Creating the Art of the Experience

I recently attended a remarkable ‘experience’ in Columbus, Ohio.  Joe Veneto, The Opportunity Guy’, hosted an Experience Lab where I learned the formula to Engineering the Art of Amazing Experience! As Joe said, “It’s all about providing unique experiences these days to travelers who are healthier, wealthier, better educated and thought the web have the world at their fingertips.”

The whole point of the week was to show us to take a look at unique attractions in our own backyard and what steps we need to take to elevate them to UFE – UnForgettable Experiences. We all know that the best (and worst) reviews are by word of mouth and what every DMO – destination marketing organization – hopes to do is create positive word of mouth that draws visitors back again…and again.

Visit Columbus started working with Joe in 2007 and prior to that typically booked about 48 tours for motor coaches, corporate outings or convention pre/post and spouse tours.  With Joe’s help they added a whole new host of UFE experiences to their repertoire and in 2012 their member attractions reported 543 tours!

We spent an intense 4 days on offsite mobile workshops and in-class presentations. The one that rose to the top in the entire classes mind happened at the Kelton House:

We pulled up to the 19th century home where we were met at the door by Sophia Kelton. She led us into the parlor of her home that she and her husband Fernando built in 1852. Back then it would have been located out of town in the country, today it is very much in the heart of the sprawling city of Columbus. Taking us on a tour she proudly showed off her Rococo Revival furniture, beautiful needlework and came across as a very well off, pampered woman who loved her family, ran her household with the help of lots of servants and moved in upper society. I was not seeing the UFE.

We were upstairs when a servant excitedly called up telling her some men were coming up the road. She asked us if we had brought anyone else with us. Ummm, no.

She asked if we could help her. She took us down two flights of stairs and ushered us into a dark stone cellar with a lone, low watt light bulb on. She hurried over to a pile of blankets on a wooden bench. Imagine our surprise when those blankets started moving and a black woman rose from it to stare at all of us staring at her. Mrs. Kelton told her she would take care of the men and closed the door behind her and that was when Martha Hartway started telling us her story. Even as I write this now it still gives me chills. Martha told us how she was enslaved at 8, raped by plantation overseer at 12, lost her baby to an illness because her owners would not seek medical treatment and after a last beating she sought her freedom in the Underground Railroad. Turns out Mrs. Kelton and her husband had a secret life as conductors on the Underground Railroad.  Had they been caught they would have lost all of their wealth, been thrown in jail for at least a year and their children would have been farmed out to relatives. They took a huge gamble for a cause they believed in at the cost of the privileged life they led.

REMARKABLE and a UFE I will never forget. Before they started working with Joe the group that ran the house gave a standard tour that led you through the furnished rooms and ended in the cellar with – ‘this was where they housed runaways’. The End. Joe helped them with the story and today it is their Signature Tour.

I wonder what stories there are to tell at the Gibbs Museum?  

Not all had the drama of the Kelton House. We arrived at Nordstrom’s before opening hours, they served us breakfast, gave us a ‘trending’ fashion show and a $15.00 gift card! We let butterflies go at the conservatory and saw some spectacular Chihuly glass works of art. We went backstage at the ballet company and talked to a costume designer and watched a class full of young ballerinas who were ready to go out into the world as professionals!

My team and I aree thinking what unique experiences could we create at the OVAL, Rosedale Center, Roseville Parks, Ukrainian Gift Shop, Minnesota State Fair, Pour Decisions or Como Zoo? We are currently working on ideas for Minnesota State Fair and think we have a solid plan for a spectacular UFE during OVALumination at the Guidant John Rose Minnesota OVAL this coming November.

Stay Tuned…..

Before I leave I must tell you about the other unique experience I, personally, will remember. We went to a candle making shop that is right next store to a really unique wine and beer tasting shop. They work together with groups who first make a candle and while it is setting head over for a wine tasting.

At the Candle Lab you have the opportunity to sniff hundreds of single scent candles, write down the scents you like and the professional will tell you what scents have the same base note and, when combined, go well together. My final oil choices were fig, blackberry and almond. Stirring it into the liquid wax I did not care for the smell but thought it would get better once it solidified.

Due to timing and the size of our group we could not take the candles that night. My candle arrived in the mail and opening the box I first handed it to Kashia Brusse, our event coordinator, allowing her the first whiff of my unique creation.  She kind of winced and passed it back saying it reminded her of the bathrooms at the golf course by her parent’s home in Wisconsin.

Huh? I sniffed it and sure enough, it smelled remarkably like the urinal cake deodorizers that you find in all men’s restrooms! I am not kidding … and I am also not lighting it!