My nationwide tradeshow tour is over. The last 11 days have been a combination of Philadelphia and Las Vegas for 2 trade shows that could not have been different. And the team is gearing up for a new one in SF at the end of the week. More on tradeshows later.
While in Vegas, I was lucky enough to have a free night to catch the latest U2 Tour. I have seen U2 a bunch of times over the last 20 years or so. They have always put on a great show but more recently I have been inspired by their stage sets and use of technology as experience.
The new set looks like this:
Which alone was pretty bad-ass. Like a huge Spider From Mars (appropriate, that they kicked off the show playing David Bowie).
Then it lights up like this
The thing I dug most was the screen. It at times would come down and break apart like this;
Just a very cool effect and I like how it transformed and played in to the whole future like theme of the show.
Being there reminded me of the power of collective experience. There are few things like a big concert with a loyal fanbase. Unlike the Bamboozle festival that we did this year that has like 8 stages and a bazillion bands playing per day and is based in the art of A.D.D., a U2 show is many tens of thousands of people all waiting on every word and note emanating from the band. Everyone there had a connection to the band, had their own personal history (of which many were sharing with each other) and were looking forward to a new experience to add to their biography. Not only that but you saw how many cell phones were constantly taking pictures that were then posted to Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter, etc. all in somewhat real time in order to share that experience with their other friends.
It is the kind of experience that I have tried, not on such a great scale, to emulate in my brand work. Getting people to communicate, to experience, to share, to smile, to sing along, to scream and to move toward something. It reminds me why I like what I do, that you can affect people with the right experience and give them an experience that they want to share with others.
If we do it correctly, there will be no line on the horizon :)
