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The winners (Big Tech) and losers (musicians) of SXSW 2023

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The winners (Big Tech) and losers (musicians) of SXSW 2023
In Austin, SXSW is a (sip in the sunshine, dance all day and all night) state of mind —whether you have an official badge or not. The unofficial theme of SXSW 2023: Big Tech Inside the sprawling bottom level of the Austin Convention Center,…
The art and science of experiential activism
Monday, January 16, was MLK Day here in the US. The federal holiday is also our country’s only National Day of Service, encouraging Americans to volunteer in their communities and act on Dr. King’s social justice legacy. Much of that social justice work gained…
XP Land’s top winter 2023 events and experiences
At no other time of year is it more important to get out of the damn house, no matter how strenuous the process may be. Going to events in the dead of winter is like preparing for a marathon — you have to buy…
XP Land’s Favorite Activations and Events of 2022
For better or for worse, 2022 was the year we all took our masks off and went out into the world again, vaccination cards safely tucked at home… somewhere. As experiential writers and professionals, the XP Land team was able to experience our passion…
Are 2023 concerts and music festivals pricing out fans?
It’s been four years and six albums since Taylor Swift toured. Last week, the singer announced the North American leg of The Eras tour, and while the excitement among Swifties was palpable, nervousness quickly took over. How much will tickets cost? Will fans be…
Top 2022 holiday season events and experiences
Holiday events don’t have to be the same familiar players year after year. While we love a trip to the ballet to see The Nutcracker or (waiting in a two-hour line for) ice skating at Rockefeller Center, there are plenty of new and nontraditional…
Let me tell you something about my fandom: The highs and lows of BravoCon 2022
Bravo super fans are as thick as thieves and will protect each other until the end… of the weekend. Last week, more than 30,000 people attended BravoCon — the network’s second annual fan experience — at the Javits Center in New York City. That’s…
Winning the experiential lottery: A casual tennis fan hits the US Open for the first time
I’ve never been to a tennis match before, let alone the US Open. As a native New Jerseyan turned New Yorker who hopped back across the Hudson to adore New York from a stone’s throw away, going to the US Open felt like something…
Sticking it to the man for 75 years: The best and worst of my first Edinburgh Fringe Festival
On a stage in Scotland’s capital city, a Cockney-accented actress playing a parody version of Ariel from The Little Mermaid stands next to a statue of Prince Eric with one *large* difference from the film (yeah, it’s exactly what you think). This is just…
Inside Out(side Lands Music and Arts Festival 2022)
“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”- Mark Twain Last weekend, San Francisco’s highly awaited Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival returned at last, bringing roughly 220,000 Bay Area music fans together for three days of live music in…
Updated August 2022: The Top 7 Summer 2022 Events and Experiences
It’s clear this is going to be an amazing summer filled with activities. Why? Because everything costs too much damn money and high cost = high demand. Commercial flight prices remain sky-high (LOL?) as airlines work to replace all of the staff they lost…
From Bored Apes to decoy Doggs: Inside the NFT.NYC zoo
As an experiential creator and strategist, I often find it tough to attend an event and not think about how I would have executed it. From weddings and bar mitzvahs to conferences and music festivals — I’m in tune with what’s going on behind…
Why do we still need film festivals in a streaming-first world?
It used to be that a film festival would screen dozens of independent movies, and studios would show up, buy the best ones, and release them into the world. But that’s just not enough anymore. Like all events and experiences, we expect the film…
Is experiential still the future of retail?
When I think of national holidays, retail sales and discounts come to mind before I can even recall the reason we’re celebrating with a day off from work. I know Memorial Day weekend is the best time of the year to buy a new…
The State of Wine and Food Festivals in a Covid World
In the Before Times, some friends and I took the train up to Hudson, NY, for a long weekend in the mountains. Decked out in our finest Brooklyn Does Upstate autumnal attire, we kicked off the trip at a food festival and chili cook-off.…
In defense of the Met Gala’s frivolity (even this year)
We all got a jarring dose of reality on the first Monday in May, while we were just trying to lose ourselves in photos and videos of gorgeous celebrities in kooky outfits. I won’t get into the leaked SCOTUS draft opinion (or my opinion…
Welcome to the Live Music Renaissance
There were so many experiences I missed from the Before Times, while I paced my apartment during the height of the pandemic. Long, loud dinners with friends — the kind where you close down the restaurant and have to find an open bar to…
It’s Giving Weekend 1: My First Coachella Music Festival
Well, what happened at Coachella certainly didn’t stay at Coachella. I attended my inaugural Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival last weekend and experienced the welcomed return of festival culture first-hand. The truth is, I never imagined myself on the grounds of the Empire…
Viva Las Experiential: The best (and worst) XP from my weekend in Vegas
No city in the world baffles me more than Las Vegas — I have no idea if I love or hate it. There are so many elements of the city that intrigue me. Getting all dressed up to drink a $25 cocktail before a…
Miami is the most innovative city for experiential right now
With year-round summer, no state income tax, and notoriously lax Covid protocols, does Miami’s experiential boom have staying power? It started with a tech boom. Which started with a billboard in San Francisco. (Well, kinda.) Miami mayor Francis Suarez posed a question to San…
The show behind the show: 5 lessons for managing speakers and talent at events
Backstage at an event is experiential inception. From the green room to the press room, it’s a custom concierge experience with the weight of the world on its shoulders. While event producers power walk through industrial kitchens and whisper-scream at each other into their…
How rising inflation impacts XP
Who knew that a ship stuck in the Suez Canal for six days in March would teach the world more about the international supply chain than our economics professors ever could. Rest in power, Ever Given. Even now, closing in on a year since…
Festival safety, and what Astroworld got wrong, from the music lover’s perspective
As someone who regularly attends music festivals, the news of Astroworld’s tragedy is both frightening and infuriating. (The latest news of nine-year-old Ezra Blount’s death more than a week after the event, brings the total count to 10 lives lost.) These emotions arose not…
Ones to watch (and laugh at), compliments of Vulture
If you don’t want your relationship roasted on a spit for hundreds of strangers, don’t sit in the front row of a stand-up show. Unsuspecting couples learned that the hard way at last weekend’s Vulture Festival in Los Angeles when comedian Joel Kim Booster…
Learning from tragedy: XP lessons from Astroworld
By now, we all know about the tragedy that unfolded at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in Houston last Friday. We know nine people, aged 14 to 27 years old, are dead. Additionally, hundreds more were injured as the 50,000-strong crowd surged uncontrollably. Further compounding…
XP News from Elsewhere: November 12th, 2021
Justin Bieber brings Justice to the metaverse The Hollywood Reporter: In the first piece of XP news, Justin Bieber partnered with the metaverse concert platform Wave for a live show on Nov. 18. Biebs’ movements and vocals will be captured in a studio, then…
What does the imminent influx of international travelers mean for XP?
Is it time to throw the “open for business” banner on Lady Liberty? Because international travelers will be returning to the U.S. next week. The ~unprecedented~ travel restrictions in place since March 2020 have kept millions of visitors from Canada, Mexico, India, Brazil, China…
And the Oscar goes to…: XP do’s and don’ts from the brand new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Of course the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles was filled with drama. The museum, dedicated to the art and science of movies, opened last month over schedule (four years!) and over budget (costing $484 million). But, like any…
Advertising Week speaker perspective: Onsite jitters, offsite oversights and key takeaways
I’ve spoken at oh, you know, a few conferences now (humblebrag) and while I’ve always felt that lovely mix of nervousness and excitement before hitting the stage, at last week’s Advertising Week New York, I had a whole swath of new anxieties swirling through…
Live from New York, it’s Advertising Week 2021 — but where the heck is the XP?
Almost every speaker at Advertising Week New York kicked off their session announcing, “It’s been 20 months since my last conference!” The declaration, which quickly became comical in its repetition, seemed to be a mix of excitement and expectation-setting as all of us re-learned…
Why do we still need film festivals in a streaming-first world?
It used to be that a film festival would screen dozens of independent movies, and studios would show up, buy the best ones, and release them into the world. But that’s just not enough anymore. Like all events and experiences, we expect the film…
How OZY Media exaggerated its way into infamy — and the XP repercussions
In the eternal words of Ernest Hemingway, OZY Media’s downfall happened “gradually and then suddenly.” You’ve no doubt heard that, following last week’s media storm over (allegedly) hugely inflated audience numbers and the bizarre case of a company co-founder impersonating a YouTube exec, OZY…
Standing ovations and musical metaphors: The return of Broadway
Broadway’s back, thank god. I’m a true theater girl who, in the before times, tried to get to two shows a month, up for seeing pretty much anything and everything. In March 2020, I had far-too expensive orchestra tickets to see the long-awaited “Company”…
This year’s Met Gala was a fever dream — and not in a good way
So, what is the Met Gala? Seriously though, is it a dinner? Does Anna Wintour give a speech? Does Tim Gunn dole out awards (oh wait, Anna banned him years ago).There has to be a live auction at some point in the night, right?…
Where is the love? Attendees call Elements Festival a ‘shitshow’
Water, earth, fire, air and you: These are the five elements of the Elements Festival, a three day music, arts and camping festival in Lakewood, Pennsylvania. But after reports from attendees about 16-hour wait times and overflowing porta-potties started hitting social media this past…
And that’s a wrap: XP highlights and lowlights of the Olympics, Part II
“Well, that was weird” was pretty much the prevailing sentiment of this summer’s Olympic Games. After a fairly fraught start, the Tokyo Olympics officially said goodbye to 2020 (a year late and probably way more than a dollar short) with its closing ceremony on…
XP highlights and lowlights of the Olympics: Part I
Thus far, the Tokyo Olympics certainly seem to be living up to expectations — that is, the expectation that the Games would be fairly fraught, but also would feature some breakthrough moments of glory (Katie Ledecky wins gold!). Athletes gathered from 206 countries to…
Will Bizzabo’s Whalebone product bridge the virtual divide?
Virtual event platforms have been iterating at an exponential pace since the start of the pandemic in an attempt to satisfy the many varied needs of their skyrocketing user bases. One issue that comes up again and again? Creating a platform that brings in…
The live audio wars are in full effect: Here are some of the major players
Clubhouse, Spotify, Discord, Slack and yes, Big Social, are all clamoring for first place as the audio wars rage on. See below for a breakdown of how each platform is approaching the space. Clubhouse: More Than a Fad More CEOs talking tech. More artists…
Oh, the places you’ll go in XP Land
Letter from the Editors Hello and welcome to XP Land — a new digital news platform for all things experiential. We’re so happy to have you with us on this journey. Before we dive into our regularly scheduled programming, we wanted to tell you…
Was this year’s Cannes Lions a virtual success? Depends who you ask
Cannes Lions is no longer exclusively the domain of very well-heeled and well-connected VIPs in advertising. The five-day awards festival celebrates creative work in the ad industry and related fields. Virtual this year, it was available to the whole world (for a price), with…
Fashion XP Is ready for relaunch this fall
The continuing relevance of the “September issue” has been hotly debated over the past few years. Yet, the recent news from the fashion world indicates that it might be back this fall. No, Glamour is not reviving its print run (RIP). And it’s doubtful…
The perils and privileges of being the ‘first’ to return to IRL events
We’re seeing a bevy of “firsts” pop up in XP news this week, as in first [fill-in-the-blank] since the pandemic started. Here’s what’s been happening in the land of firsts of IRL events: The Oscars, which planned to host all of the Academy Awards…
Experiential is getting high on its own supply
There was a whole lotta pot talk when people celebrated the weed-friendly “holiday” 4/20 this year. Even Wall Street got its buzz on with “smoking hot” cannabis stocks. Investors are betting big on consumer products tied to marijuana and CBD. Of course, all of…
Boomers got the vax: XP goes big on shots
In-person XP is poised for a major comeback asap, but a whole lotta that comeback is dependent on people pounding shots — er, getting jabs. Basically, our entire industry is currently reliant on the goodwill and good sense of our neighbors, AKA audiences, and,…
Music and sports are revving up for summer
Now that we’re post-Memorial Day, it’s officially the unofficial start of summer. With that, a whole lotta sports and a whole lotta music are headed our way. O course, we had to give the summer of 2020 a swing and a miss. Because of that, we’re thrilled…

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