Emotional Choreography – sometimes you need them to feel bad so the good feels great.

Ever had someone ask you how an event was, and your brain just blanks?

Not because it was bad. Just beige.

It all looked slick. Ran to time. Nice coffee. Fancy lighting. But it didn’t land. No emotional footprint. Nothing to hold onto.

That’s the real issue. Because good events don’t just run smoothly. They move you.

They stir something. That’s what sticks. That’s what shifts behaviour. That’s what works.

Before all this, I was in music. A choreographer, A video director. My job was to build tension. Pace. Precision. Make people feel through movement. Shapes. Silence. Surprise.

That mindset hasn’t left me. Because designing audience experience? It’s emotional choreography. Same thing.

Doesn’t matter if you’re launching a car or lighting up a leadership conference. You’re asking people to feel. And unless you’re planning for that, moment by moment, you’re winging it.

UX folks talk about empathy mapping—what someone’s thinking, doing, feeling at every touchpoint.

Now take that thinking and stretch it across an experience. What do you want your audience to feel at the start? At moment three? At the end? Where’s the tension? The twist? The resolution?

Sometimes you want discomfort. It creates contrast. You don’t sell the world’s softest bed by jumping straight in. You let them sit on something hard first. Then you offer comfort. That’s contrast. That’s design.

This stuff isn’t about vibe. It’s about craft. Sequencing. Framing. Emotional cues.

If you want energy at the end, what are you doing at the start to earn it?

Empathy mapping shouldn’t sit in a dusty corner of your strategy deck. It should run your show. Because once you know what someone should feel, you can build backwards from that.

People think creativity is the visuals. The theme. The showpiece.

But real creativity is human. It’s how you shape emotion. Direct energy. Craft surprise.

Make someone feel something unexpected - something true - and they’ll remember. They’ll connect. They’ll act.

We’re not here to decorate. We’re here to change something.