The wonderful futurists at TrendWatching included the “Virtual Experience Economy” as one of their Five Consumer Trends for 2017. What they say about this “Virtual Experience Economy” may be worth a Thoughts post all on its own, but let me highlight here one particular sentence provocatively placed directly below an old picture of ABBA:
If The Experience Economy can be captured in a single statistic, it’s this: from 1981 to 2012, the price of the average concert ticket rose over 400%.
For a day after I read that, good old Google Alerts sent me a link to an earnings call transcript of Live Nation Entertainment Inc. – the company that merged event organizer Live Nation with event ticket-seller Ticketmaster – where the CEO, Michael Rapino, cited the Experience Economy as the primary cause of his company’s growth:
We continue to see tremendous power of the live event, with strong consumer demand and robust supply of new and established artists hitting the road from clubs to stadiums. Live is truly a unique entertainment form that cannot be duplicated and creates lifetime memories. The fans today are craving more than ever from this experience economy. We believe the Live business will continue to have strong growth for years to come, as fans drive demand, artists are motivated to tour, and technology drives conversion.
Rapino further points out in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Live Nation Entertainment CEO: The Experience Economy, that Ticketmaster has basically become an experience platform, connecting consumers to the experiences they want to attend, creating those memories that will last a lifetime.
Are you staging a live experience that create memories within your customers? Ones that will last a lifetime??
If not, there’s a simple word for the value and experience you provide: forgettable.
