The Road Less Travelled
Date:
Video of the Pitch and Judges Comment
Below is copied from the event page:
ETC@USC student Challenge: The Future of Themed Experiences
On October 22, 2022 the ETC@USC began a one week student challenge on “The Future of Themed Experiences.” Leveraging the tools, techniques, and resources of today and those that could emerge and dominate in the next few years, the students were asked to come up with an original unique idea for an experience that 1) has a specific location-based experience and 2) extends the experience out into the real and virtual worlds before and after the person has the location-based experience.
Location-based experiences are not just theme parks; they can be tied to supermarkets, schools, hospitals, parks, and any other venue that could potentially be themed.
The students were asked to prepare a 3-minute pitch video and be prepared to answer questions from the judges. Their pitch should address what the experience is, how the location-specific and non-location-specific pieces work together, what are memorable moments or hooks in the experience, what the experience is trying to achieve, what is different and unique about it, and why will the intended audience love it.
The judges would be looking for interesting storytelling or audience-engagement ideas that use the relationship between a physical location and scalable ‘anywhere’ (i.e. not location-specific) elements in engaging and creative ways. The judging criteria would be 1) how engaging it is, 2) originality and 3) repeatability.
A week later, on Saturday October 29th, the students presented 18 pitch videos to an esteemed panel of judges (listed below), and the judges selected five winners (Bold font). Click on a title below to watch each of the 18 3-minute videos and their follow-up Q&A discussion.