Get ready for TED-style talks, interactive workshops and experience pop-ups on the Art, Science, Business and Future of Experiences from both household names and geniuses you haven’t heard of (yet).
Our more than 70 performers come from around the world and across all sectors of the Experience Economy, representing brands including Disney, Meow Wolf, BRC Imagination Arts, Moment Factory, Calm, George P Johnson, and beyond.
Here’s who you’ll be learning from at the World Experience Summit 2023…
(For full details of each session, check out the full programme here.)
World Experience Organization Limited
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For the latest news and views about the Experience Economy and WXO community
Creative Director
Crafts innovative, immersive experiences that combine storytelling, world-building, performance, technology and gaming for clients like Capital One, Range Rover and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Catch them: talking about the future of immersive experiences in location-based entertainment.
Experience Economy Godfather
An author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups alike, Pine not only coined the term “Experience Economy”, he wrote the book on it, too. Runs management advisory firm Strategic Horizons with his co-author, Jim Gilmore.
He’ll talk about his latest work on Transformation and how to apply it to your own experiences.
Experience Designer, Towergaze Roleplaying Collective
King creates personalized roleplaying experiences that offer a playful exploration of narrative and identity, including renting a German castle for 50 participants.
They’ll talk about how to respond to the human need for connection by creating a narrative that meets this need, as well as what’s beneficial about stories in which the players is not trying to win, but to feel.
To do so we’ll borrow tools from the world of LARPing such as “bleed”, when the emotions from a character affect the player outside the game.Plus, how to design for “sensation goals”.
SVP of Knowledge Management & Senior Partner, TANG Consulting, & CEO and Dean, X Thinking Institute
Evangelist, strategist, designer, academic and author on Brand eXperiences, including the first book published on the Experience Economy in Chinese.
Catch them: talking about how to enter the uncharted territory of business strategy.
Creative Director, Moment Factory
From Montreal to Singapore, Moment Factory has been creating large-scale experiences since 2001.
Catch them: talking about the evolving tools of large-scale experience design.
Co-Founder & Technology Director, Spider Entertainment
Escape room Escape Hunt floated on London’s Alternative Investment Market for £14m in 2016. Compare that starter price to a competitive socializing venue: the original Swingers in London cost £500,000 to create.
Competitive socializing venues require more upfront cost, and therefore higher risk – but they’re worth it, because the returns are much higher. Competitive socializing brings in higher level investors, generates much higher revenue – and leads to higher valuations.
Williams, who some say coined the term in his weekly newsletter The Stinger, and who continues to report on competitive socializing trends and developments for the WXO and beyond, will share the latest on this exciting sector of the Experience Economy.
Experience Strategist
Works with businesses including Cirque Du Soleil to offer an in-person experience to improve operations, customer satisfaction and revenue.
Catch them: talking about how to create operations around an experience that can be executed consistently no matter where we are, what our team looks like, who our partners are, or what kind of customers we serve.
CEO, Little Lion Entertainment
Creator of immersive theatrical and video-game experiences including The Crystal Maze Live Experience(s), Tomb Raider Live Experience and Chaos Karts.
Catch them: sharing their thoughts on why “immersive” works and how to do it properly.
Immersive Experience Designer and MultiSensory Food Artist
Investigates behaviour, ritual and interrelationships of sensory modalities – for example, designing a pop-up Pleasure Sensorium for Magnum where you could immersive yourself through each individual layer of ice cream.
Catch them: hosting a pop-up “Sonic Coffee Break” bringing to life the latest research into sensory perception.
Co-Founder, Calm
The multi-billion dollar wellbeing app Calm was founded on a mission to make the world healthier and happier.
Catch them: sharing the latest thinking and projects to make the world a happier, calmer place.
Co-Founder & CEO,
Rocket VR Health
A leading immersive mindfulness studio that is revolutionizing stress management and self-care through the use of virtual reality well-being experiences.
Catch them: talking about how to release, recharge and help people tap into their best selves in individual and group settings, and staging a pop-up of their product.
CEO, The World Experience Organization
How can we make sure amazing experiences don’t just launch, but stick around long enough to convert more people to spend more time and money on experiences?
Not to mention generate great returns for their creators and backers?
PR Director, Moment Factory
French-Canadian force of nature who is PR Director for one of the world’s leading public experience firms, Moment Factory.
Catch them: on the all-female panel Selling Crazy, on the critical importance of communications in the experience industry.
Head of Process Excellence, Google
Advises the Google People Experience organization on work experience design, change, and management excellence, and hosts the podcast Work for Humans.
Catch them: leading a workshop on his radical idea for how to approach work.
Creative Strategy Manager, ACCIONA Cultura
A beam of creative joy who specialises in the museums sector.
Catch them: on the all-female panel Selling Crazy, on the critical importance of communications in the experience industry.
Head, Experience Economy, UK Department for International Trade (DIT)
UK Government official supporting UK experiential companies.
Created “Experience On Main Street”, a concept designed to promote the use of experiential products in urban coldspots.
Catch them: talking about how we can use our creativity to help urban areas suffering post-COVID.
Creative Director, SGA Productions
Creates live experiences for the biggest entertainment brands in the world and the family market, including producing the Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep walk-through immersive experiences for Aardman.
Catch them: talking about working for clients who prioritise young people and their grown-ups.
Narrative Designer/Writer
Founder of innovative film/VR/TV production company Reality+ who speaks on Narrative in the Metaverse and XR.
Catch them: sharing new structures for immersive storytelling that move away from the 3-act, conflict-based structure.
Travel & Hospitality Designer
Helps travel, hospitality, luxury and entertainment brands to become ‘The Only’ in experience delivery.
Catch them: sharing their thoughts on how to translate experience ideas into an industry best known for service design.
Vice President & Creative Director, BRC Imagination Arts
BRC Imagination Arts is a full-service strategy, design and production company that creates work for clients including Johnnie Walker Princes Street, Guinness Storehouse, the World of Coca-Cola, Jameson Distillery Bow St., the Ravinia Festival, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Catch them: leading an experience design masterclass and hands-on experience creation workshop that involves storytelling, construction, problem-solving.
Experience Designer, Towergaze Roleplaying Collective
Katherine Templar-Lewis & Robyn Landau are co-founders of Kinda Studios, a neuroaesthetics studio exploring the human experience. They apply neuroscience research from the labs into creative projects to help art, culture and technology work harder for people’s wellbeing.
Catch them: talking about the newest, coolest branch of neuroscience: neuroaesthetics. Hear how aesthetic experiences impact our brain and body.
Co-Founder, Swamp Motel
Creative Director and Co-Founder of groundbreaking British immersive firm Swamp Motel, creators of The Drop, Saint Jude and more.
Catch them: sharing Swamp Motel’s unique storytelling style, how they concept ideas, and insights into their production process.
Founder, The Nomadic School of Wonder
Expert on on how to design experiences that bring people into a felt experience of wonder and awe.
Catch them: leading a walk about wandering, wondering and the art of noticing, using our full palette of senses.
Co-Founder, Swamp Motel
Co-founder of Swamp Motel, an award-winning creative studio that uses theatrical and artistic expertise to create immersive experiences that bring brands to life.
Catch them: sharing Swamp Motel’s unique storytelling style, how they concept ideas, and insights into their production process.
Founder, Artful Access
Meow Wolf’s first accessibility consultant invites you to join the first-ever Experience Accessibility Taskforce.
Let’s design a more inclusive future of experiences, together.
Executive Director, Creative Technologies, L-Acoustics
Powers amazing live events and immersive experiences, such as Abba Voyage, Al Wasl Dome, Outernet, and Katy Perry and Adele’s Vegas residencies.
Catch them: talking about how audio is a strong medium for experiences that is often overlooked.
Show & Narrative Writer, Disney
Collaborates with a team to develop the story concept, narrative treatment, and script for immersive experiences, theme park attractions, stage shows and spectacles.
Catch them: talking about the need to populate experiences with performers to create theatrical immersion.
Actor/ Director, XP Designer, Co-Founder, Gradual
Imbues artistry, innovation and transformation into the heart of contemporary culture, technology and business.
Catch them: sharing learnings from their Hotel Wonderland project.
CEO & Founder, isla
isla is the independent industry body driving the events sector transition to a sustainable future. As the driving force behind isla, Anna articulates and leads the sustainability vision for the industry.
Catch them: leading a workshop on how to do sustainable event design.
Creative Business Development, Tellart
Award-winning experience designer and entrepreneur from The Netherlands. Co-founder of Hotel Wonderland (2022), the first large-scale immersive theatre experience in The Netherlands and Sherlocked – Mystery Experiences (2014), highly acclaimed escape room experiences.
Catch them: sharing learnings from their Hotel Wonderland project.
Learning Experience Designer
Helps learners adapt to new cultural environments by staging challenging immersive learning experiences.
Catch them: exploring how to take a deep dive into your own culture and slip into the cultural skin of a stranger.
Chief Experience Officer, Catalyst Arts
Designs and produces dazzling, multi-faceted Entertainment & Experiences for Events and elite hospitality organisations.
Catch them: teaching their “social playing cards” as a tool for event experience design, and how to make your own.
SVP, George P Johnson
An award-winning designer and creative director focused on the sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral responses evoked by brand-related stimuli and experiences.
Catch them: sharing ideas for infusing experience design into your brand experiences, and ways to measure success with expanded metrics.
Founder, Mance Communications
Manages PR Marketing and Comms for progressive immersive experiences, including Jurassic Park: The Live Experience, and hospitality.
Catch them: talking about the important role of marketing ideas, connecting to the customer, understanding the psychology of the end user, and the vital use of language and semiotics to leverage success.
Evil Mastermind (CEO) – Friendly Vengeance
Specializes in merging digital and physical worlds through technology (often through augmented and mixed reality), such as the creative vision for the PANGEA gala in Chicago.
Catch them: talking about the role of AR / Mixed Reality in bringing the metaverse to a multiverse experience.
Ritual Designer & Idea Doula
Curates and creates experiences designed to shift your perspective to see the wonder in the world, helping people to birth their creative ideas and design their own unique path filled with moments of meaning.
Catch them: talking about ritual design and how to create memorable moments of meaning.
Associate Professor of Psychology, The University of Greenwich
An academic who’s collaborated on various VR immersive experiences as ritual/altered state and is a patron of the first chain of ketamine clinics in Scotland that uses VR psychedelic experience therapy.
Catch them: talking about the future of psychedelics in experience design.
Founder, The Moving Cities Project
Makes the complex, human. Has produced work that advocates for the United Nation SDGs and our place as creatives in the climate emergency.
Catch them: talking about how we can use our creativity to help urban areas suffering post-COVID.
Industrial Design Engineer, EDGE Sound Research
EDGE Sound Research is a new audio technology company redefining how we experience sound by allowing users to both FEEL and HEAR sound in the full-frequency range.
Catch them: demonstrating their mind-blowing audio technology at the Sounds of the Ocean pop-up.
Founder & CEO, NeXT SCENE
The organizer of China’s first major Immersive Industry Conference.
Catch them: talking about how to enter the fast-growing Chinese Experience Economy.
Director, Collective Act
The producer of the London 2012 Cultural Olympics and the creator of the radical “Dreamachine” she toured the UK with.
Catch them: talking about the power of audio immersive experiences.
Global VP Creative, Money20/20
20 years’ experience in award-winning digital marketing, creative comms, live experience design, content and IP creation, across Entertainment, Music, Festivals, FMCG, Sport, Gaming, Creative Tech, Retail, Fashion and Charity.
Catch them: talking about how creative innovators in the traditionally vanilla B2B finance world are using experience design to reimagine the delegate experience.
Owner & Co-Founder, Black Tomato
Black Tomato has grown to be recognized as the leading authority in the world on luxury travel, creating ground-breaking products such as ‘Blink’, pop-up luxury accommodations in remote areas, and the recent James Bond travel itineraries.
Catch them: sharing their thoughts on the future of experiences created by / with AI.
Founder, School of Experience Design
Designs transformative experiences across the cultural, scientific and commercial sectors, producing immersive story worlds which merge live and digital platforms, and specialising in a multidisciplinary approach between the arts and sciences.
Catch them: hosting the WXO PlayLab and talking about original models for designing transformative experiences, to guide intrepid explorers as they follow their North Star.
Founder & CEO, Worldbuildr
Disrupts the production process for location-based experiences with new technologies and methods including VR, AR, and digital twins, for brands including Microsoft/OpenAI.
Catch them: talking about how digital twins can be used to design, plan, and operate your attraction or experience, and can even exist independently as a virtual visitor attraction.
Creative Director &
Co-Founder, Midwayville
Immersive experience producer, designer, and director of experiences such as STORIES OF GOLD at the Edwardian Ball, where an ensemble of performers trained for weeks to embody their characters and learn to use a custom game STORY CURRENCY to elicit deep inquiry and exchange from guests.
Catch them: sharing the GOLDFIRE SOCIAL Storymaps, Cards and Coins, all designed to help facilitate meaningful, collaborative connection.
Experience Designer, Creative Director, Writer & Performer
Creates original immersive experiences which have become catalysts for change in people who have participated in them.
Catch them: hosting a workshop showing how each body contains its own stories, and how can we use them to co-create ours.
Artistic Director, Parabolic Theatre
Creates immersive and interactive experiences – for example giving current MPs and political professionals the opportunity to fix the economic problems of the late ’70s… and watching them fail miserably.
Catch them: talking about methods of facilitating remarkable levels of interactivity with audience members.
Director, The College of Extraordinary Experiences
Serves as the Director for the College of Extraordinary Experiences, is a Coach at McKinsey & Company, and hosts the podcast “The Business of Extraordinary Experiences”. Also has 30 books to his name and a past in reality TV – but these days, who hasn’t?
Catch them: talking about how to make extraordinary, transformational and boring experiences.
Creative Leadership Coach
Coach, trainer, and facilitator in the field of human-centered innovation and change. Guides individuals and teams to tap into their full potential by leveraging strategic creativity and agile experimentation to drive genuine change.
Catch them: facilitating our WXO PlayLab and speaking about the power of PLAY.
Co-Owner, Hartshorn-Hook
Hartshorn-Hook comprises of companies including Immersive Everywhere, Immersive LDN, and Vanguard Camden.
Catch them: sharing their thoughts on why “immersive” works and how to do it properly.
Editor, Founder and CEO of Globetrender
Globetrender is the worlds’s leading travel trend forecasting agency and online magazine dedicated to the future of travel.
Catch them: sharing their thoughts on the future of experiences created by / with AI.
Experience Designer | VR/AR writer | Digital Dramaturg
Specialises in building Emotional Immersion and helps licenses and cultural institutions build compelling experiences and story worlds. Has written some of the most critically-acclaimed games in VR and interactive narrative.
Catch them: talking about how in Augmented Reality storytelling, the most important reality that is being augmented is the player themselves.
Artistic Director & Lecturer
A lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Drama and Theatre, Artistic Director of Vertical Exchange Performance Collective, and host of the Talking About Immersive Theatre podcast.
Catch them: sharing their thoughts on why “immersive” works and how to do it properly.
Experience Design Professor, Brigham Young University
Co-author of Designing Experiences with Bob Rossman. Teaches courses in experience design and need finding at undergraduate and MBA level.
Catch them: talking about how to use creative constraints to organize and streamline any experience design process.
Experience Designer & Consultant
Researcher, bridgebuilder, consultant, and designer of experiences that in best case lead to transformation. Expertise in health and wellbeing, events, hospitality, and impact projects.
Catch them: hosting a prototype of The Dreambox: a safe space to detach from the outside world and dive into a dreamlike journey.
Chief Creative Officer, Raven Sun Creative
More than 30 years’ experience in leading, designing, and building entertainment destinations, immersive media-based attractions, retail locations, cultural sites, and experiential events.
Catch them: talking about what the future of game engines holds, the growth of the gaming industry, and opportunities to leverage these systems in your studio, practice, destination, customer journey, operations, and marketing.
Founder, Waldorf Project
Founder of Awen, a groundbreaking startup born out of the Waldorf Project that combines cutting-edge virtual reality technology with the science of Awe to transform mental health.
Catch them: demonstrating Awen’s cutting-edge technology in the Pop-Up Zone.
Senior Producer, THG
Over 15 years’ experience working with themed entertainment, live theatrical productions, and world-renowned events from both Production and Business Development positions.
Catch them: sharing what 8 years on the road with Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus taught her about embracing and harnessing all elements of diversity.
Co-Founder, The College Of Extraordinary Experiences
Award-winning author, educator, entrepreneur and speaker inspiring forward-thinking Fortune 500 companies and governments to foster innovation and drive sustainable growth by shifting business models from services to co-creative transformational experiences.
Catch them: talking about how to make extraordinary, transformational and boring experiences.
Innovation Expert
Has worked for IDEO, BBC, McCann Erickson, JWT, Mindshare and Publicis, including proposing a transmedia storytelling approach to increase Top Gear’s commercial value and prorotyping an AR location-based app for a major European broadcaster.
Catch them: hosting and moderating innovation sessions on topics across the Experience Economy.
Former President, Georgia Tech Theme Park Engineering & Design
Rising industrial design senior at Georgia Tech with a passion for narrative experience design.
Catch them: talking about how themed experience design played a role in creating the Star Lounge Macy’s Project, how research and human emotions can guide an experience, and the power of industry and academic collaboration.
Editor, The World Experience Organization
Award-winning editor and writer. An expert in travel and experiences, previously as Print Editor-in-Chief at SUITCASE Magazine, currently as Editor at the World Experience Organization.
Catch them: hosting a panel on the future of experiences created by / with AI.
Founder, Embodied Sounds
Multi-disciplinary artist & Ecopreneur working to protect the environment and support mental wellness. Creates immersive media to help connect people back to the natural world.
Catch them: hosting a pop-up version of Sounds Of The Ocean, a 360-degree immersive experience seen around the world, including at the UN.
Director, Chronyko
Creates and delivers immersive learning experiences for some of the world’s largest companies.
Catch them: talking about how designing experiences for education and learning is different to other scenarios, and which tools, approaches and concepts work in education and entertainment.
Partner, Tourpreneur Travel Community
Adventure specialist, strategic Travel & Tourism advisor, speaker and podcast host.
Catch them: on a panel about the future of experiences designed by / with AI.
Creative Director, Radworks NYC
Has realized experiences about cloud computing, built immersive environments about AI, unleashed theatrical stories about design, designed emotional journeys about products, made machines to explain search, captured flickering pictures about being human, and manifested staged tableaux about whales and imaginary planets.
Catch them: talking about how to see the world differently, and our place as creators within it.
Cognitive Anthropologist
Researches human connections, behaviours, and feelings of belonging around the world – for example, designing research for the Ministry of Justice to better understand how football interventions can help fuse ‘positive prison gangs’.
Catch them: talking about how evolutionary thinking can help explain or even help us predict current behaviours.
Futurist & Author, Future Normal
A reluctant futurist helping you ask better questions about your future, by looking at the now.
Catch them: talking about what’s happening outside of the world of experiences that will be useful to those working in the sector.
