Commentary: The Experience Economy
I have always valued experiences over material objects and as a matter of fact many other people do. As Pine and Gilmore mention, nowadays more and more companies are using experiences as part of their publicity since it is in these situations where the public gets more involved, maybe even more attached to the brand because of the time spent interacting with it.
A peculiar thing about experiences is that they are different for everyone. “No two people can have the same experience”. This is very true and it is also an aspect that sometimes goes by unacknowledged by creators. It is not only about entertaining customers either, but about engaging them which, in most cases, it is not an easy thing to do. There are many different components to consider when trying to create an experience: environment, the public, interaction between the public, information, general atmosphere, etc.
Relating this to museums, I believe that they have been trying for the past years to include in them experiences for their public. Science museums have done a specifically good job at this. They use games to involve children, movable objects, films and even immersive technologies to achieve this. However, I wonder if there are more ways to improve it. Are museums missing a key component when creating their exhibits? I would like to dive more deeply into these questions in this class since I think that there is so much still left to explore in this area.