Experience or Exhibition?

All squares are rectangles — but not all rectangles are squares. And nobody goes around insisting on calling squares rectangles.

Uh, let me explain.

We can plan our exhibitions to be “experiences”. 

And we should. 

I do.

But “experience” isn’t helpful as a specific term to describe what we actually make, if we make exhibitions.

A sushi restaurant can be planned to be an “experience”. A trip to buy a Tesla can be planned to be an “experience”. A website that sells lingerie for … you get the idea.

Some “exhibition” makers will say they are “experience” makers now. Especially if they tend to get real digital about things. (“User experience”, or UX, has roots in the digital world.)

That’s not wrong.

But it’s too broad. 

Because we are not making sushi shops, or Tesla showrooms, or lingerie websites for … you get the idea.

If we’re making exhibitions … we’re making exhibitions.

Here’s the thing:
Like squares and rectangles, all exhibitions are experiences — but not all experiences are exhibitions.

Sometimes our exhibitions are super digital cool. Sometimes they are just super cool.

But they are, specifically, exhibitions.

We can be proud of that.

Warmly,
Jonathan