Entertainment and experiential design now form a true open-air laboratory for creative and technological innovation. Whether through a monumental concert, a global ceremony, a VR experience, or an immersive museum journey, each project becomes a full-scale testing ground for digital creativity.
Experiential design is an extremely broad field, encompassing many aspects of digital creativity and sitting at the intersection of multiples disciplines. In the realm of entertainment, experiential design includes:
–Large-scale live events such as major concerts, global sporting competitions, or one-time but highly impactful events (Eurovision, drone shows, light festivals, etc.);
–Immersive experiences and dedicated venues like 360° domes and virtual or mixed reality experiences (e.g., the SAT Dome at Society for Arts and Technology), immersive museum exhibits, and interactive and/or sensory urban installations (like Luminothérapie in the Quartier des Spectacles).
But as Abraham Burickson—artist, writer, and pioneer of experiential design with Odyssey Works for over 25 years—reminds us, this approach didn’t originate with digital tools, even though they now give it extraordinary power. Designing an experience is first and foremost about creating meaning, emotion, and embodied storytelling. It’s about crafting deeply meaningful encounters rooted in a deep understanding of the person experiencing them. Experiential design is the art of living a story, not just telling it. It’s a fundamentally human approach based on empathy, narrative, and transformation—with or without technology. After all, life itself is an experience.
Abraham Burickson will be featured at the 9th edition of HUB Montreal in a keynote address on experiential design, where he will share his vision, insights, and work from the past 25 years in the field.
Through its various applications, experiential design in entertainment starts from a simple premise: how can we create a collective experience that feels uniquely personal to each individual?
As discussed, multiple times—including in our interview with Julie Dalbec, Head of Programming at HUB Montreal—what unites today’s digital creation is the desire to connect people and move them emotionally. This desire is the very principle of experiential design, which is why it plays a major role in digital creativity. But how does this actually work?
Before using immersive technologies or sensory techniques, everything begins with a story. Experiential design is first grounded in a powerful narrative, a clear intention, an idea that can captivate on its own. Storytelling is the foundation—it provides meaning and coherence to the experience. Only afterward do creators translate that story into sensations, atmospheres, and interactions.
To evoke emotion, creators use techniques that engage our senses, spatial awareness, and emotional responses through scenography, lighting, immersive sound, interactive technologies (AR, VR, projections, sensors, etc.), and a smooth visual or spatial narrative. These tools are orchestrated by designers to create an experience in which the audience is fully immersed. The goal is to craft a memorable, often ephemeral moment that leaves a lasting impression. Digital tools thus become emotional and spatial instruments—not just functional ones.
Experiential design encompasses a range of methods native to digital creativity, now deployed across multiple contexts. But why is experiential design within entertainment such a nearly limitless source of inspiration for digital creativity?
Firstly, the formats of these large, often temporary events have evolved and adapted. Digital art draws inspiration from the tempo and rhythm of events, with storytelling tailored to the audience. Moreover, technological tools are no longer just seen as gimmicks that enhance an event—they’re fully integrated into the narrative and immersive process.
Take, for example, Taylor Swift’s recent “The Eras Tour.” The concerts featured elaborate stage design to foster emotional connections with fans: a giant screen, three interconnected stages with mobile platforms, and a fully-screened ramp for visual effects. Add to that projections, lasers, and other tech tools. Swift also invited her audience to participate by distributing connected wristbands, syncing visuals with music in the crowd.
Another example is Billie Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour, where she collaborated with Montreal-based studio Moment Factory for creative direction. The tour included a 360° stage, a LED video floor, a floating platform, a glowing cube, and massive suspended screens that transformed throughout the show. These are just a few examples of the major shift in entertainment, moving toward immersive and innovative experiences.
Another recent standout is the Paris 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremonies, which combine these techniques across various artistic domains.
The intersection of entertainment, experiential design, and digital creativity also encourages multidisciplinary collaboration. Such creations require input from diverse experts—storytellers, writers, visual artists, technicians, coders, set designers, choreographers, musicians, producers. Digital creativity thus integrates into a vast ecosystem and must be approached accordingly, not in a linear way.
Finally, digital creativity used in experiential design and entertainment creates a kind of domino effect: it inspires other digital creators. Immersive museums, LBE (location-based experiences), and spheres introduce new narrative standards. Drone shows, XR domes, and live AR tools spark new forms of immersive storytelling.
Moment Factory’s public installations are redefining how we use urban spaces and engage with multimedia. Similarly, the latest immersive adventure by Supply + Demand, in collaboration with Mojang and Microsoft—Minecraft Experience – Villager Rescue—now open in North America and touring globally, redefines our relationship with video games, turning users into active participants in the story.
Entertainment and experiential design aren’t merely sectors using digital creativity—they’re idea accelerators, breeding grounds for aesthetics, formats, production methods, and storytelling. They offer digital creativity a collective, sensory playground where anything is possible.
All of these ideas will be explored during the “Experiential Design & Entertainment” thematic segment at HUB Montreal’s 9th edition. A deeper dive into the “Festivals, Conferences, and Events” segment—focused on more bespoke and one-off productions—will follow in our next HUBdate.
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Credit: Exhibition Root for Nature at OASIS immersion
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