta keep trying. It it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but you know, we'll get there.
Jay Menashe: Did you see this in person or was this just like you saw it like an article or online?
Matt Beck: So I saw it online, it was all on all the forums back in the day, blogs actually, that'll tell you how long ago it was. and and on Pinterest, and I'd used it for inspiration for a lot of different things over the past I think ten years. I think it was right around twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen. but it was just I mean, you know, th there's if you haven't gathered, no technology other than the lighting. it was really about an ambiance and and a provocative way to communicate something that is is very classic, right? Very comfortable. It's recognizable, but in a totally different way. And so you know, I was born out of designing physical things for human beings, like in the yacht design space. And then coming into this, I just love designing environments, but we've really evolved in this idea of how you can influence behavior through environment, right? What does it mean to people? How does it resonate with you? Why is it that certain restaurants feel more comfortable or more exciting than other restaurants? You know, and how how why do you gravitate towards certain hotel chains versus others? Right? Like what is it about those spaces that influences behavior in positive or negative ways? and this is that's just an example of one that it just haunts my dreams, Jay. You know? And I I gotta get it out somehow.
Jay Menashe: All right. I will get this project in front of you and you will create it. But I think it comes back to the you know, full circle, story before structure. It you know, if you're focused on the technology and doing this cool thing, it's like it's gonna fall flat because it's not gonna be necessarily the story you want. It might be, you might get lucky, but in most cases it's like why do you need this cool thing? Why do you need this wow moment or this innovative idea? It's like, hey, just let's start from scratch. What are you trying to accomplish? What are you trying to communicate? And what do you want to happen afterwards? And I think if you come to any conversation and you can answer those questions, the output and the result are gonna be far superior to anybody that's like, hey, we need to do this super cool thing.
Matt Beck: Yeah, I think the challenge in translating the experience I just described into our space is that you just have this finite amount of time. Like audiences don't have as much an opportunity to wander both physically and within their mind in a trade show space or a user conference or immersive experience live or otherwise as they do in like a gallery space. you know, I love the idea of giving little dwell moments within experiences, like allow people to dwell. Right. And we've had this brief a few times, which is really refreshing and thrilling when when our brands come to us and and say that they want their space to be a respite from the chaos of everything else that's happening throughout the whole event. Because it how how do you look different in a chaotic event other than to create a space that feels very zen or very calming. almost like a sensory deprivation experience, right? and I think that in itself, just contradicting what's happening in the spaces around you, can be memorable in in itself.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, I can't talk about it on this podcast right here 'cause we're in a bid process, but I have to show you what we just a design I just got and I've gotten a few of these recently, which is nice because I'm always like again, I've seen this before. Even if I haven't seen it before it's like I've seen it before. I just got a design. Well my client came to us and they're rebranding their company and they're they don't even it's not even complete yet, but they're like, Hey, this is we have to get this submitted into the show by the end of the month, otherwise they'll wait a little longer. but you know, we should keep to these timelines. And the booth we got back, it really like it feels like an oasis. Now they also told us they're like, hey, we would love if we could create a hanging sign that actually had floating water in it. I'm like, yeah, no we're not doing that. Like I just I was like, I love that idea. If you have a physical space we can design this in that is your home office, we're not doing that on a show floor.
Matt Beck: I guess you and I haven't done the training for where you're supposed to say yes and. Yes. Not no not no because you gotta say yes and.
Jay Menashe: we talked about this before we started the recording. I'm the no parent. I'm the the bad cop and I bring that energy to clients sometimes 'cause I'm like, listen, you got but it you have to be transparent about like what's real and what's not. It's like this is a awesome idea. No.
Matt Beck: Well, and again, you know, that's your superpower because that's how you build trust, right? Like a lot of folks out there, and I'm not gonna name names are yes people, right? Like whatever the client says goes and then it results in a lot of pain later. If you're a really good partner, you're going to know where the guardrails are, where the constraints are, either execution or otherwise, or whenever the messaging's wrong. Like you've gotten such a good experience or all your research on the audience that you're like the audience, you could be the lens of the audience and you could look at something a brand's trying to do and be like, I don't think that's gonna hit. But what about this? Right. And that's what what we always try to do is that if we're a trusted partner and we hear what I would call maybe a bad idea or a misaligned idea from a brand, we vet it, we consider it, we listen, right? And we, you know, give our case and say, hey, that's really cool. we don't think it's gonna hit because X, Y, and Z. But what about this? Something adjacent. You know, always have an alternative. Right? Like I never like that communication thread where it's like, hey, here's an idea, here's an idea, here's an idea, and all you hear is no's. Right? I want a collaboration.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, no, that that's a good way to end it. And I will say, anybody that else want that wants to be able to be transparent and tell your clients no, or anybody in your life, you know, just hit your forties, have two kids, and then you'll you can you can also be the no police just like me, folks. There it is. There is my message. well Matt, thank you very thank you very much for joining me. As the great Howard Stern says, you've said it all. I think that's a great way to wrap it up. And yeah, I think a lot of people are gonna like this podcast.
Matt Beck: Thanks for having me, man. It's been a pleasure.
Jay Menashe: Anytime, anytime. If you walked away with one thing you'll use, we did our job today. Event Experience Experts drops every week. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and check us out on YouTube if you want to watch. I'm Jay Menashe see you next time.
Matt Beck: You even remember our first lunch? Wow. Man, what a thoughtful guy.
Jay Menashe: That's how impactful our lunch was on our relationship. I just knew. I was like, This is it, this is the guy.
Matt Beck: When do celebrate our anniversary?
Jay Menashe: That would be, you know, I don't know what time of year
Matt Beck: Okay, I remember either.
Jay Menashe: I listen, I know the year. It was 2018. That much I know. yeah, I don't know when it was. And I know at the end of the first day of my interview, Brad says in the meeting, and I've quoted this many times, he's like, So let me understand this, Jay. we're not interviewing you, you're interviewing us. I'm like, Yeah, man. I'm like, yeah, I got
Matt Beck: Turn the tables, man. Yeah.
Jay Menashe: listen. It's the same way I approach client relationships. Yes, they need to love us. Yes, we need to have a cool creative solution, all the things. But if I don't like you, it I go back to my school days. Like I got A's and B's with teachers I loved, and I got B minuses, C's, and yeah, that occasional maybe a little bit less than that, with teachers I didn't like. Because I just you know, maybe that's the rebelliousness in me. I just don't do well with people that I don't like. So it's like it's always a two way street. We got especially in our business and and I think I have a new term I came up with. It's like It TLT. You gotta have trust, you gotta have likability, and you gotta have transparency. And if you have those three things, you're generally gonna be winning in life. And I think that comes across whether it's client relationship, colleague relationship, friend relationship, and I think again, this is continuing our conversation from pre pre recording where it's like, Yeah, I thought of this while I was in the lift ride back from the airport yesterday. I'm like, beautiful
Matt Beck: Best ideas, man. Yeah. Showers and lift rides.
Jay Menashe: 'Cause I wasn't on my phone, I was just staring out the window and being like I wish I got home two hours earlier like I was supposed to.
Matt Beck: Yeah, exactly.
Jay Menashe: Alright, well so let's get into it. I'm gonna, you know, pepper you with all sorts of really tough questions that you had no preparation to get ready. you know, third before
Matt Beck: What's up?
Jay Menashe: we started, you're like, hey, are we gonna talk before this? It's like no, I'm gonna Firing Squad action is the way I go. All right. You've been doing this obviously for quite a while, and you know, I know your yacht design obviously comes into a lot of how you approach it, but strictly in the live experience space, you know, what's a belief you hold about what we do that most people in the industry would push back on?
Matt Beck: mean there there's a few. but I think I'll just list a couple here because we only have a short amount of time. But one is that I don't believe that live experiences have to be incredibly immersive or totally tech driven. We have a strong belief at Exhibitus that story leads before structure or experience before exhibit, right? but what these experiences absolutely need to be in a live space are consequential. Right. So Understanding audience perspectives, but then there's also something new that we've been experiencing lately where, you know, brands that bow too much to too many audiences get diluted in their message, right? So brands need to have a point of view and a perspective and understand the context through which they're communicating with their audiences. I would ask ourselves when we're speaking to brands and thinking about audiences and experiences, did those audiences make a choice? in that space, so do they have agency? does the experience or the environment respond to my presence or my interests? am I learning something about myself? Because then it becomes personal. did I make connections with other people? Because most of the time people are coming to these spaces not for the immersion or the technology, the flashy lights. It's so that they meet others and learn new things about themselves and those other people. and does this experience change perspective or belief? About a brand and what they stand for. I keep mentioning this, but the most powerful thing in the room isn't the 60-foot LED wall, but it's what is being said on that LED wall and all the things that happen leading up to being immersed in that space. a lot of times what we say around here is that immersion describes the environment. Consequence, as I said before, describes what happened to the people and the and the audiences that attend.
Jay Menashe: No, I like that a lot. I think especially when you talk about like the LED, 'cause technology is taking over our space and it's more and more everywhere. And it can be impactful. But the reality is it should be part of the story. It if is the story, it's like, look at that cool blah blah blah it's like That's not even what you sell. Like that doesn't matter. And it's like and it's actually a lot of what we talked about at the conference I was just at. It was like, yeah, listen, you're gonna come into a space and you may stand in front of an LED that just has a looping video, and this was a healthcare conference specifically, and it's like I wanna know what drugs you have in the pipeline. I want to know where they're at. I want to know what they who they serve and how is this gonna make my practice better? And that is a universal truth where it's like, yeah, it doesn't matter what you do. What problem are you solving? And tell me specifically. you know, I talk about this a lot. It's like, A, you need a layered story. see Lara's gonna hear this. She said he said A, where's the B? You need the layered story, you need to talk to multiple audiences. You can't just talk to one persona when you're coming in the booth and B, see I got the B, I stayed on track here. You have to be
Matt Beck: I'm proud of you.
Jay Menashe: Thank you. You have to be specific with your solution. You can't be like, we're a cloud provider. It's like, what is that? Who are you solving a problem for? What is the problem you're gonna solve? And and what are the results? Like how effective is your solution? It's like, hey, we solved this problem for three percent of the people in this audience. It's like that's not helpful.
Matt Beck: Yeah, these experiences can feel so finite and so so much energy and human capital, creative capital go into those moments. But there aren't many brands or agencies truly thinking about what happens next or what you want to have happen next. We ask ourselves all the time and we ask our partners, our partner brands all the time, you know, if this is a a successful event for you, what do you do next week the way you do the week after? What do you what are your audience to do next week and the week after? So it's a long form conversation that needs to be amplified.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, you need that thread from pre at and post and they ha all have to speak to each other, i even in a little bit of a way. It doesn't have to be like, you know, we're gonna redo our demo over this post show email, but it's like, hey, you're gonna have some really interested people in your space that wanna know what that next step is and connect the dots from the conversation. They should not be getting the same emails like, Hey, we scanned their badge, but there was no actual quantifiable or qualitative information we got from them. It's like, all right, they can get the generic like thanks for stopping by, booth seventeen forty five, for you know, whatever. We gave you. so yeah, no, I think that thread is so important and I think that's a big miss a lot of the time. I probably've talked about it on like half of the recordings I've done too.
Matt Beck: Thread. Yep.
Jay Menashe: So I know you don't sketch as much as you used to, being the head of Creative now, but you know, walk me through how a really great idea survives contact with reality, you know, from that real old school way of the napkin sketch to the show floor. Like how do you how do you keep it there?
Matt Beck: I still believe that starting rough and loose via notepad, I've got my field notes book here. I buy a new one every time I fill it up, and I've got this really fun library of multicolored leather notepads, and I try to get the same size every time because OCD, and I think it looks really great on the shelf. so I do have an ulterior motive there. But I am still sketching, Jay. All right. I gotta stay sharp. And I think at the core I'll use sketch as a word to describe just ideating and coming up with ideas and writing down thoughts and you know, you mentioned being in a lift ride and you know, in those moments where you don't have your device open and your brain, your mind is sort of free to explore. I'm gonna amplify that explore word, because what we lose many times in this industry because of how rapid fire it is, you get asks for two weeks from now, today or for tomorrow for today. And so you're asked to do these Herculean things where in school, in design school, they they have semester long projects where you're doing exploration, you're doing research, and you're allowed to sort of take time to do these things and swim around in different ideas. I still believe in my core that exploring wide and broad early and often and quickly is incredibly important, whether that be by sketch or taking notes or allowing yourself the freedom to to think. is incredibly important because otherwise that first idea is rarely the best one. I know that goes counter to you know some sayings that are out there. but what allows those ideas to survive is that you vetted all the bad ones first. Right? And if you don't vet all those bad ones first, you don't know what's good, you don't know what's high quality. And and we like to do that with our client partners, right? We like to involve them in that process that they know, especially in the age of AI, that there's still a really powerful human exploration component to this, that becomes a much more authentic relationship between client and partner and allows you to find what I call the spine of the idea or the North Star as some agencies call it. can you express this idea in one sentence without describing the shape? can you start to visualize what that looks like in your mind and can you express that visually? and all of this is about pressure testing things early when it doesn't cost a ton of money. You haven't cut anything yet. You haven't deployed anything yet. You haven't started developing any video content yet, right? and then like amplifying spend in areas that matter, right? We're gonna talk about audiences throughout this whole podcast, I believe. And and you have to think about broader audience and what that experience is, but also what are the moments that the individuals are experiencing? And how do you break out? I mean, this is rare for a creative guy to talk about budgets, but I like to think about where do you amplify that budget in the places that matter in those moments that matter, right? and then you ask yourself throughout that whole process, you you check it against that North Star. If everybody stacks hands and agrees upon that North Star, you have a really good compass to guide you throughout the whole experience and the in the whole process. so really the sketch is the hypothesis, but the show floor, the live event space, that's all the proof.
Jay Menashe: No, that that makes a lot of sense. And I'm noticing my one of my constant responses to people that I'm talking to is that makes a lot of sense. but it really does. I don't just say it to say it. But something you said very early on in that answer was about like the first idea isn't necessarily the best idea and you know, people often think it's like, the first idea is the best idea. It's like, yeah, that's cause you didn't see They 10,000 other ideas, and I'm pretty sure you have this book on your shelf, The Creative Curve, by Allen Gannett. And there's a story in that book about you know, very famous song created by Paul McCartney. and it's like, yeah, you have this aha moment and it's like, wow, this brilliant idea just came to light. It's like He literally worked on that song for multiple years before it finally clicked in his head, where it's like, No, I got it. And it's like, but you only see the result of all the thinking and all the work, and I think it goes the same with design. It's like, yeah. You think the first idea is the best idea or that first meeting where we're showing you creative, it's like you have no idea how many hours it took us to get to this spot.
Matt Beck: Well and it's also amplifying there's an old adage or that anecdote about Picasso sitting at the bar and a big fan comes up and says, Hey, can you sketch something for me? He sketches it. And they say and they ask how much and he says something like some obscene amount of money from the perspective of the the fan, right? It was like ten thousand dollars for that napkin sketch, right? And they were shocked and appalled and he explained to them, like, you're paying for the idea. That I can come up with that on a napkin sketch in a moment. All the experience that it took to get to a point to be that good, right, is the value that I'm asking for from you. Right. So I think about that all the time. We're not Picasso, but I think we're really good at what we do. And all the experience, the amalgamation of different disciplines to be able to react quickly in this insane space is part of our superpower. And there's a huge value to that. But it a lot of what we're talking about, the exploration and casting a wide net and vetting out all the bad ideas, make mistakes early, move fast and break things, allows us to hone in on that perfect moment for the audience.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, no, I agree. I agree fully. And you touched on this a little bit earlier, but I'll ask you to elaborate on it. So when you are, you know, we're designing for crowds, whether it's two thousand person audience, ten thousand, hundred and fifty thousand, we always wanted to make the biggest impact for the biggest amount of people, but you also have to design for the the individual people coming through the space. Like how how do you go about that when you're designing for both the crowd and then an individual experience?
Matt Beck: Yeah, you know, a lot of times I mentioned story before, structure before. It's if we have really strong sh story intact, you can scale it up or down. I like to make the analogy of experiencing a brand new movie, The Odyssey. I haven't seen it yet, but right, you go to a theater and that's a different experience than watching it at home on your home theater. Hopefully you have a big enough screen to do so, or watching on your phone or watching on the plane. So These experiences, it's imperative that we're thinking about these, we're thinking about story that it's scalable, right? At at a broader scale, it's an audience context. What kind of things are happening in the culture that you can tap into? And then what happens in those moments when each individual is approaching? How do you make that frictionless? How do you make it impactful? How do you drop breadcrumbs on the way via digital or on the floor or walking through a tunnel that's that's starting to pepper you with lighting that that is synonymous with what's going to happen in the audience experience. What are those nuggets happening as you go to a concert as an example? I mean, music's another good metaphor. You're experiencing music individually through your headphones. You know, new song on Spotify. It means something to you personally. And then when you go to a concert, then you have all the other effects happening. I'm a big fan of Tool, which I don't know how much your audience knows about Tool but we were thinking, we were talking about this earlier how You know, the technology is meant to underpin or facilitate a bigger impact for something that's already there and already has value. So to me, the music that Tool creates, that Maynard creates for Tool is incredible in your ears while you're working out or going for a run. but when you're in that space and you have this digital content that's wild, by the way, if anybody in your audience knows about the digital stuff that happens on screen during a tool concert is it's like you don't have to be taking anything to experience that on another level. that's the kind of experience that goes from personal to scalable big scale really, really well because they understand that that particular band or brand understands where people are coming from and why it matters to them.
Jay Menashe: Talk more about that. So I want to hear more about a Tool. I've never been to a Tool concert, so I have no idea what you're talking about with the visuals. But yeah, and and I don't know, maybe not even talking about from a tool, but I want to go deeper, like in a space. You walk up and you have like there's typically some kind of screen up front, but we want it to play into like talk more about how that would work to like create that journey in the space.
Matt Beck: Yeah, I mean I think like it starts before the space, right? Like a lot of times when we're talking to clients, you know, they I mentioned this before. The interaction or the relationship starts with an event. Like we're aiming for an event. But what are those breadcrumbs that you can send out and cast a wide net out to your audiences, the individuals, identify those tiers. What are they interested in? How do you cater and craft and curate that messaging for each one of those individuals? And then you can start to build the experience once they are live into something that's much more impactful for them. I really love the idea of greeting people and I know Jay, you read this book too, Unreasonable Hospitality, right? And being like hyper diligent about understanding your audience and greeting them as they approach. Right? Like, hi, Mr. Jones, it's good to see you. I know that you're really interested in this. Would you like to come over here and talk to Jay? Like It's just personalized, it makes you feel special. and then more broadly, if you start to build a community, and we talk a lot about this a lot, particularly in the healthcare space, where we think about communities and networks and how you can have this cross-pollination of knowledge and expertise by inviting key opinion leaders into the environment and doing polls and having trivia and having audience participation, and then it becomes it evolves from this individual experiences community centric experience, which when you feel everybody knows that's done crossfit, right? It gets a little like borderline culty, but there's a reason for that, right? Like people go out in the world and they're talk it, right? Annoyingly. But but it is there's something to that associative nature to brands that becomes a lot more powerful once you get the collective.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, and I think there's a lot to that community aspect too. You know, you think about we didn't really ever hear the word community pre-pandemic. That is a relatively new-ish, not
Matt Beck: Certainly became amplified, yeah.
Jay Menashe: And I think a lot of it is 'cause yeah, listen, where I live, there was a lot of isolation if you had weren't in a relationship or had a family, it's like you were alone a lot. And having creating these omni communities. Yeah, and it's like everybody's like, we gotta create a community. It's like, well you can't just it it honestly, so much of it is just a natural formation. People have common interests, things like that. but yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think also seeing I said it again, I'm starting to notice. but when it comes to unreasonable hospitality, 'cause I I can't get enough of that book. I've read it multiple times and I take things from it all the time. You don't need a massive budget to be unreasonably hospitable. Like it's that acknowledgement and you can't do research ahead of time for every attendee. It's make that eye contact, greet them with a nice greeting. And but you can it can be little things like that. It's like, hey, you you can definitely create processes to have autonomous hospitality built into your system. And I actually heard Will Goodar speak at a conference last year. Last year feels like it was a decade ago. And he talked about like how can we create just systems in place where it's like, Yeah, you know what? Technology is gonna ru replace some workers and AI and all that. But it's like we're gonna take those workers. It's not replacing them, it's replacing that position where we can use autonomous technology to do it. And now I can put them in a role that is actually serving the client better or serving your guests better or whatever that is. And I think it's the same for trade shows. It's like or events. It doesn't really matter. It's like you can create moments of hospitality that will again back to what I said earlier about like Building that, they're gonna like you more, they're gonna trust you more. And then you can have the real conversations and be transparent about like this is how we actually help you, and this is what we're gonna do to support you. And so that is how you build community. Cause then then everybody's gonna be like, wow, can you believe what company XYZ did in their space? It's like, I can't believe that that must have cost a fortune. And the reality is it's like, no, it just it costs some effort and some eye contact and a conversation. And that little bit of difference can go such a long way that people I think underestimate greatly.
Matt Beck: Enthusiasm goes so far and it's really hard to train it. I mean you can put all the training in place that your budget can sustain and have all the technology and have beautiful digital content and amazing environment. I like using restaurants and hotels as analogies too. You know, why is it that people will sit in line at a Chick fil A right next to a McDonald's that has no line? Right? 'Cause there's a certain brand promise and interaction, a pleasant one that's going to happen every single time you go there. And the food's pretty good, right? That's a damn good chicken sandwich. It's okay. But like you but but you're gonna have the my pleasure moments. And you and that is something that I think they must. I don't know much about their training, but I imagine they're saying my pleasure a lot. And they're also though weeding out or filtering for folks that are engaged and they have belief and they're they're motivated and enthusiastic about the mission, right? So it's a two way street. It's like you have to, you know, have a mission promise that's strong enough and have a product. That people believe in, like Apple, right? For people to be enthusiastic about enough to get engaged with. So again, it's a two way street. Gotta find the right people, the right staff. I would venture to guess that you could have a sparse environment that costs you next to nothing. But if you have a bunch of enthusiastic staff members that believe in the mission and the product, that's more powerful than having a gorgeous space with a bunch of folks that don't make eye contact, right?
Jay Menashe: One hundred percent. And there was somebody I was talking to yesterday specifically about this. She's like, you we're talking about booth staff. She's like, I I'm not their boss. I can't tell them how to do and and when their boss is there, the boss is letting them do whatever they want anyway. So it's like she's like, That's why I bring in external staff. She's like, It's the best. They're trained, they know the message, they know how to route people. And then I just get them talking to the expert after that and it's like, Like, 'cause I think about booth staff, it's like that's a really big investment to bring staff in, but it's like, well, if you think about the travel, the hotel, which you're sometimes you do have to pay for that also for your, you know, hired booth staff, but it's like, but you are now their boss and they will do it how you want them to do it no matter what. They're gonna ask every question you tell them to, they're gonna route the leads the way you need them to, versus like and I don't say this works for everybody, but if you have the budget for it, I would definitely consider bringing that staff that you can be like this is what we do. Yeah,
Matt Beck: Yeah.
Jay Menashe: yeah, a hundred percent. All right. So we work with obviously a large variety of clients and some have been with us for a couple of years, a lot of them have been with us for five, ten, fifteen years even. What does it take, you know, what does a client or stakeholder have to believe from you or us before they'll give us the latitude to do something? I would say genuinely memorable, but even like something that's like, hey, this is something you've never thought to do before, but like, trust me. Like what what do they have to believe in us to get to that point?
Matt Beck: You just said it and you said it maybe 20 minutes ago is trust, right? And you build that trust by being genuinely curious and engaged and evoking a sense of empathy for where the the brand is in their life cycle, what they're trying to do, getting in their heads. I mean, some of the folks that I've seen in this industry that do best, like you, have like a fierce curiosity of getting understanding of where their clients are. Right. And an authentic curiosity too. It can't be manufactured. So generating that level of trust is incredibly important for you to be able to have the freedom to do things that are outside of what makes procurement super nervous or what makes the president super nervous. Right. We have a lot of industries that are like super corporate and they don't want to go outside the lane of what they're familiar with and they think that's going to cost more money. And it doesn't always have to, right? so you really have to do four things, right? You have to understand what they're trying to accomplish, understand what could go wrong, like you have to understand what the risks are and and stare at those in the face head on. you know how to execute the idea at least a little bit. Like I'm kind of famous for coming up with blue sky stuff and I'm no I know enough to be dangerous to know that our guys will figure out how to do it, right? They created a monster very early on when I designed a booth for Kawneer with my yacht design design language. And they did it and I was like, okay. I guess we can do a lot here.
Jay Menashe: So you're the one that makes a booth levitate and it's like guys
Matt Beck: That's right. If I'm not getting dirty looks in the shop that I'm not doing my job. and then you'll remain beside them when things get uncomfortable, right? When you're in the trenches and you're going to war and things get tough, like if you're side by side with them and feeling the same things they're feeling and addressing them head on, that's when you get the freedom to do some really cool stuff.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, no, I think that curiosity goes a long way and not just coming like, Well, here's what we always do. It's like 'cause when I hear that, my normal reaction I have to like stop myself. It's like I just No, not temper. I wanna throw up. It's like, my god, please no I just
Matt Beck: yeah.
Jay Menashe: I hate the terminology, it's like, we always did it this way. It's like, Well, that doesn't mean it's right. Like you don't have to start over and start from scratch. Obviously a lot of people like, Hey, new year, new approach, but it's like the strategy is gonna be the same. How you approach it is what should change. So that whole, yeah, trust me and this will work out, but yeah
Matt Beck: Yeah, you just you just can't confuse bravery with recklessness, right? Like and I think that's where you have to constantly challenge yourself. look for opportunities to challenge each other when I'm talking about client relationships. I mean, how many people have heard and they have a brief from a client that says, Hey, we want to make a big splash, we got a new product.
Jay Menashe: Innovative. Be innovative.
Matt Beck: Be innovative. Yeah, we want to look like nobody else, right? And looking like nobody else is like you gotta be a little brave. Okay. So, and that's the fun stuff, man. And and I know that you and I have talked about this at length, in other spaces where the thrilling part of this industry is that's different every day. It's different every moment. You're always being challenged by either yourself or the industry or the clients trying to do something new and different. And they hey'd your budget change? No. You know, so It's those dynamics that if you look at the silver lining on that, it just keeps you sharp, man. I mean, it's just like every morning I wake up and I know it's gonna be a new challenge, it's gonna be something else. It gives us the opportunity to be innovative. Next year we're gonna be different than we are this year. And what what better job to have than knowing that in six months you and I are gonna be totally different? Maybe you'll have hair.
Jay Menashe: Hm, I don't know. My kids do say this is a choice.
Matt Beck: Yes.
Jay Menashe: I mean, hey, I can have some hair. It just will be here and here and nothing here. listen, facial hair, I'm a pro. You give me I can shave
Matt Beck: You nailed it.
Jay Menashe: four days later I could shave this and I will be it'll be back. It doesn't take much. That that's my expertise.
Matt Beck: You're a real man.
Jay Menashe: Yes, that's right, because I can grow a beard.
Matt Beck: That's exactly right.
Jay Menashe: All right, so last question, but I'm sure there'll be a few that come out of this. So I would love to this is one of my favorite questions, but what what's an event or exhibit your jealous that you didn't design yourself?
Matt Beck: Man, okay, so there's one that just rises to the surface in my memory because I've been trying to emulate this or replicate it in the trade show or event space for years. And it's an installation by an Italian sculptor named I'm gonna botch his name, Edoardo Tresoldi If you look it up after this, you'll see. And he did this gorgeous scenographic backdrop for this royal event in Abu Dhabi. Okay, and if I can paint you a word picture here, it's a bunch of classical architecture that looks like it's an apparition. Like you could stick your hand through it. It's physical. And he did it with with metal mesh, right? With all the details of the classical architecture columns and archways and everything, and then underlit it. And so it when you look up photos of this thing, it's like it it's just mind blowing because it's a completely modern contemporary take on an architecture that's very classical and very old school, right? Very regal, very royal, right? And I think that was the intent. and it just sticks it's one of those things that sticks in your mind and you can't get it out. And eventually like I'll make it happen in our spaces at some point. Yeah. and my designers laugh at me all the time because every six months or so I'm like, hey what about mesh architecture? They're like, this again.
Jay Menashe: I think you kinda did it. you know, our booth at EMS and Exhibitor Live had the the metal mesh, kind of, to a certain extent and
Matt Beck: Yeah, yeah. Gotta keep trying. It it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but you know, we'll get there.
Jay Menashe: Did you see this in person or was this just like you saw it like an article or online?
Matt Beck: So I saw it online, it was all on all the forums back in the day, blogs actually, that'll tell you how long ago it was. and and on Pinterest, and I'd used it for inspiration for a lot of different things over the past I think ten years. I think it was right around twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen. but it was just I mean, you know, th there's if you haven't gathered, no technology other than the lighting. it was really about an ambiance and and a provocative way to communicate something that is is very classic, right? Very comfortable. It's recognizable, but in a totally different way. And so you know, I was born out of designing physical things for human beings, like in the yacht design space. And then coming into this, I just love designing environments, but we've really evolved in this idea of how you can influence behavior through environment, right? What does it mean to people? How does it resonate with you? Why is it that certain restaurants feel more comfortable or more exciting than other restaurants? You know, and how how why do you gravitate towards certain hotel chains versus others? Right? Like what is it about those spaces that influences behavior in positive or negative ways? and this is that's just an example of one that it just haunts my dreams, Jay. You know? And I I gotta get it out somehow.
Jay Menashe: All right. I will get this project in front of you and you will create it. But I think it comes back to the you know, full circle, story before structure. It you know, if you're focused on the technology and doing this cool thing, it's like it's gonna fall flat because it's not gonna be necessarily the story you want. It might be, you might get lucky, but in most cases it's like why do you need this cool thing? Why do you need this wow moment or this innovative idea? It's like, hey, just let's start from scratch. What are you trying to accomplish? What are you trying to communicate? And what do you want to happen afterwards? And I think if you come to any conversation and you can answer those questions, the output and the result are gonna be far superior to anybody that's like, hey, we need to do this super cool thing.
Matt Beck: Yeah, I think the challenge in translating the experience I just described into our space is that you just have this finite amount of time. Like audiences don't have as much an opportunity to wander both physically and within their mind in a trade show space or a user conference or immersive experience live or otherwise as they do in like a gallery space. you know, I love the idea of giving little dwell moments within experiences, like allow people to dwell. Right. And we've had this brief a few times, which is really refreshing and thrilling when when our brands come to us and and say that they want their space to be a respite from the chaos of everything else that's happening throughout the whole event. Because it how how do you look different in a chaotic event other than to create a space that feels very zen or very calming. almost like a sensory deprivation experience, right? and I think that in itself, just contradicting what's happening in the spaces around you, can be memorable in in itself.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, I can't talk about it on this podcast right here 'cause we're in a bid process, but I have to show you what we just a design I just got and I've gotten a few of these recently, which is nice because I'm always like again, I've seen this before. Even if I haven't seen it before it's like I've seen it before. I just got a design. Well my client came to us and they're rebranding their company and they're they don't even it's not even complete yet, but they're like, Hey, this is we have to get this submitted into the show by the end of the month, otherwise they'll wait a little longer. but you know, we should keep to these timelines. And the booth we got back, it really like it feels like an oasis. Now they also told us they're like, hey, we would love if we could create a hanging sign that actually had floating water in it. I'm like, yeah, no we're not doing that. Like I just I was like, I love that idea. If you have a physical space we can design this in that is your home office, we're not doing that on a show floor.
Matt Beck: I guess you and I haven't done the training for where you're supposed to say yes and. Yes. Not no not no because you gotta say yes and.
Jay Menashe: we talked about this before we started the recording. I'm the no parent. I'm the the bad cop and I bring that energy to clients sometimes 'cause I'm like, listen, you got but it you have to be transparent about like what's real and what's not. It's like this is a awesome idea. No.
Matt Beck: Well, and again, you know, that's your superpower because that's how you build trust, right? Like a lot of folks out there, and I'm not gonna name names are yes people, right? Like whatever the client says goes and then it results in a lot of pain later. If you're a really good partner, you're going to know where the guardrails are, where the constraints are, either execution or otherwise, or whenever the messaging's wrong. Like you've gotten such a good experience or all your research on the audience that you're like the audience, you could be the lens of the audience and you could look at something a brand's trying to do and be like, I don't think that's gonna hit. But what about this? Right. And that's what what we always try to do is that if we're a trusted partner and we hear what I would call maybe a bad idea or a misaligned idea from a brand, we vet it, we consider it, we listen, right? And we, you know, give our case and say, hey, that's really cool. we don't think it's gonna hit because X, Y, and Z. But what about this? Something adjacent. You know, always have an alternative. Right? Like I never like that communication thread where it's like, hey, here's an idea, here's an idea, here's an idea, and all you hear is no's. Right? I want a collaboration.
Jay Menashe: Yeah, no, that that's a good way to end it. And I will say, anybody that else want that wants to be able to be transparent and tell your clients no, or anybody in your life, you know, just hit your forties, have two kids, and then you'll you can you can also be the no police just like me, folks. There it is. There is my message. well Matt, thank you very thank you very much for joining me. As the great Howard Stern says, you've said it all. I think that's a great way to wrap it up. And yeah, I think a lot of people are gonna like this podcast.
Matt Beck: Thanks for having me, man. It's been a pleasure.
Jay Menashe: Anytime, anytime. If you walked away with one thing you'll use, we did our job today. Event Experience Experts drops every week. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and check us out on YouTube if you want to watch. I'm Jay Menashe see you next time.
