Event design

In recent years I’ve developed an interest in art, architecture and design. My interest deepened in large part from working with MICE (Meeting, Incentive Travel, Conferences and Exhibitions) destinations and venues that focused on these topics. Through site visits, interviews and conversations, I was able to familiarise myself with prominent names and works in the architecture and design world.

A prime destination for art and architecture is Basel, Switzerland. It’s a city with world renowned museums such as the Kunstmuseum Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Museum Tinguely and many others and is a base of several prominent architecture bureaus such as Herzog and de Meuron, the designers of Messe Basel, Beijing National Stadium and Elbe Philharmonic Hall. There’s a major street art scene in Basel, and Basel is the host of the world famous event, Art Basel. It sparked my interest in event venues and the experience itself opened my eyes to all the possibilities of this new world.

After learning about Art Basel, I set a goal to attend it. One of the world’s most important international art fairs, this inspiring event pushes the boundaries of creativity and design, showcases new artistic work, uses the entire city as a big and colourful gallery and presents innovation and trends that many industries can learn from. This year, Art Basel took place from 16 to 19 June. I visited it over two days and I’m thrilled to share with you all my insights.

One of the presentations that highly inspired me to think differently about event design took place in 2019 at the MICE Forum at ITB Berlin (Organised by VDVO). Even after all these years, and a pandemic in between, these principles remain extremely important when we want to create a seamless attendee experience at events, be it live, virtual or hybrid, and put the human in the centre. I want to re-share this article that I wrote back in 2019 and was initially published on VDVO website, because the principles of event design remain the same, the human is in the centre of every experience that we want to design for our events and technology should enhance this experience, and not replace it.

In 2019 the ITB MICE Forum theme was ‘The Human Factor’. The conference programme was designed to highlight the importance of the individual who is the centre of every live event. In the connected world we live in today, the personal needs of each attendee have become even more important, and technology should enhance this experience, and not replace it. One of the talks that impressed me the most was ‘Participant experience design – how do we create meetings which move people more deeply?’ given by Felix Rundel, Co-founder, futurehain (at the time of the presentation Executive Director of Falling Walls).

Event design ideas inspired by my visit to Art Basel 2022

Participant experience design — moving from the old to new event world