Experiences are going big across genres, venues, generations, and senses.
What does it take to create a must-see live event in 2024? Talk to experts in the space and some might insist that an Instagram-friendly social media campaign is your best bet. Others will point to the necessity of promising an intense and emotionally impactful experience that audiences just can’t get at home.
Increasingly, live events may need both of those elements.
That’s a key takeaway from Fast Company’s annual Most Innovative Companies list for live events and experiences, a category that has never been more exciting or more precarious. After the pandemic shut down in-person gatherings around the world four years ago, live events did come roaring back—as industry watchers had hoped they would—but the recovery has not been an even one. Movie attendance is still down from pre-pandemic highs, aside from a handful of buzzworthy breakouts. Ditto for museums and other cultural events. Regional theaters are still struggling to fill seats in many parts of the country, with even some storied nonprofit venues making the painful decision to lay off staff and shorten their seasons.
But on the other side of that spectrum, you could hardly have avoided hearing about live events over the past 12 months that found success with an unapologetic focus on maximalism. Sphere, the dome-shaped entertainment complex that debuted in Las Vegas in 2023, went viral on social media months before it even opened. Over the summer, its 580,000-square-foot exterior lit up for the first time with a montage of animated images that included a giant blinking eyeball overlooking the Nevada desert. Was it brilliant or just plain creepy? Did it matter? That fall, as nearly 40,000 eyeballs watched U2 perform the Sphere’s first official concert, everyone knew what the venue was promising: a level of immersion never seen before.
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The super-early-rate deadline for Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, July 25, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.