#experience

Escape Rooms

Escape Rooms are a concept that surfaced in the past 10 years, where you and your friends get locked in a room and have to solve real life puzzles to get out of the room, usually in 60 minutes. The need that they satisfy is a new innovative type of entertainment, basically bringing video games, movies and other stories to life.

It is not a tangible good, it’s a service that perfectly defines the notion of experience. They are usually high-priced experiences, but people are not bothered by this, because what they’re interested in is the adrenaline and the portrayal of a game into reality.

The main thing that this activity provides is turning people’s passions and interests into a real-life game situation. This allows them to be the main characters of their favourite adventures, whether it’s helping Batman, surviving a horror movie, aiding Sherlock Holmes or finding out who Jack Ripper is.

This sort of market offering is backed up by a strong sense of community between the providers of this service. For example, in Bucharest whenever there is a new room opened, most of the other escape room providers will visit and rate it and even recommend it to clients. This sort of collaboration is possible due to the variety of themes and the fact that the customers have a very high rate of repeated usage. It is therefore a great example of pluralism, due to a great mix of styles and themes.

The notion of community also extends to the customers, because the entire concept is based on collaboration and working together. It’s a type of shared experience, with a lot of possibilities – it’s fun to do with friends, family, even children.

Another important aspect with regard to postmodernism is the hyperreality. The whole concept of escape rooms is that they turn your fantasies into reality.

We can also talk about de-differentiation, which is closely tied to variety. It blurs the line between different passions and hobbies (video games, puzzles, movies, books etc) and between age groups and genders.

One of the best things is that by doing different rooms under the same umbrella concept of “escape room” you can feel different emotions, such as fear, adrenaline, wise, smart etc. They are all fueled even more by the ticking clock.

They are quite a phenomenon and have managed to find a place in the entertainment culture of a variety of countries. One of the reasons is that it’s an global concept that can easily be culturally localized (pharaoh-themed rooms in Cairo for example), but also exploit the common passions for a mass-market (every country has its gamers).

Some examples of escape rooms in (and around) Lugano: Mistery Room and Blockati .

For more insight on what how an escape room works, the following video is a good short example.

 

Couch Surfing

They say it best:

“We envision a world made better by travel and travel made richer by connection. Couchsurfers share their lives with the people they encounter, fostering cultural exchange and mutual respect.”

Couchsurfing.com is a website/service which provides travelers with accommodation for their trip. This service enters the experience economy in the fact that it replaces the idea of staying at an Airbnb or hotel and allows travelers to have a free authentic homestay with a local host. This has created a community which bleeds into the sharing economy as well. They have differentiated themselves from dating apps making it explicit on their website under conduct policies that couchsurfing is not for hookups, don’t charge money, don’t harass, but… Be yourself, a community of travelers/backpackers making the world accessible at no cost. This is where the firm leaves travel accommodation and enters authentic local experiences and globalized community as their service. Hosts which have an extra room, bed, couch, etc, or just want to meet up and offer their local expertise allow travelers to request a stay during their trip or for advice in their current or future travel location. This website steps into postmodernism in a few ways, it allows fragmentation opening up travel accommodation for free to travelers whom may not afford a hotel stay. You can choose to travel on your own or couchsurf with your travel buddy, and choose from an array of host which fits your needs. Do you want a private room, a couch, share the one bedroom flat, a host who smokes, doesn’t smoke. You are able to use the service not just for a host overnight, but are able to request that you are only looking: to explore, for local advice, to find other travelers or events.It also allows the consumers to have an authentic experience with someone who knows the area which in return gives an insider (tour guide, or sightseeing) experience with no cost. This ultimately changes the idea behind travel accommodations.Therefore, Couchsurfing has created a glocalization travel experience.  

This service is very community based and most consumers who use couchsurfing are also hosts in their home country, creating a sharing experience, brand community, and de-differentiating by bringing together people of all social classes, hierarchies, cultures, and ages. You may be hosted in a private bedroom of a penthouse by someone whom is looking to meet new people or sleep on the wooden floor of a local wants to share their country pride with the travel community.

“We can’t recommend Couchsurfing highly enough. It’s a great way to experience places from a unique insider perspective, and you’ll undoubtedly make great friends along the way. Travel is more about the people you meet than the places you see, and Couchsurfing reinforced the fact that people are inherently good.” – Matt and Sara (Traveling In Asia)

The following link contains more information about the notion of couchsurfing.

Build-A-Bear Workshop

The Bear builder is a 20-years old global brand where kids go, along with their parents, and build their own stuffed toys. They can also put a heart in the stuffed toy and record their own personalised message.  

They are an excellent example of Postmodernism.The feature pluralism is evident from the fact that they are creating a unique experience for kids and parents to spend some quality time while learning something new and having fun. They are changing the common image of toys being just a product that is already created that you pick from the store to the idea of making it an authentic experience of building their own unique toys. They step into experience economy by making a community, to share experiences like “Build-a-party” where you can organise your own birthday parties. They also change the experience instead of just playing with a toy you build it just as you envision the perfect bear. Therefore, the child develops some sort of stronger emotional connection then it would with a commercial stuffed bear.

The Bear builder embodies the fragmentation condition in their business by splitting the simple idea of buying a toy to creating a whole new experience for both kids and parents. This also helps to connect kids more with their parents, instead of a parent just going to buy a toy alone for their kids.This leads to a shift in the decision-making activity, allowing the child to have more responsibility in the decisions, which of course delights the child.

Another feature that they use is hyper-reality. They are making the fantasies of children true by allowing them to create their own toys the way they want to. They have various collections of different characters which they can build. Once the toy is ready, it is given a birth certificate, with weight, height, eye colors like when a child is born making it feel like a real character.  

Chronology is also an aspect for the bear builder. In old times toys were handmade by kids or parents. The bear builder brings that old experience back by providing a platform for both kids and parents to make personalised toys. Also, when parents enter in the store, they are embraced with this nostalgic feeling of their childhood.