#EventCanvas College of Extraordinary Experiences 13-15 Nov 2016
It didn’t take much to consider spending 4 days of precious time at the College of Extraordinary Experiences.
The level of mystery and aspirational sophistication of a castle based college experience where LARP meets the business conference world with a diversity of faculty ranging from Google, Disney, Lego, Service Designers, University Professors to the executive producer of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
Much like a restaurant critic, I suppose that as an event addict, we become increasingly critical of events over time. On top of that, since becoming an entrepreneur we have committed ourselves to regularly going back to school. This year for four days, we left normality behind and ventured into a space that fosters creativity with no room for fear, arrogance, ridicule or distrust. Actually, three of our Event Design Team were sucked into mapping out the hidden experiential treasures of the College of Extraordinary Experiences where everyone needed to be ready to be yanked out of their comfort zone.
Participants at the College (staged in a Harry Potter castle where Live Role Action Play - LARP - is the medium of choice) indulged in a curriculum driven by rapid prototyping, flexible focus and co-creation. With no divide between speakers and listeners, a multidisciplinary group of 70 experts ranging from world class game designers, developers, food creators, moviemakers, toymakers, designer, authors and academics will be immersed in a fictional frame.
After the initial music in the dark experience in the library, goblins invited to participants into the room of requirements. Without second thoughts, participants in everyday clothing transformed themselves into costumed students and faculty more fitting of this Czocha Castle entourage.
The College of Extraordinary Experiences
Students of the College were divided into 10 team design houses, where everyone learned the ways of the great enemy, the many-
headed and powerfully destructive Design Hydra, and equipped themselves with the tools to fight it. Heads of the Hydra include not only fear and arrogance, but also conservatism, complacency and other things holding us back from staging truly extraordinary experiences.
Design doing in teams larded by talks by ranging from Google culture to Disney imagineering and from Lego design to evolutionary storytelling guided the collegiate to trigger, test and train their skills, knowledge and attitudes in getting to know each other as well as the characters in the tasteful fictional frame.
Interestingly enough, across all the conversations, one observation was blatantly obvious. Everyone you spoke to led to the aspiration to speak to that person again. Everyone at the College was interesting to speak to. We overheard, both sober and whilst in the mixologist dungeon, #CoEE contributors express something very powerful. “There was no one at this conference that I didn’t want to speak to a second time.” A powerful promise obtained through the cross polination of LARPers and must disciplinary conference participants who were now equipped with a sword to slay the design Hydra based on the experiential immersion into the inaugural #CoEE headmastered by Joe Pine.
The magic circle created through the extraordinary experiences of battling the design Hydra transformed the students of the inaugural College of Extraordinary Experiences in a magical bond of storytellers and alumni of the College of Extraordinary experiences. A priceless extraordinary experience resulting in a powerful alumni bond where scholarship based on contribution and tuition fee were as disparate as the illustrious contribution of everyone involved.
After all, the inaugural College of Extraordinary Experiences organisers were so confident in its event design that they promise a 100% Money Back Guarantee if you are not satisfied with your College experience. No doubt, that confidence is anchored in a solid belief that when LARP meets business conference, a door is opened to the future of extraordinary event experiences.
BIG REVEAL ->#EventCanvas in action at the inaugural College of Extraordinary Experiences #CoEE #theta360 - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA
for the full length recap of the event in a 360 degree video recap at the close of the #CoEE =https://www.dropbox.com/s/ngpnhv87bo28vhl/CoEE-reveal.MP4?dl=0
Blogpost = http://www.eventcanvas.org/college-extraordinary-experiences-coee-daring-glimpse-future/
Visual Notebook of the College of Extraordinary Experiences = coee-visual-notes copyright eventcanvas 2016
The College of Extraordinary Experiences Visual Essay by team #EventCanvas by Event Model Generation on Scribd