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As the corporate industry becomes ever more competitive for attendees’ attention, the winners will be the ones who go beyond traditional event design to deliver a memorable, engaging experience—and one way to do that is through innovative tent design.
But just what role is experiential marketing in today’s tent industry? A big one, say the experts.
Experiential marketing offers memorable moments of live interaction for both consumers and other businesses. These unique interactions and experiences for an attendee of a tented event may leave lasting impressions and forge ongoing relationships between a company, brand, product and a consumer. As such, the design of today’s tents is critical to driving attendee engagement and experience.
“We are experiencing an increase in the concept of experiential marketing when it comes to the exterior design of tents,” says Carlos Martinez, sales representative at Marquee Event Rentals in Austin, Texas. “Companies are looking to creative experiences for people in order to draw people in.”
Marquee Event Rentals recently worked with American Express to create a tent design that offered an “experience” for visitors to the tent. The resulting two-story tent offered an urban loft design motif that looked like a sleek, urban loft in the center of a city.
The discipline of exterior tent architecture allows tenting companies to build structures based on companies’ desired outcomes—whether the outcomes are improved learning, additional networking, attendee engagement or increased ROI for the host organization.
Smart tent planners and designers imbed the exterior of today’s tents with different design elements to appeal to all types of attendees. From transformed tent entrances that conceal the tent’s original structure to interactive video and gamification displays on the outside of the tent, these design techniques strive to shake attendees out of their usual passive mindset and entice them to enter a tent structure for an experience that is more active and collaborative in nature.
Although traffic flow and design can vary from tent to tent, the team at Marquee Event Rentals understands that the key to creating an effective tent that offers an experiential marketing environment comes from a solid exterior design that not only looks great, but also serves the ultimate purpose of every company: to entice consumers and visitors to learn more about their company, products and services.
“Offering that ‘experience’ through the tent’s design is really trending right now,” Martinez says.
Embedding “surprise and delight” moments throughout a tent structure also encourage attendees to explore what else might be in store for them. These moments can range from
something simple like offering an unexpected lounge seating to a surprise design elements that truly ‘wow’ attendees as the approach a tent structure.
Creating memorable experiences via exterior tent design is a way to help solidify the attendees’ meeting or event experiences long after the event is over. Attendees may not remember all the content from an event, but if they see, do, or experience something out of the ordinary via the exterior tent design, that will stick with them.