Joe: Hello, welcome back to another episode of Are You Experienced? The podcast all about the business of experiences. This week I'm joined by the wonderful and multi-talented Vance Garrett. Vance describes himself as a creative producer, but as you'll see that rather undoes the breadth of expertise and the depth of thinking that he brings to the industry. We cover everything from the science of shared experiences to the distribution problem in immersive entertainment, which is becoming a recurring theme of this series. And it's easily one of my favourite conversations so far. So I hope you enjoy. On with the show. Vance, hello, welcome to Are You Experienced?
Vance Garrett: Hello, Joe. Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely being here.
Joe: Yeah, great. I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Vance Garrett: Same.
Joe: So I always like to start at the very beginning. I'm fascinated by origin stories and how people ended up in the wonderful world of live experiences. So let's go all the way back to the beginning. Tell us about where you started out, how you kind of ended up where you are, and the sort of twists and turns on the way, I suppose.
Vance Garrett: Sure. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm happy to wind way up and go way back. So I I I was a kid who just had always been creating experiences my whole life, creating carnivals in the backyard, haunted houses in the basement, creating parades around the neighborhood, or murder mystery dinner parties when I learned how to cook. And you know, it was just it was just instinctual and y there wasn't a path. There wasn't a professional path that I saw to do that sort of work, you know. It was I liked recreating Six Flags Great America rides in my backyard. But like there's where do you like what course of study is that? And so I found theater and I was a theater kid. it was either sports or theater. And my brother had sports, so I did theater and dance and acrobatics and That was my lane from childhood through high school into college and beyond. And and I was poised for that to be my whole career. I thought that I would be a Broadway performer. I thought that I would be an acrobat in Circ. And I I was able to do things that I'm really proud of and I had I had fun with it, but it always felt limiting in some degree as being a creative being, as being an artist. You know, I I liked creating the whole experience and I had a taste of that and I had a practice of that as as a as a child and just being up on stage with everyone looking at you. I mean, it's fun being in a really theatrical environment. It's fun being in that world and it's fun to play in that regard. I had less fun auditioning and I had less fun literally having people watch me play. I just
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: I don't think I ever got out of that awareness that People are paying attention to me. So rather, you know, part of the fun of play is you're you're inside looking out and you're not self-conscious and
Joe: Thank
Vance Garrett: and you're moving. And I just did not love being on stage in that in in that way. And so when I I moved to New York September 7th, 2001, and had one weekend of fun exploring nightlife there before everything turned with 9-11. And
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: clearly for the whole world, it was a time to take inventory and And I stayed in I stayed in New York, but the the idea of auditioning for Broadway shows when I didn't really want to be in them s at the end of
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: the day. I want to say I was in them. I didn't actually really want to be in them. I was like, you
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: know, this is what what do I do? So I found nightlife as a bartender, still auditioning, you know, still still curious about about about that world, but you know, the the bloom had come off the rose. And through nightlife I was able to find a whole other path. And while I was bartending, I looked out at either the bar that I was in or the club. I'm like, this is theater. This is just theater where
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: everyone's on the same plane and everyone is in on the same world and there's not this division this division. there's not this fourth wall that you have to Breakthrough. There is no fourth wall. Everyone's everyone's experiencing a heightened reality together. And through that, I was tapped to write audience experience treatments for large 6,000-person parties that wanted a true emotional arc to the experience and a true specific setting and conflict and to harness you know, what was happening in pop culture at the time or the fashions of the moment and and the sensibility. And that was really my way into immersive experiences. That that confluence or that convergence of the theater know-how and nightlife, collective joy or collective effervescence, which I hope we'll get to speak more about later. And and and aligning that with what's happening in the zeitgeist right now. Bringing people together, that's that's what set me up to start to work on Sleep No More. So I was the entertainment director on Fire Island, which if anyone knows Fire Island, or if you don't know, I'll tell
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: you. It's it's it's a legendary gay community, about two hours roughly outside of Manhattan. It's a beach community, and had been an artist colony or artist haven, but it's really it's the gay Hamptons. So to speak. And I was the entertainment director, booking all the DJs and creating the parties for it. And and and and I never lost my love for theater. It was just how do I want to relate to theater? And when I knew and and still being a good student, I I was paying attention to what was happening in London. And I saw the I saw evidence of the work that Punch Trunk was doing and Shunt and and others. all the work that was coming out of the old Vic tunnels at the time. And when I knew that that Punch Trunk was preparing to come to the United States, I I pursued that opportunity. I had I was friendly with one of the exec producers and and I went to go see a version of it that they had just outside of Boston with the American Repertory Theater. And and I said, I want to be a part of this. And he said well, you can be the guy who's responsible for getting volunteers for the project. We need a bunch of volunteers to paint the set and and then do so it's it sounds like Tom Sawyer. Like we like like they
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: wanted to convince people to like paint the set and and that that was that was a need. he said, or you can be the guy who has to know everything about everything. And I I thought about it for all of a night. I knew instantly, but I was like, okay, I want I want that role. Which is not really a job title, like or a job description.
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: It's like, you know, what does that mean? But we the executive producers brought me in to be the supervising producer, so founding team member of it who had to really track and channel everything that was happening. And I got to work closely with Punch Drunk, to adapt this piece to to have it make sense in New York City. And so I could talk about Sleep No More Forever, I I assume a a lot of your listeners are familiar with it. but that once once we got that up and running and it was a hit, I I went to go launch a series of other projects. And I was the founding producer and project manager for 29 rooms for refinery 29. So that was the first of the Instagramable playgrounds we called it. That's just when Instagram was starting to take its hold on culture. And after I launched that, then I went on to go launch the original museum of ice cream, which I am still shocked by how well it performed. It's a bit of a Frankenstein's monster thing where I'm like, like I thought we were just doing a little silly summer project. And
Joe: Be sure.
Vance Garrett: I I I I was was proud to To see how well it performed, but it was also just odd because it was so different from the nightlife
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: traditions that I had come from, where you don't have phones on the dance floor. You don't take pictures of what's happening. And and as interesting as it was to see how popular it was, I'm like, this is not the end all be all. Like, let's keep exploring and let's see what other sort of work we can do. And throughout all of this, been producing a lot of brand events, Being creative director for a lot of brand events or any sort of event. annual Halloween parties. I just I I never l lost that love for quick and dirty projects, not just these long like wind-up for projects. But I I I for all of that, I kept exploring New York City, like urban exploring, trying to find spaces that other people hadn't tapped to create. projects that would elicit wonder. You know, it's it's hard when you go into a theater or you go into a space that you're familiar with to pique that sense of curiosity. And it's a it's easier if you find an old abandoned post office that that you don't know what the insides of it are are about. And so part of my just professional practice was trying to find my way into buildings that others may have overlooked. And it's a it's a fun way to view
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: a city. It's a it's fun to just walk down the street, like I wonder what's happening in there. I wonder if I can get in. And
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: one of the buildings I was curious about was the Oculus, downtown New York. So it's the Calatrava, it's a masterpiece. It's a beautiful, beautiful building down in lower Manhattan. And sure enough, a Broadway producer who had come to my boxing club, I had a boxing club
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: in terms of experiences, you know, just trying new things I had That as well. And I learned that Westfield, the mall company, had bought this gentleman, his name's Scott Sanders, incredibly well-regarded Broadway producer, ran Radio City Music Hall for a long time, produced the color purple with Oprah and many other projects. Westfield bought his Broadway production company, and I hit him up and I said, Hey, if you have this. access to this building, I know how to make content for it. What he didn't know is that I had a spreadsheet of, you know, hundreds of ideas for projects that I've I've wanted to see happen, experiential immersive projects, original ideas. And I thought, well just maybe maybe there's a way to do some of them in the Oculus. And as we had a a conversation, I sent him my capabilities deck and it felt very in alignment with I with with what he was interested in. for for the Westfield properties. And Westfield created a job for me and moved me out of New York City and moved me to LA and I did not want to leave New York. I did not want to come to LA. that was nine years ago. I'm still in LA, but I
Joe: Ha ha.
Vance Garrett: I they moved me out there to lead up experiential entertainment for their global portfolio. And I mean talk about a shift in in a career going from doing these one off projects and found AKA derelic spaces in New York City to being able to look at this whole other distribution platform and this just different instrument to play with and figure out what is the opportunity here and and and is this heralding the golden age of experiential entertainment and immersive entertainment, knowing that these big developers want to get in
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: on this space. And I'm sure there's there's more to discuss with Westfield, but just to try to round
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: out my own prefer my my my background piece of it to bring you into
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: where we are now. I was at Westfield for about two years before it was acquired by a another company. And it was it was clear to me it was going to take the new ownership a while to get around to having the conversation around experiential. It was, it was, you know,
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: it was experiential was what could be coming up in the future, and they they needed to take care of immediate things. So I went to go do other projects. I went to go work with Tyra Banks for a while before COVID hit. when COVID hit, I knew that what we were gearing up for was was not going to happen. I I went to go work with the CAA team, so the Creative Artists agency
Joe: Mm-hmm.
Vance Garrett: team to launch a studio called Constellation Immersive. I was its chief creative officer. So over COVID, when no one could get together and none of the venues were available, the charge was, okay, how do we create something that's experiential? And we created a drive-thru elf on shelf experience for the holidays. And did get to launch a project that I'd been wanting to do forever, an idea That I had on a post-it note called Discoasis. I wanted to create a disco in the middle of a natural space, in this case a botanic garden. And some of that was informed by my time on Fire Island when I where I could see how fun it was when people are in a natural setting
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: and disco is just permeating the environment. And we we launched this project with Niall Rogers, the famous music producer at South Coast Botanic Garden here in Southern California. And it was it was the right idea at the right time that found an audience who just fell in love with this convergence of music and spectacle and just it was it was just a very joyful, joyful experience. Yada yada yada. Now I am back being an independent creative producer and creative director, developing original IP and just signed a lease. For a project called Magical Candy Cottage to launch in New York City next year with my co-producer and my co-founder, a woman named Ariel Tepper. I say AT because I can't pronounce Ariel the way she wants me to, so I just refer to her as AT in case she's listening.
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: but that that brings us up to to now. Those are some of the greatest hits. I'm happy to double click on any of them for for what you might find interesting for your for your listeners. but that's
Joe: Absolutely.
Vance Garrett: that's That's that's how I got to where I am in experiential entertainment.
Joe: Well, like you say, yeah, I mean, you said that there's no obvious pathway available to start out, but it sounds like you haven't really taken an obvious pathway once you got started. Yeah.
Vance Garrett: Right. No, not at all. It's not obvious at all. And my poor on my my poor family, every time they have to explain
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: to others what I do, I I I have not given them the tools to do that. You know, at at best
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: at best Vance is f is following his intuition and his curiosity. and
Joe: to.
Vance Garrett: yet that's not that that's true, but it's you know, I do I do enjoy anticipating or seeing where culture is going and being able to identify what's happening on the fringe of society and knowing that is going to bubble up to be mainstream
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: or that is gonna that is going to permeate culture that is going to that is gonna be the new thing. And I think I I I think I developed that appreciation from nightlife. It's you know what what's what's
Joe: Just going to say, you sort of.
Vance Garrett: that's the that's part of the game. It's like okay this DJ is doing this or this demographic,
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: this audience has found this. Let's watch and see how it's how that audience starts growing. And I I still do that. I still apply that practice. And it's not willy-nilly what I'm what I'm doing. I'm paying really close attention to how the conversation's shifting around the live experience and how people are communing and getting together and what's
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: holding and what's holding everyone together. And it gets disrupted every six months, whether it's through you know, technology clearly with with phones and and how we relate to our phones or our handheld devices, to how real estate is is changing and who holds the keys to what third spaces, you know, every time that that
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: shifts, we've gotta we've gotta adapt to it. So yeah. Yeah.
Joe: Well, let's double click on that then because I find that sort of detour that you did into Westfield.
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: I find fascinating because that was, know, in the world of immersive, nine, 10 years ago, whatever it was that you did that is a long time ago, right? So that was very
Vance Garrett: Yep, it was, yeah.
Joe: early, early in this kind of trend that we're seeing more and more of immersive experiences taking up space in retail locations. I mean, the obvious one, which is in a Westfield is that Phantom Peak in the UK has just gone into or is about to launch in a Westfield site. So. What did you kind of, what did you learn from that? Obviously you were early and it sounds like you were early to the point where Westfield weren't really ready to kind of make that bet fully. So tell
Vance Garrett: Too early. Right. Right.
Joe: us a bit more about that.
Vance Garrett: Sure. for what it's worth, just since we're talking about timing, Westfield has come back to me of late. They
Joe: Right.
Vance Garrett: and they are now a client again.
Joe: Okay.
Vance Garrett: and I advise them and produce namely their their holiday experience in here in Century City, which which I think is their crown jewel of their portfolio still.
Joe: Mm-hmm.
Vance Garrett: but coming up with a business plan for it and and executing it in the creative, like the whole, the whole, the whole, the whole thing. And so I I just want to acknowledge that because I'm still in relation to them and still get to work
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: with them. And I and and it still feels like some of the things that we learned together were still evolving. And so we're still trying to integrate into what's possible. Look, what the one of the exciting things about malls or a portfolio of mall properties is you have a distribution platform, and one of the trickiest
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: things for, or theoretically you have it, and one of the trickiest things for experiential entertainment is is this site specific or site responsive? Is it is it a one-off, or can it be afforded the luxuries that other media has, film, TV. You know, you can get so
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: many eyeballs on that, whether it's through through screens, depending on the, you know, small screens or big screens. but it's really hard to do with, let's say, a sleep no more or a project that can only, you know, satisfy maybe a hundred people per night. And and I love immersive experiences and I I love that live that live thing. But even Broadway is a really tricky, if not terrible business business model. You know, it's it's
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: maybe Broadway plus plus a touring model for a show. Maybe that's when the numbers start
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: making sense. But just to have something that's committed to one location or bound by one location is very challenging. And part of the excitement of working with the Westfield is could we create a touring model from the media markets from New York? Or integrating the media markets, launching with the media markets, New York, LA, and have a property play to San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, you you you name it. And and that was part of the that was part of the hope and the dream, and I would argue still is, or still the opportunity with these real estate investment trusts or these developers that have multiple locations. The the challenge, and it's maybe not specific to to Westfield, is, you know, if that's a new idea, how
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: do we know how do we how do we allocate the right amount of space for it or the proper space for it for that for that opportunity to hold? And I guess what I'm saying is malls still work on a leasing model. It's really about leasing your space to
Joe: Mm. Yeah.
Vance Garrett: a retailer who can have it for five, ten or so years. And sure there's there there are variations that have specialty leasing, which can happen at a quicker cadence, or you know, there might be dedicated marketing space for pop ups. but it it really requires an integrated approach. Where if you want, let's say, a 9,000, 10,000 square foot space, roughly the same size that we used when we launched Museum of Ice Cream, it was
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: about a 9,000 square foot space. Whose inventory are we taking? Is it going to be is it the leasing guy's inventory that we're taking, or is it going to be a dedicated space for experiential entertainment? And the
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: developer needs to see the opportunity in that. And again, we were just too we were just too early nine, ten years ago. There weren't there weren't the case studies. There weren't the proof.
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: You know, there weren't there was there there were the projects that were part of my body of work, Sleep No More, Museum of Ice Cream, Twenty Nine Rooms, as case studies, but there there wasn't quite this idea yet of like, okay, well I is there really an audience for that? And will they will will They well, the audience of return can these be long-running products, or was
Joe: Thank
Vance Garrett: it just a flash in the pan? I think now we know there's I n I know we know. There's a whole industry around experiential entertainment and and an audience. And it would serve real estate investment trust developers well to reconsider that notion about how multiple properties can support this effort and capitalize on the whole economy that's there. Yeah.
Joe: And what do you think the answer is then? In that question of a sort of developer owned, not necessarily operated, but a dedicated space for where, within which you could then, I suppose, have shorter term leases and things like that. Or if it
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: is just using retail units on a kind of a lease model, what's the right answer, do you think?
Vance Garrett: Yeah, I look, as a creator, as a producer of these, my my dream would be that there is a dedicated distribution platform for,
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: you know, let's say six or seven markets, that's at least ten thousand square feet, if not more than that, where there
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: can be a pipeline of of touring
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: projects. Like that's and I I know the numbers can work if it's curated
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: the right way.
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: If it's programmed the right way. And that's not to be glossed over. I mean, that's that's then the art is finding the properties. and there's still not the development pipeline. There's not one go-to source for sources in the way that there had been with the movie industry, where there's the studios and and you know, where I think the the experiential economy is still working through its development pipeline. And is
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: it gonna be a bunch of independent producers or is there gonna be a studio or series of studios, we're working through that. And
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: but if it can be curated the right way, if you have the right buyer who
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: knows what properties can attract what audience members. And you know, if you can solve that piece of it and if there are any developers out there who are curious about it, I'm happy to have conversations with whomever. You know
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: I think you can have a really you can have something really exciting happen and you can lead the industry. No one has
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: claimed that spot yet, you know? So it's
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: it's it's it still excites me. You know, then there's just Another way to think about these mixed use properties, which is well, maybe we want to give the entertainment away. Or maybe it doesn't all want to be behind a enclosed space. Maybe it wants to be in an open air space. And I and and sure enough, actually Century City does quite a bit of that with their atrium space. I I don't know who would be familiar with it, but they have a big, beautiful open atrium. It's almost like a theater, but you can look in on it and it's great for sure enough, marketing activations or one-offs like, you know, their their viewings of the World Cup there that now that they're doing. Or you name
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: it. It's like a beautiful event space. It's just
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: hard to enclose it because you don't want to enclose it. You just want to give it away. You want people who are coming to the mall to just see
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: what's happening in there. And that's a different That's a slightly different game. So then so then you might be taking the the pressure off of tickets needing to support everything. And it's more about getting eyeballs on whatever
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: the activation of project is, which is absolutely in alignment with marketing projects. It's how how many impressions can you make?
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: And then it also can support with driving foot traffic to the mall.
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: And increasing dwell time. And those
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: are really, really valuable for yeah, that's what a mall wants. That's what a real estate investment
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: trust wants. That's what the that's what the leasing guys want. They wanna be able to say, we are attracting as many people as Disneyland is every year. And I
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: think that's actually I think that's true for for for Century City. Someone else can send me an email if I'm if I'm off, but That's really
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: powerful. And you you can do that if the venue, if the property, has really interesting content going on any given day. People
Joe: Exactly.
Vance Garrett: want to go see and explore and they wanna they don't just wanna transact. They don't just I mean, sure, you you wanna go, you you are gonna buy clothes, you're gonna buy whatever you want to buy, but you know, if you're just doing that yeah.
Joe: Yeah, but even, yeah, even I was just gonna say like a lot of retail is more showroom than transaction now, right? So like, and so that
Vance Garrett: Correct. Hundred percent. Correct. Yeah.
Joe: idea of going to the mall, you know, it just being a retail space and that being enough to get people to go there and stay there and dwell there is kind of a bygone
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: era almost. And I love this idea of, shopping malls being much more sort of use entertainment spaces and venues and they've already got the food
Vance Garrett: Same. Yeah.
Joe: courts and all this kind of stuff and just being a good place to spend time, which is what, know, malls used to be, but just driven by shopping and food.
Vance Garrett: Totally. Yeah.
Joe: So I think you're right to, like calling those two separate things out, because they are totally separate things. If you're selling tickets, that's one thing, but if you're using experiential entertainment to drive the core business, that's two very different approaches, which I find fascinating.
Vance Garrett: Hundred percent. Yeah, it's you know, the the just adding to what you're saying, yeah, we're we're we're you're not going to the mall for just to transact. You're not going it because going there because it's super frictionless. Maybe with clothes 'cause you kinda wanna like you need to like touch and feel like there's a
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: little of there's that or who knows, like cosmetics beauty. you know, like I I under I understand all that. But we're We're we're going 'cause we're social animals. we need to be around other people. I I think this is one of the drivers for for malls still for mixed use properties. but what you were saying about y you know you were you said it differently, but it it it's really interesting when you have more than just stores there. So when I I'm most
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: familiar with Century City, but like I think about thirty-three percent of the retailers there are actually restaurants. I think it's it had been around that number for for years. Then you also have a grocery store there. You you have like one of the best grocery stores on the west side there. So people have to show up just to like get their groceries. Then you also have UCLA has a has a medical office there. So you might go see your your doctor while you're there. and it you just the it layers up and and you look at it, you're like, this is this is Town Square. This is this is especially
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: in a market like LA where it's so hard to find the center of it, you're like, this is as this is as much the center as as any place. So yeah. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, and but a center that is is safe and you
Vance Garrett: Yes.
Joe: like thinking about you mentioned like third spaces earlier and you know for young people, I mean, I'm not gonna that spent a lot of time in malls as a youngster because I'm from the UK but you know, I've seen plenty of
Vance Garrett: Yeah. I spent a lot of time in malls. I spent a lot of time
Joe: I was gonna say that.
Vance Garrett: being from Chicagoland, a Midwesterner growing up in the eighties and nineties. Like malls were
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: malls were the hang, you know. You would you would
Joe: Exactly.
Vance Garrett: your your parents felt okay knowing that you were gonna be there with friends and it was a it was a super social experience and you weren't on
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: the streets, you were just like going to
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: Spencer Gifts or Abercrombie or you know, like hanging out at a food court.
Joe: Yeah, or just hanging out, yeah, exactly. And I think that's kind of the, that's in terms of a usage occasion, if you like, for shopping malls, that feels like a real opportunity again, because there's very few safe third spaces for young people these days.
Vance Garrett: I agree. I agree. I do not have children. but I I still can empathize with wow, where where would I send my kids now? Or where would I where would I be okay with young people if I had a young child or y a young person? f to whom to be accountable. Like I don't it it it's tricky and especially in the United States with how
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: how violent and scary the the world here can be at times, you know. But malls are amazing. Like I go to Century City here and like it's a it's an oasis. It's it's
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: it's beautifully done and it's there's something romantic about it. There's it's it's a California dream. I will I'll go to the Grove here. I don't know if everyone knows the Grove, but it's arguably the the the competing property from a different developer. And it feels it does feel like a mini Disneyland. And there's a trolley going down the middle of it, or maybe Lady Gaga's popping out of an Apple store doing doing a promotion, literally. And it feels safe. Whether it is safe or not, I don't I don't want to make that claim, but it does it
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Vance Garrett: I it's it it feels safe. I haven't seen anything dangerous happen in either one of those locations. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, good. just before we move on from the Westfield piece,
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: being that early and dealing with kind of big corporate, what, big corporations, right? How do you sell creative ideas into kind of a commercial real estate business?
Vance Garrett: Sure. Different ways for different projects. And so it's easiest on the sell side, it's easiest if there is a case study or a beta version a minimum of a project that has the metrics that anyone would want to see, knowing that it makes money, knowing that it has an audience, knowing that there's a mechanism or means to re-engage that audience. the
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: more revenue streams that are associated with the property, the better. You know, if you if you can point to those, like that that's an easy con that's an easier that's an easy conversation.
Joe: Mm. Mm.
Vance Garrett: And if there is brand recognition, it's an easy, easier conversation. And I think it's one of the reasons why you will see pre-existing or licensed IP
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: in an experiential format in malls because
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: everyone knows Star Wars or they know Bluey
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: or they know, you know, it it feels it's an easier conversation to have. You said Phantom
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: Peak. Phantom Peak was at one location and now it's it proved that it's a hit. And now it's moving
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: into a Westfield in London. That's easy. What's a little trickier is if you want to launch original IP or a new brand
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: in a in a mall. And and ironically, at least for me, that's what I do. Like that's exactly that's
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: what I d that's that that's what I what I do. it's hard to say, hey, I see this trend happening in culture where everyone is getting excited about millennium millennial pink. And ice cream is the th like it's it's just har it's just harder to
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: do it. I'm at the point of my career where now there's a there is a body of work and I can say, hey, the this was a hit, this was a hit, this was a hit, this was a hit. So unique to me or anyone who's been able to be to who's had the privilege of doing it for a couple decades, the tone of the conversation might shift a bit.
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: And we might be afforded that opportunity to point people and the leasing team or the CEO saying, hey, there is still not a go to source for it, but from what
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: I'm from my track record, like or here from my point of view for these reasons, I think that we should think about this property, this property, this property. Those are still
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: really hard conversations to have or had
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: I don't think they're ever easy to have. but that the but
Joe: But again, potentially sold, sorry, go on. was just
Vance Garrett: No, no, no, you go for it. Yeah.
Joe: gonna say that again is another reason to have this sort of, like you see places like Area 15 in Vegas and
Vance Garrett: Yep. Vegas, yep.
Joe: the most London in London. where that's sort of, you can create this sort of brand around the space almost, and then
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: the stuff that goes into it can be a little bit more experimental and new potentially, because the risk
Vance Garrett: Totally. Absolutely.
Joe: is lower if it doesn't work. You can just kind of get another.
Vance Garrett: Yeah, yeah, you you you can I I have to imagine they're still they're largely working on lease models. I'm just I'm gonna assume that. I I I don't know. You know, or or or whatnot. But they're they need to program that space. You know, if someone goes to meow I guess the other thing that you consider you can consider, I'm jumping around a bit, but from a programming perspective is what's gonna be what's truly the dwell time for someone who's gonna be at your location? If it's mall, maybe it's one thing. If it's a entertainment center, maybe maybe there's a couple more hours there. But if you if you look at I know you let's say I'm making up numbers, but if you know that they're gonna go to the marquee attraction, let's say it's Meowwolf, and they're gonna spend the better part of two hours there, they might have time for one other forty five minute
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: long. experience. And I would think a a programmer or the developer could be like, how many 45 minute long experiences do we have that's going to complement that
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: that that that can happen after lunch or can happen before they need to go off to back to their casino to go see another show. I guess I'm just pulling back the curtain a bit about how a how a programmer
Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Vance Garrett: should think about the space or think about the larger audience experience, knowing how it's in relation to other things that are happening, and that and that if you're gonna be in proximity with other businesses or attractions, like how do you all play together? How do you all you know, how do you how do you all how do you create an ecosystem that that benefits benefits everyone? but again that needs to that needs to come from the top down. That's sort of thinking that's really hard from the individual experience producer to to
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: to make that sell, but it's it's it's important for us independents to see, okay, they have a meow wolf, but they don't have this other thing that's gonna extend the stay. So that's gonna be the angle. That's gonna be my that's gonna be the way that I pitch the opportunity. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. I think it's like you say, it's that piece in the middle, I think you've got this distribution network that is desperate for driving the things that you said, right? Dwell time, footfall, all of that other stuff for which experiential is a real obvious. opportunities to do that, but all of the infrastructure in between everything from business models, rights,
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: curation and kind of programming, all of that stuff is the bit that's still being figured out, I think. But when that clicks, I feel like it's just going...
Vance Garrett: It's still being figured out. Yeah. Look, it's I think that's what makes the industry so exciting still. It hasn't fully clicked and it can be really scary and there is you know, I think I actually think we we took a a dip, especially come right before and coming out of the COVID years, where there were a lot of like failures or a lot of experiential failures and people lost money and I think it damaged the trust of some audiences. they would go see things and they they just they weren't that they weren't great. I
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: I'm not I'm not the one to have coined it this, but others have said it's it's like our awkward teenage years. Maybe
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: it is. And maybe now the industry is becoming an adult and it and it will click. And there's so much knowledge now that we have. There's so much knowledge that we have around these early earlier you know, phase one point of experiential and immersive work, then now we can
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: we can really lean on that and point to those case studies and improve upon it. You know, there's
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: and and improve upon them. So I'm I'm excited. I'm excited about it. But it it's it's gonna take the whole community. It's gonna take the developers. It's gonna take the technologists and the futurists and and the creatives and the trend forecasters who are reading what's happening in culture. It's yeah it it takes
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: the whole village To make this work.
Joe: Yeah, and I think that segues nicely to what's so clear in your work and the way that you talk about your work and the stuff that you did at London Experience Week and all that kind of stuff, you've touched on it there, but. Ultimately, all of the business outcomes that are great for live experiences depend on first achieving human impact. So business impact follows
Vance Garrett: Mm-hmm.
Joe: human impact, right? And that's kind of obviously hugely important to what we do because that's what we measure and therefore that kind of helps people create better experiences. And I love this idea that when we spoke before we set this recording up, you mentioned this idea of collective effervescence or collective joy as a concept and something that a design principle, if you like. So tell us what that is, the science behind it,
Vance Garrett: Yeah
Joe: and then let's dive in.
Vance Garrett: Thank you. Yeah, thank you for for bringing this up. It's it's it's truly what I am most curious about or most interested in in live experiences is how to create the conditions for collective joy. And and sociologists had coined the term collective effervescence in the last century, which is the idea of that pleasure that we experience as humans when we are in a collective or in mass. experiencing the same thing at the same time. Whether it's a ritual or a parade or a sporting event or being on the dance floor together, there is a certain lightness in being. And it can feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself, which to me is happiness. You know, dissolving into something bigger than yourself is happiness. And And it's so tricky in a world that is so fragmented and when your attention is splintered off in so many different places. And and also when there's a a premium culturally, at least say in the United States, and being an individual, you know, it's a it's a qu it's a very it's an individualistic society, you know, like be the best individual you can, get the most attention. And I'm I'm totally generalizing or generalizing. But You know, how do you craft a world where people are wanting, willing, able to show up, suspend their day to day social selves or ego, and and open up, explore a world that allows them to connect with others? And what are the what are the mechanics that that make that make that happen? And I spend a lot of time, spend a qu a lot, a lot of time thinking about this and exploring this and and playing with it. And and I I do think this is consistent with what comes out of my nightlife experience where
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: thank God I learned those traditions from my mentors on Fire Island and my mentors from the Black Party, the Saint at Large, which you know, these are these are legendary clubs or or They're more than clubs, but communities. And there there's quite like a there's a ritualistic there's a sense of ritual to the the parties
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: and the celebrations. And I learned that there is a phenomenon supporting c these collective experiences known as entrainment. And and and I've been talking about this a lot this past year, and it it's it's always found it interesting that it hasn't popped in the experiential creator conversation. But entrainment is when oscillating bodies give up their differences and frequencies to match one another. So it's when grandfather clocks when you put them close enough together after some amount of time, their pendulums is it pendula or pendulums, let's say pendulums will be s will be swinging at the same direction, or people breathing when they're in same bed, or when they're just close to one another, or hearts or menstrual cycles. It just like it happens all across it happens all across the world. And When you're not in entrainment with others, that's you being by yourself,
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: away from others, it it feels like there's an association with the plagues of anxiety and depression that has has, you know, really depil debilitated so many like swaths of society. But when you're in entrainment It's actually just easier to live. When you're around other people,
Joe: minute.
Vance Garrett: experiencing the same thing at the same time, it's physically easier for your heart to beat and it's
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: easier to breathe. And it can happen in mass. It doesn't need to be thousands and thousands of people. As fun as I think that is, and I do think it's fun when you're in, you know, when you're at Coachella and Beyonce takes the stage and you can just feel everyone's energy.
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: Focus on the same thing at the same time. or when you're on the dance floor and you're waiting for the bass to drop, like it feels awesome,
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: but it can also happen on smaller scales. It can happen with a smaller group of people literally just breathing at the same time. I think that's what the word conspiracy means is Yeah, or yeah, or or that. And it's so it's great. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. Or watching England on the TV in the pub. to listening to you talk there, like, I mean, I've had, I've had like exactly the experience you just got. Like the ultimate for me that makes me think of is the pyramid stage at Glastonbury, where you've got like a hundred thousand people in the field all, and you
Vance Garrett: Sure.
Joe: can feel that vibe across all of those people.
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: unbelievably overpowering that kind of feeling. I'm kind of getting goosebumps just talking about it now.
Vance Garrett: Amazing.
Joe: But then equally like any England score a goal in the World Cup and I'm in sitting in the, I live in a little village in the countryside and there's maybe six
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: or seven people in the pub, but the goal goes in and you'd feel it then. It's like people that, know, different. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Vance Garrett: Totally, totally, totally. I I it is fascinating and you know, like I said early on, I I chose the theater lane, not the sports lane. But I love how sports sporting events can can bring people together. I'm a I'm a I still identify as a New Yorker even though I live in LA and when the Knicks won the championship a couple
Joe: wow.
Vance Garrett: weeks ago, I was here in LA and I I I felt tingles in my body when they when they won. And then I saw people like filling the streets of the West Village. And my partner was actually down there and texting me about about what he was saying. And it was it was I wasn't f physically there, but I physically felt it in my body. 'cause I already had a I already I I I had New York in my blood. I know what it feels like to be in the streets of New York City and You know what it feels like to be in the fields of Glastonbury and or wherever. So yeah, yeah, it's it i it's it's a it's an interesting opportunity digitally,
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: you know. How the the I'm not one to say digital's bad. Like I I clearly I launched 29 Room Certain Refinery or or Museum of Ice Cream. Like it's not
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: bad. I'm not I'm not mad at it. It's how to preserve the integrity of the live experience. And our rituals around that. maintain that and layer in these other elements, awesome. Just just yeah.
Joe: some.
Vance Garrett: That that that's that's the exciting opportunity.
Joe: Yeah, it's possible for both to, it's possible basically to kind of harness that entrainment collective FFS and so on for commercial gain, but you have to be very careful with how
Vance Garrett: Yeah, it is.
Joe: you do it basically.
Vance Garrett: It is. you have to be very careful and you can't get at it by tracking an individual. You have to be able I'm even I'm a little hesitant to say this. I feel like like is this like giving the magic away? So I I I hope those who are listening or those who are working on those systems for tracking the data are responsible with this. But one of the things I love about entrainment is you need multiple beings within proximity of one another for that phenomenon to reveal itself. and so yeah, I I I get a little curious when I hear people coming up with tracking the return on investment. on experiences
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: and they're just looking at it from the lens of an individual and like, I think you're I think
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: you're missing I think you're missing what's really happening there. It's about how
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: the collective is working together. But I digress. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, agree. No, well, yeah, it's interesting. should off camera, we can talk about how we sort of tackle it.
Vance Garrett: Yeah. But yeah. Yeah.
Joe: But I know you I know we're over time now because I know you have to have to to be somewhere. So I'm going to wrap up there and say thank you very, very much
Vance Garrett: I do, I do. Yeah. Great.
Joe: for joining us. I've really loved it. And hopefully we can continue the conversation another time.
Vance Garrett: Yes, please. Thank you. I love I I I would love that. Thank you for having me and thank you for letting me speak to what I love and sharing with whomever's listening. I appreciate it, Joe. Thank you. All
Joe: Great, thanks Vance.
Vance Garrett: right. Bye.
Vance Garrett: Hello, Joe. Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely being here.
Joe: Yeah, great. I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Vance Garrett: Same.
Joe: So I always like to start at the very beginning. I'm fascinated by origin stories and how people ended up in the wonderful world of live experiences. So let's go all the way back to the beginning. Tell us about where you started out, how you kind of ended up where you are, and the sort of twists and turns on the way, I suppose.
Vance Garrett: Sure. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm happy to wind way up and go way back. So I I I was a kid who just had always been creating experiences my whole life, creating carnivals in the backyard, haunted houses in the basement, creating parades around the neighborhood, or murder mystery dinner parties when I learned how to cook. And you know, it was just it was just instinctual and y there wasn't a path. There wasn't a professional path that I saw to do that sort of work, you know. It was I liked recreating Six Flags Great America rides in my backyard. But like there's where do you like what course of study is that? And so I found theater and I was a theater kid. it was either sports or theater. And my brother had sports, so I did theater and dance and acrobatics and That was my lane from childhood through high school into college and beyond. And and I was poised for that to be my whole career. I thought that I would be a Broadway performer. I thought that I would be an acrobat in Circ. And I I was able to do things that I'm really proud of and I had I had fun with it, but it always felt limiting in some degree as being a creative being, as being an artist. You know, I I liked creating the whole experience and I had a taste of that and I had a practice of that as as a as a child and just being up on stage with everyone looking at you. I mean, it's fun being in a really theatrical environment. It's fun being in that world and it's fun to play in that regard. I had less fun auditioning and I had less fun literally having people watch me play. I just
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: I don't think I ever got out of that awareness that People are paying attention to me. So rather, you know, part of the fun of play is you're you're inside looking out and you're not self-conscious and
Joe: Thank
Vance Garrett: and you're moving. And I just did not love being on stage in that in in that way. And so when I I moved to New York September 7th, 2001, and had one weekend of fun exploring nightlife there before everything turned with 9-11. And
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: clearly for the whole world, it was a time to take inventory and And I stayed in I stayed in New York, but the the idea of auditioning for Broadway shows when I didn't really want to be in them s at the end of
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: the day. I want to say I was in them. I didn't actually really want to be in them. I was like, you
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: know, this is what what do I do? So I found nightlife as a bartender, still auditioning, you know, still still curious about about about that world, but you know, the the bloom had come off the rose. And through nightlife I was able to find a whole other path. And while I was bartending, I looked out at either the bar that I was in or the club. I'm like, this is theater. This is just theater where
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: everyone's on the same plane and everyone is in on the same world and there's not this division this division. there's not this fourth wall that you have to Breakthrough. There is no fourth wall. Everyone's everyone's experiencing a heightened reality together. And through that, I was tapped to write audience experience treatments for large 6,000-person parties that wanted a true emotional arc to the experience and a true specific setting and conflict and to harness you know, what was happening in pop culture at the time or the fashions of the moment and and the sensibility. And that was really my way into immersive experiences. That that confluence or that convergence of the theater know-how and nightlife, collective joy or collective effervescence, which I hope we'll get to speak more about later. And and and aligning that with what's happening in the zeitgeist right now. Bringing people together, that's that's what set me up to start to work on Sleep No More. So I was the entertainment director on Fire Island, which if anyone knows Fire Island, or if you don't know, I'll tell
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: you. It's it's it's a legendary gay community, about two hours roughly outside of Manhattan. It's a beach community, and had been an artist colony or artist haven, but it's really it's the gay Hamptons. So to speak. And I was the entertainment director, booking all the DJs and creating the parties for it. And and and and I never lost my love for theater. It was just how do I want to relate to theater? And when I knew and and still being a good student, I I was paying attention to what was happening in London. And I saw the I saw evidence of the work that Punch Trunk was doing and Shunt and and others. all the work that was coming out of the old Vic tunnels at the time. And when I knew that that Punch Trunk was preparing to come to the United States, I I pursued that opportunity. I had I was friendly with one of the exec producers and and I went to go see a version of it that they had just outside of Boston with the American Repertory Theater. And and I said, I want to be a part of this. And he said well, you can be the guy who's responsible for getting volunteers for the project. We need a bunch of volunteers to paint the set and and then do so it's it sounds like Tom Sawyer. Like we like like they
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: wanted to convince people to like paint the set and and that that was that was a need. he said, or you can be the guy who has to know everything about everything. And I I thought about it for all of a night. I knew instantly, but I was like, okay, I want I want that role. Which is not really a job title, like or a job description.
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: It's like, you know, what does that mean? But we the executive producers brought me in to be the supervising producer, so founding team member of it who had to really track and channel everything that was happening. And I got to work closely with Punch Drunk, to adapt this piece to to have it make sense in New York City. And so I could talk about Sleep No More Forever, I I assume a a lot of your listeners are familiar with it. but that once once we got that up and running and it was a hit, I I went to go launch a series of other projects. And I was the founding producer and project manager for 29 rooms for refinery 29. So that was the first of the Instagramable playgrounds we called it. That's just when Instagram was starting to take its hold on culture. And after I launched that, then I went on to go launch the original museum of ice cream, which I am still shocked by how well it performed. It's a bit of a Frankenstein's monster thing where I'm like, like I thought we were just doing a little silly summer project. And
Joe: Be sure.
Vance Garrett: I I I I was was proud to To see how well it performed, but it was also just odd because it was so different from the nightlife
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: traditions that I had come from, where you don't have phones on the dance floor. You don't take pictures of what's happening. And and as interesting as it was to see how popular it was, I'm like, this is not the end all be all. Like, let's keep exploring and let's see what other sort of work we can do. And throughout all of this, been producing a lot of brand events, Being creative director for a lot of brand events or any sort of event. annual Halloween parties. I just I I never l lost that love for quick and dirty projects, not just these long like wind-up for projects. But I I I for all of that, I kept exploring New York City, like urban exploring, trying to find spaces that other people hadn't tapped to create. projects that would elicit wonder. You know, it's it's hard when you go into a theater or you go into a space that you're familiar with to pique that sense of curiosity. And it's a it's easier if you find an old abandoned post office that that you don't know what the insides of it are are about. And so part of my just professional practice was trying to find my way into buildings that others may have overlooked. And it's a it's a fun way to view
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: a city. It's a it's fun to just walk down the street, like I wonder what's happening in there. I wonder if I can get in. And
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: one of the buildings I was curious about was the Oculus, downtown New York. So it's the Calatrava, it's a masterpiece. It's a beautiful, beautiful building down in lower Manhattan. And sure enough, a Broadway producer who had come to my boxing club, I had a boxing club
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: in terms of experiences, you know, just trying new things I had That as well. And I learned that Westfield, the mall company, had bought this gentleman, his name's Scott Sanders, incredibly well-regarded Broadway producer, ran Radio City Music Hall for a long time, produced the color purple with Oprah and many other projects. Westfield bought his Broadway production company, and I hit him up and I said, Hey, if you have this. access to this building, I know how to make content for it. What he didn't know is that I had a spreadsheet of, you know, hundreds of ideas for projects that I've I've wanted to see happen, experiential immersive projects, original ideas. And I thought, well just maybe maybe there's a way to do some of them in the Oculus. And as we had a a conversation, I sent him my capabilities deck and it felt very in alignment with I with with what he was interested in. for for the Westfield properties. And Westfield created a job for me and moved me out of New York City and moved me to LA and I did not want to leave New York. I did not want to come to LA. that was nine years ago. I'm still in LA, but I
Joe: Ha ha.
Vance Garrett: I they moved me out there to lead up experiential entertainment for their global portfolio. And I mean talk about a shift in in a career going from doing these one off projects and found AKA derelic spaces in New York City to being able to look at this whole other distribution platform and this just different instrument to play with and figure out what is the opportunity here and and and is this heralding the golden age of experiential entertainment and immersive entertainment, knowing that these big developers want to get in
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: on this space. And I'm sure there's there's more to discuss with Westfield, but just to try to round
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: out my own prefer my my my background piece of it to bring you into
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: where we are now. I was at Westfield for about two years before it was acquired by a another company. And it was it was clear to me it was going to take the new ownership a while to get around to having the conversation around experiential. It was, it was, you know,
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: it was experiential was what could be coming up in the future, and they they needed to take care of immediate things. So I went to go do other projects. I went to go work with Tyra Banks for a while before COVID hit. when COVID hit, I knew that what we were gearing up for was was not going to happen. I I went to go work with the CAA team, so the Creative Artists agency
Joe: Mm-hmm.
Vance Garrett: team to launch a studio called Constellation Immersive. I was its chief creative officer. So over COVID, when no one could get together and none of the venues were available, the charge was, okay, how do we create something that's experiential? And we created a drive-thru elf on shelf experience for the holidays. And did get to launch a project that I'd been wanting to do forever, an idea That I had on a post-it note called Discoasis. I wanted to create a disco in the middle of a natural space, in this case a botanic garden. And some of that was informed by my time on Fire Island when I where I could see how fun it was when people are in a natural setting
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: and disco is just permeating the environment. And we we launched this project with Niall Rogers, the famous music producer at South Coast Botanic Garden here in Southern California. And it was it was the right idea at the right time that found an audience who just fell in love with this convergence of music and spectacle and just it was it was just a very joyful, joyful experience. Yada yada yada. Now I am back being an independent creative producer and creative director, developing original IP and just signed a lease. For a project called Magical Candy Cottage to launch in New York City next year with my co-producer and my co-founder, a woman named Ariel Tepper. I say AT because I can't pronounce Ariel the way she wants me to, so I just refer to her as AT in case she's listening.
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: but that that brings us up to to now. Those are some of the greatest hits. I'm happy to double click on any of them for for what you might find interesting for your for your listeners. but that's
Joe: Absolutely.
Vance Garrett: that's That's that's how I got to where I am in experiential entertainment.
Joe: Well, like you say, yeah, I mean, you said that there's no obvious pathway available to start out, but it sounds like you haven't really taken an obvious pathway once you got started. Yeah.
Vance Garrett: Right. No, not at all. It's not obvious at all. And my poor on my my poor family, every time they have to explain
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: to others what I do, I I I have not given them the tools to do that. You know, at at best
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: at best Vance is f is following his intuition and his curiosity. and
Joe: to.
Vance Garrett: yet that's not that that's true, but it's you know, I do I do enjoy anticipating or seeing where culture is going and being able to identify what's happening on the fringe of society and knowing that is going to bubble up to be mainstream
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: or that is gonna that is going to permeate culture that is going to that is gonna be the new thing. And I think I I I think I developed that appreciation from nightlife. It's you know what what's what's
Joe: Just going to say, you sort of.
Vance Garrett: that's the that's part of the game. It's like okay this DJ is doing this or this demographic,
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: this audience has found this. Let's watch and see how it's how that audience starts growing. And I I still do that. I still apply that practice. And it's not willy-nilly what I'm what I'm doing. I'm paying really close attention to how the conversation's shifting around the live experience and how people are communing and getting together and what's
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: holding and what's holding everyone together. And it gets disrupted every six months, whether it's through you know, technology clearly with with phones and and how we relate to our phones or our handheld devices, to how real estate is is changing and who holds the keys to what third spaces, you know, every time that that
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: shifts, we've gotta we've gotta adapt to it. So yeah. Yeah.
Joe: Well, let's double click on that then because I find that sort of detour that you did into Westfield.
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: I find fascinating because that was, know, in the world of immersive, nine, 10 years ago, whatever it was that you did that is a long time ago, right? So that was very
Vance Garrett: Yep, it was, yeah.
Joe: early, early in this kind of trend that we're seeing more and more of immersive experiences taking up space in retail locations. I mean, the obvious one, which is in a Westfield is that Phantom Peak in the UK has just gone into or is about to launch in a Westfield site. So. What did you kind of, what did you learn from that? Obviously you were early and it sounds like you were early to the point where Westfield weren't really ready to kind of make that bet fully. So tell
Vance Garrett: Too early. Right. Right.
Joe: us a bit more about that.
Vance Garrett: Sure. for what it's worth, just since we're talking about timing, Westfield has come back to me of late. They
Joe: Right.
Vance Garrett: and they are now a client again.
Joe: Okay.
Vance Garrett: and I advise them and produce namely their their holiday experience in here in Century City, which which I think is their crown jewel of their portfolio still.
Joe: Mm-hmm.
Vance Garrett: but coming up with a business plan for it and and executing it in the creative, like the whole, the whole, the whole, the whole thing. And so I I just want to acknowledge that because I'm still in relation to them and still get to work
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: with them. And I and and it still feels like some of the things that we learned together were still evolving. And so we're still trying to integrate into what's possible. Look, what the one of the exciting things about malls or a portfolio of mall properties is you have a distribution platform, and one of the trickiest
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: things for, or theoretically you have it, and one of the trickiest things for experiential entertainment is is this site specific or site responsive? Is it is it a one-off, or can it be afforded the luxuries that other media has, film, TV. You know, you can get so
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: many eyeballs on that, whether it's through through screens, depending on the, you know, small screens or big screens. but it's really hard to do with, let's say, a sleep no more or a project that can only, you know, satisfy maybe a hundred people per night. And and I love immersive experiences and I I love that live that live thing. But even Broadway is a really tricky, if not terrible business business model. You know, it's it's
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: maybe Broadway plus plus a touring model for a show. Maybe that's when the numbers start
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: making sense. But just to have something that's committed to one location or bound by one location is very challenging. And part of the excitement of working with the Westfield is could we create a touring model from the media markets from New York? Or integrating the media markets, launching with the media markets, New York, LA, and have a property play to San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, you you you name it. And and that was part of the that was part of the hope and the dream, and I would argue still is, or still the opportunity with these real estate investment trusts or these developers that have multiple locations. The the challenge, and it's maybe not specific to to Westfield, is, you know, if that's a new idea, how
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: do we know how do we how do we allocate the right amount of space for it or the proper space for it for that for that opportunity to hold? And I guess what I'm saying is malls still work on a leasing model. It's really about leasing your space to
Joe: Mm. Yeah.
Vance Garrett: a retailer who can have it for five, ten or so years. And sure there's there there are variations that have specialty leasing, which can happen at a quicker cadence, or you know, there might be dedicated marketing space for pop ups. but it it really requires an integrated approach. Where if you want, let's say, a 9,000, 10,000 square foot space, roughly the same size that we used when we launched Museum of Ice Cream, it was
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: about a 9,000 square foot space. Whose inventory are we taking? Is it going to be is it the leasing guy's inventory that we're taking, or is it going to be a dedicated space for experiential entertainment? And the
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: developer needs to see the opportunity in that. And again, we were just too we were just too early nine, ten years ago. There weren't there weren't the case studies. There weren't the proof.
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: You know, there weren't there was there there were the projects that were part of my body of work, Sleep No More, Museum of Ice Cream, Twenty Nine Rooms, as case studies, but there there wasn't quite this idea yet of like, okay, well I is there really an audience for that? And will they will will They well, the audience of return can these be long-running products, or was
Joe: Thank
Vance Garrett: it just a flash in the pan? I think now we know there's I n I know we know. There's a whole industry around experiential entertainment and and an audience. And it would serve real estate investment trust developers well to reconsider that notion about how multiple properties can support this effort and capitalize on the whole economy that's there. Yeah.
Joe: And what do you think the answer is then? In that question of a sort of developer owned, not necessarily operated, but a dedicated space for where, within which you could then, I suppose, have shorter term leases and things like that. Or if it
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: is just using retail units on a kind of a lease model, what's the right answer, do you think?
Vance Garrett: Yeah, I look, as a creator, as a producer of these, my my dream would be that there is a dedicated distribution platform for,
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: you know, let's say six or seven markets, that's at least ten thousand square feet, if not more than that, where there
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: can be a pipeline of of touring
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: projects. Like that's and I I know the numbers can work if it's curated
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: the right way.
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: If it's programmed the right way. And that's not to be glossed over. I mean, that's that's then the art is finding the properties. and there's still not the development pipeline. There's not one go-to source for sources in the way that there had been with the movie industry, where there's the studios and and you know, where I think the the experiential economy is still working through its development pipeline. And is
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: it gonna be a bunch of independent producers or is there gonna be a studio or series of studios, we're working through that. And
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: but if it can be curated the right way, if you have the right buyer who
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: knows what properties can attract what audience members. And you know, if you can solve that piece of it and if there are any developers out there who are curious about it, I'm happy to have conversations with whomever. You know
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: I think you can have a really you can have something really exciting happen and you can lead the industry. No one has
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: claimed that spot yet, you know? So it's
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: it's it's it still excites me. You know, then there's just Another way to think about these mixed use properties, which is well, maybe we want to give the entertainment away. Or maybe it doesn't all want to be behind a enclosed space. Maybe it wants to be in an open air space. And I and and sure enough, actually Century City does quite a bit of that with their atrium space. I I don't know who would be familiar with it, but they have a big, beautiful open atrium. It's almost like a theater, but you can look in on it and it's great for sure enough, marketing activations or one-offs like, you know, their their viewings of the World Cup there that now that they're doing. Or you name
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: it. It's like a beautiful event space. It's just
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: hard to enclose it because you don't want to enclose it. You just want to give it away. You want people who are coming to the mall to just see
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: what's happening in there. And that's a different That's a slightly different game. So then so then you might be taking the the pressure off of tickets needing to support everything. And it's more about getting eyeballs on whatever
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: the activation of project is, which is absolutely in alignment with marketing projects. It's how how many impressions can you make?
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: And then it also can support with driving foot traffic to the mall.
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: And increasing dwell time. And those
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: are really, really valuable for yeah, that's what a mall wants. That's what a real estate investment
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: trust wants. That's what the that's what the leasing guys want. They wanna be able to say, we are attracting as many people as Disneyland is every year. And I
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: think that's actually I think that's true for for for Century City. Someone else can send me an email if I'm if I'm off, but That's really
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: powerful. And you you can do that if the venue, if the property, has really interesting content going on any given day. People
Joe: Exactly.
Vance Garrett: want to go see and explore and they wanna they don't just wanna transact. They don't just I mean, sure, you you wanna go, you you are gonna buy clothes, you're gonna buy whatever you want to buy, but you know, if you're just doing that yeah.
Joe: Yeah, but even, yeah, even I was just gonna say like a lot of retail is more showroom than transaction now, right? So like, and so that
Vance Garrett: Correct. Hundred percent. Correct. Yeah.
Joe: idea of going to the mall, you know, it just being a retail space and that being enough to get people to go there and stay there and dwell there is kind of a bygone
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: era almost. And I love this idea of, shopping malls being much more sort of use entertainment spaces and venues and they've already got the food
Vance Garrett: Same. Yeah.
Joe: courts and all this kind of stuff and just being a good place to spend time, which is what, know, malls used to be, but just driven by shopping and food.
Vance Garrett: Totally. Yeah.
Joe: So I think you're right to, like calling those two separate things out, because they are totally separate things. If you're selling tickets, that's one thing, but if you're using experiential entertainment to drive the core business, that's two very different approaches, which I find fascinating.
Vance Garrett: Hundred percent. Yeah, it's you know, the the just adding to what you're saying, yeah, we're we're we're you're not going to the mall for just to transact. You're not going it because going there because it's super frictionless. Maybe with clothes 'cause you kinda wanna like you need to like touch and feel like there's a
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: little of there's that or who knows, like cosmetics beauty. you know, like I I under I understand all that. But we're We're we're going 'cause we're social animals. we need to be around other people. I I think this is one of the drivers for for malls still for mixed use properties. but what you were saying about y you know you were you said it differently, but it it it's really interesting when you have more than just stores there. So when I I'm most
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: familiar with Century City, but like I think about thirty-three percent of the retailers there are actually restaurants. I think it's it had been around that number for for years. Then you also have a grocery store there. You you have like one of the best grocery stores on the west side there. So people have to show up just to like get their groceries. Then you also have UCLA has a has a medical office there. So you might go see your your doctor while you're there. and it you just the it layers up and and you look at it, you're like, this is this is Town Square. This is this is especially
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: in a market like LA where it's so hard to find the center of it, you're like, this is as this is as much the center as as any place. So yeah. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, and but a center that is is safe and you
Vance Garrett: Yes.
Joe: like thinking about you mentioned like third spaces earlier and you know for young people, I mean, I'm not gonna that spent a lot of time in malls as a youngster because I'm from the UK but you know, I've seen plenty of
Vance Garrett: Yeah. I spent a lot of time in malls. I spent a lot of time
Joe: I was gonna say that.
Vance Garrett: being from Chicagoland, a Midwesterner growing up in the eighties and nineties. Like malls were
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: malls were the hang, you know. You would you would
Joe: Exactly.
Vance Garrett: your your parents felt okay knowing that you were gonna be there with friends and it was a it was a super social experience and you weren't on
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: the streets, you were just like going to
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: Spencer Gifts or Abercrombie or you know, like hanging out at a food court.
Joe: Yeah, or just hanging out, yeah, exactly. And I think that's kind of the, that's in terms of a usage occasion, if you like, for shopping malls, that feels like a real opportunity again, because there's very few safe third spaces for young people these days.
Vance Garrett: I agree. I agree. I do not have children. but I I still can empathize with wow, where where would I send my kids now? Or where would I where would I be okay with young people if I had a young child or y a young person? f to whom to be accountable. Like I don't it it it's tricky and especially in the United States with how
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: how violent and scary the the world here can be at times, you know. But malls are amazing. Like I go to Century City here and like it's a it's an oasis. It's it's
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: it's beautifully done and it's there's something romantic about it. There's it's it's a California dream. I will I'll go to the Grove here. I don't know if everyone knows the Grove, but it's arguably the the the competing property from a different developer. And it feels it does feel like a mini Disneyland. And there's a trolley going down the middle of it, or maybe Lady Gaga's popping out of an Apple store doing doing a promotion, literally. And it feels safe. Whether it is safe or not, I don't I don't want to make that claim, but it does it
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Vance Garrett: I it's it it feels safe. I haven't seen anything dangerous happen in either one of those locations. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, good. just before we move on from the Westfield piece,
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: being that early and dealing with kind of big corporate, what, big corporations, right? How do you sell creative ideas into kind of a commercial real estate business?
Vance Garrett: Sure. Different ways for different projects. And so it's easiest on the sell side, it's easiest if there is a case study or a beta version a minimum of a project that has the metrics that anyone would want to see, knowing that it makes money, knowing that it has an audience, knowing that there's a mechanism or means to re-engage that audience. the
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: more revenue streams that are associated with the property, the better. You know, if you if you can point to those, like that that's an easy con that's an easier that's an easy conversation.
Joe: Mm. Mm.
Vance Garrett: And if there is brand recognition, it's an easy, easier conversation. And I think it's one of the reasons why you will see pre-existing or licensed IP
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: in an experiential format in malls because
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: everyone knows Star Wars or they know Bluey
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: or they know, you know, it it feels it's an easier conversation to have. You said Phantom
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: Peak. Phantom Peak was at one location and now it's it proved that it's a hit. And now it's moving
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: into a Westfield in London. That's easy. What's a little trickier is if you want to launch original IP or a new brand
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: in a in a mall. And and ironically, at least for me, that's what I do. Like that's exactly that's
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: what I d that's that that's what I what I do. it's hard to say, hey, I see this trend happening in culture where everyone is getting excited about millennium millennial pink. And ice cream is the th like it's it's just har it's just harder to
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: do it. I'm at the point of my career where now there's a there is a body of work and I can say, hey, the this was a hit, this was a hit, this was a hit, this was a hit. So unique to me or anyone who's been able to be to who's had the privilege of doing it for a couple decades, the tone of the conversation might shift a bit.
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: And we might be afforded that opportunity to point people and the leasing team or the CEO saying, hey, there is still not a go to source for it, but from what
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: I'm from my track record, like or here from my point of view for these reasons, I think that we should think about this property, this property, this property. Those are still
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: really hard conversations to have or had
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: I don't think they're ever easy to have. but that the but
Joe: But again, potentially sold, sorry, go on. was just
Vance Garrett: No, no, no, you go for it. Yeah.
Joe: gonna say that again is another reason to have this sort of, like you see places like Area 15 in Vegas and
Vance Garrett: Yep. Vegas, yep.
Joe: the most London in London. where that's sort of, you can create this sort of brand around the space almost, and then
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: the stuff that goes into it can be a little bit more experimental and new potentially, because the risk
Vance Garrett: Totally. Absolutely.
Joe: is lower if it doesn't work. You can just kind of get another.
Vance Garrett: Yeah, yeah, you you you can I I have to imagine they're still they're largely working on lease models. I'm just I'm gonna assume that. I I I don't know. You know, or or or whatnot. But they're they need to program that space. You know, if someone goes to meow I guess the other thing that you consider you can consider, I'm jumping around a bit, but from a programming perspective is what's gonna be what's truly the dwell time for someone who's gonna be at your location? If it's mall, maybe it's one thing. If it's a entertainment center, maybe maybe there's a couple more hours there. But if you if you look at I know you let's say I'm making up numbers, but if you know that they're gonna go to the marquee attraction, let's say it's Meowwolf, and they're gonna spend the better part of two hours there, they might have time for one other forty five minute
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: long. experience. And I would think a a programmer or the developer could be like, how many 45 minute long experiences do we have that's going to complement that
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: that that that can happen after lunch or can happen before they need to go off to back to their casino to go see another show. I guess I'm just pulling back the curtain a bit about how a how a programmer
Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Vance Garrett: should think about the space or think about the larger audience experience, knowing how it's in relation to other things that are happening, and that and that if you're gonna be in proximity with other businesses or attractions, like how do you all play together? How do you all you know, how do you how do you all how do you create an ecosystem that that benefits benefits everyone? but again that needs to that needs to come from the top down. That's sort of thinking that's really hard from the individual experience producer to to
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: to make that sell, but it's it's it's important for us independents to see, okay, they have a meow wolf, but they don't have this other thing that's gonna extend the stay. So that's gonna be the angle. That's gonna be my that's gonna be the way that I pitch the opportunity. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. I think it's like you say, it's that piece in the middle, I think you've got this distribution network that is desperate for driving the things that you said, right? Dwell time, footfall, all of that other stuff for which experiential is a real obvious. opportunities to do that, but all of the infrastructure in between everything from business models, rights,
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: curation and kind of programming, all of that stuff is the bit that's still being figured out, I think. But when that clicks, I feel like it's just going...
Vance Garrett: It's still being figured out. Yeah. Look, it's I think that's what makes the industry so exciting still. It hasn't fully clicked and it can be really scary and there is you know, I think I actually think we we took a a dip, especially come right before and coming out of the COVID years, where there were a lot of like failures or a lot of experiential failures and people lost money and I think it damaged the trust of some audiences. they would go see things and they they just they weren't that they weren't great. I
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: I'm not I'm not the one to have coined it this, but others have said it's it's like our awkward teenage years. Maybe
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: it is. And maybe now the industry is becoming an adult and it and it will click. And there's so much knowledge now that we have. There's so much knowledge that we have around these early earlier you know, phase one point of experiential and immersive work, then now we can
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: we can really lean on that and point to those case studies and improve upon it. You know, there's
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: and and improve upon them. So I'm I'm excited. I'm excited about it. But it it's it's gonna take the whole community. It's gonna take the developers. It's gonna take the technologists and the futurists and and the creatives and the trend forecasters who are reading what's happening in culture. It's yeah it it takes
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: the whole village To make this work.
Joe: Yeah, and I think that segues nicely to what's so clear in your work and the way that you talk about your work and the stuff that you did at London Experience Week and all that kind of stuff, you've touched on it there, but. Ultimately, all of the business outcomes that are great for live experiences depend on first achieving human impact. So business impact follows
Vance Garrett: Mm-hmm.
Joe: human impact, right? And that's kind of obviously hugely important to what we do because that's what we measure and therefore that kind of helps people create better experiences. And I love this idea that when we spoke before we set this recording up, you mentioned this idea of collective effervescence or collective joy as a concept and something that a design principle, if you like. So tell us what that is, the science behind it,
Vance Garrett: Yeah
Joe: and then let's dive in.
Vance Garrett: Thank you. Yeah, thank you for for bringing this up. It's it's it's truly what I am most curious about or most interested in in live experiences is how to create the conditions for collective joy. And and sociologists had coined the term collective effervescence in the last century, which is the idea of that pleasure that we experience as humans when we are in a collective or in mass. experiencing the same thing at the same time. Whether it's a ritual or a parade or a sporting event or being on the dance floor together, there is a certain lightness in being. And it can feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself, which to me is happiness. You know, dissolving into something bigger than yourself is happiness. And And it's so tricky in a world that is so fragmented and when your attention is splintered off in so many different places. And and also when there's a a premium culturally, at least say in the United States, and being an individual, you know, it's a it's a qu it's a very it's an individualistic society, you know, like be the best individual you can, get the most attention. And I'm I'm totally generalizing or generalizing. But You know, how do you craft a world where people are wanting, willing, able to show up, suspend their day to day social selves or ego, and and open up, explore a world that allows them to connect with others? And what are the what are the mechanics that that make that make that happen? And I spend a lot of time, spend a qu a lot, a lot of time thinking about this and exploring this and and playing with it. And and I I do think this is consistent with what comes out of my nightlife experience where
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: thank God I learned those traditions from my mentors on Fire Island and my mentors from the Black Party, the Saint at Large, which you know, these are these are legendary clubs or or They're more than clubs, but communities. And there there's quite like a there's a ritualistic there's a sense of ritual to the the parties
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: and the celebrations. And I learned that there is a phenomenon supporting c these collective experiences known as entrainment. And and and I've been talking about this a lot this past year, and it it's it's always found it interesting that it hasn't popped in the experiential creator conversation. But entrainment is when oscillating bodies give up their differences and frequencies to match one another. So it's when grandfather clocks when you put them close enough together after some amount of time, their pendulums is it pendula or pendulums, let's say pendulums will be s will be swinging at the same direction, or people breathing when they're in same bed, or when they're just close to one another, or hearts or menstrual cycles. It just like it happens all across it happens all across the world. And When you're not in entrainment with others, that's you being by yourself,
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: away from others, it it feels like there's an association with the plagues of anxiety and depression that has has, you know, really depil debilitated so many like swaths of society. But when you're in entrainment It's actually just easier to live. When you're around other people,
Joe: minute.
Vance Garrett: experiencing the same thing at the same time, it's physically easier for your heart to beat and it's
Joe: Mmm.
Vance Garrett: easier to breathe. And it can happen in mass. It doesn't need to be thousands and thousands of people. As fun as I think that is, and I do think it's fun when you're in, you know, when you're at Coachella and Beyonce takes the stage and you can just feel everyone's energy.
Joe: you
Vance Garrett: Focus on the same thing at the same time. or when you're on the dance floor and you're waiting for the bass to drop, like it feels awesome,
Joe: Mm.
Vance Garrett: but it can also happen on smaller scales. It can happen with a smaller group of people literally just breathing at the same time. I think that's what the word conspiracy means is Yeah, or yeah, or or that. And it's so it's great. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. Or watching England on the TV in the pub. to listening to you talk there, like, I mean, I've had, I've had like exactly the experience you just got. Like the ultimate for me that makes me think of is the pyramid stage at Glastonbury, where you've got like a hundred thousand people in the field all, and you
Vance Garrett: Sure.
Joe: can feel that vibe across all of those people.
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: unbelievably overpowering that kind of feeling. I'm kind of getting goosebumps just talking about it now.
Vance Garrett: Amazing.
Joe: But then equally like any England score a goal in the World Cup and I'm in sitting in the, I live in a little village in the countryside and there's maybe six
Vance Garrett: Yeah.
Joe: or seven people in the pub, but the goal goes in and you'd feel it then. It's like people that, know, different. Yeah, it's fascinating.
Vance Garrett: Totally, totally, totally. I I it is fascinating and you know, like I said early on, I I chose the theater lane, not the sports lane. But I love how sports sporting events can can bring people together. I'm a I'm a I still identify as a New Yorker even though I live in LA and when the Knicks won the championship a couple
Joe: wow.
Vance Garrett: weeks ago, I was here in LA and I I I felt tingles in my body when they when they won. And then I saw people like filling the streets of the West Village. And my partner was actually down there and texting me about about what he was saying. And it was it was I wasn't f physically there, but I physically felt it in my body. 'cause I already had a I already I I I had New York in my blood. I know what it feels like to be in the streets of New York City and You know what it feels like to be in the fields of Glastonbury and or wherever. So yeah, yeah, it's it i it's it's a it's an interesting opportunity digitally,
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: you know. How the the I'm not one to say digital's bad. Like I I clearly I launched 29 Room Certain Refinery or or Museum of Ice Cream. Like it's not
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: bad. I'm not I'm not mad at it. It's how to preserve the integrity of the live experience. And our rituals around that. maintain that and layer in these other elements, awesome. Just just yeah.
Joe: some.
Vance Garrett: That that that's that's the exciting opportunity.
Joe: Yeah, it's possible for both to, it's possible basically to kind of harness that entrainment collective FFS and so on for commercial gain, but you have to be very careful with how
Vance Garrett: Yeah, it is.
Joe: you do it basically.
Vance Garrett: It is. you have to be very careful and you can't get at it by tracking an individual. You have to be able I'm even I'm a little hesitant to say this. I feel like like is this like giving the magic away? So I I I hope those who are listening or those who are working on those systems for tracking the data are responsible with this. But one of the things I love about entrainment is you need multiple beings within proximity of one another for that phenomenon to reveal itself. and so yeah, I I I get a little curious when I hear people coming up with tracking the return on investment. on experiences
Joe: Hmm.
Vance Garrett: and they're just looking at it from the lens of an individual and like, I think you're I think
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: you're missing I think you're missing what's really happening there. It's about how
Joe: Yeah.
Vance Garrett: the collective is working together. But I digress. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, agree. No, well, yeah, it's interesting. should off camera, we can talk about how we sort of tackle it.
Vance Garrett: Yeah. But yeah. Yeah.
Joe: But I know you I know we're over time now because I know you have to have to to be somewhere. So I'm going to wrap up there and say thank you very, very much
Vance Garrett: I do, I do. Yeah. Great.
Joe: for joining us. I've really loved it. And hopefully we can continue the conversation another time.
Vance Garrett: Yes, please. Thank you. I love I I I would love that. Thank you for having me and thank you for letting me speak to what I love and sharing with whomever's listening. I appreciate it, Joe. Thank you. All
Joe: Great, thanks Vance.
Vance Garrett: right. Bye.
