Understanding the Experience of Attending a Modern Music Concert
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UNDERSTANDING THE EXPERIENCE OF ATTENDING A MODERN MUSIC CONCERT Eloi Fernández Aisa Master’s Thesis – Spring 2013 Experience-based Designing Centre Supervisor and co-supervisor: Gloria Gómez and Ian Coxon M.Sc. in Product Development and Innovation Institute of Technology and Innovation Faculty of Engineering - University of Southern Denmark Understanding the experience of attending a modern music concert 1 ABSTRACT This research aims to uncover valuable insights that can be used in the development of innovative products, services or systems, after deeply understanding the experience of the modern music concert attendees, concretely in small-medium indoor venues. Although the overarching goal is to improve the concert experience, the main objective for this research is to focus on exploring the most profound aspects of the experience, usually hidden, which lead to the detection of deep and significant user needs. A qualitative research which applies a hermeneutical phenomenological approach is the method used to achieve the expected goal. Different steps, such as immersing myself into the experience or exploring other’s feelings and impressions through intense non-structured interviews, help me to collect all the data required for a proper research. The SEEing method is a systematic process useful to analyse the qualitative raw material, acquiring an advantageous understanding of the deeper meaning layers of the lived experience. As an output of this research process, a clear picture of the experience of attending a modern music concert in small-medium venues appears. A simple read to the seven category stories that sharply define the experience, is enough for a non-expert in the field to plainly understand the experience insights. Moreover, these experience insights are used in the development of numerous questions that immediately lead to plenty of innovative design and business opportunities for engineers, designers and Music Industry stakeholders. Finally, another outcome of this work is the revelation of five innovative ideas and concepts, which are presented as a way to illustrate how to use this valuably gained information, showing the right procedure to move from qualitative research to design. Eloi Fernández Aisa - Master’s Thesis at Experience-based Designing Centre - 2 - Understanding the experience of attending a modern music concert 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This Master’s Thesis has been a long way journey, which has required a lot of my time and effort. However, it could not have been possible to achieve my goals without the help of innumerable people that has been there during the journey. First of all, I want to thank the Experience-based Designing Centre for giving me the opportunity of writing my Master’s Thesis with them. Both Gloria Gómez and Ian Coxon, my supervisor and co-supervisor respectively, have been really helpful during the whole process, not only teaching me everything I know about experience-based designing, but also guiding me through all the process, even when I seemed to be completely lost. When defining my research proposal, I felt a little bit scared, thinking that maybe my background wasn’t the right one for this kind of thesis and that I wasn’t prepared enough. However, they were very understanding and tried to explain me why it could be interesting to add this knowledge to my technical background. I trusted them and, having already finished, I must say that I am very thankful because I see how right they were. I am glad that I have been able to write this thesis with the support of this innovative research group. Secondly, I want to thank all the 6 participants –Rubén, Arnau, G.Bagaria, Carles, Javier and Guillem– who offered me part of their spare time, allowing me to have profound conversations about their deep thoughts and impressions of their concert experiences. This research would have been meaningless without them. Also, I would like to thank all the countless people that have been talking with me about live music, during informal conversations in pubs, parties or at the concerts. Although they weren’t formally interviewed, they helped me a lot on shaping the whole research focus and understanding. Many thanks to Rubén Navarro too, for allowing me to project his professional concert pictures as a background for my oral presentation. Third, many thanks to all my friends who have supported me along these months abroad, especially to my good friends Jaume and Jordi, who offered me a place for sleeping during my stays in Copenhagen when attending concerts, to Alba for our hard times spent at the library, and to Jordi S. for attending a concert with me and for being such a good company. Very special thanks to Tamara, for believing in me and always being there willing to help. Finally, I would like to thank my family for all their continuous support during my studies, helping me on developing my skills and my career without barriers, with special mention to my sister and her partner, who are excellent professional designers and always a big source of inspiration. Eloi Fernández Aisa - Master’s Thesis at Experience-based Designing Centre - 3 - Understanding the experience of attending a modern music concert 3 STRUCTURE OF PAPER Before start reading the present research document, it is important for the readers to have a clear guideline on how to properly read it. Therefore, in this section the structure of this paper is shown, in order to help the readers on creating a simple picture of the whole document which allows them to go directly to see what they are searching for. The following figure shows the elementary structure of this research: Figure 1: elementary structure of the research document If you (the reader) are not able to read the whole document now or you are searching for something specific, this guide might be useful. If you desire to: - understand why this research has been done and why it is relevant, you should read the introduction and literature review chapters. - learn the importance of the human factor and see how the data has been collected, you should go directly to the data gathering section. - understand the methodology used in this research in order to analyze all the data, you should read the data analysis sections. - understand the experience insights, you should go straight to the summary of results section and read the narrative stories. (a must read) - find new design opportunities related to the concert experience, you should go to the key findings section. (a must read) - see the design concepts and ideas that appeared behind the research, and read the analysis of the results, you should go to the move from research to design and conclusions chapters. Nevertheless, it is preferable that the reader follows one by one all the research document steps, in order to correctly understand the insights of this work. Eloi Fernández Aisa - Master’s Thesis at Experience-based Designing Centre - 4 - Understanding the experience of attending a modern music concert 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.- Abstract 2 2.- Acknowledgements 3 3.- Structure of paper 4 4.- Table of contents 5 5.- Introduction 6 5.1.- The objective for this research 7 5.2.- Relevance 7 5.3.- Contributions 8 5.4.- Inspiration and interests 9 6.- Literature review 11 6.1.- The change in the music industry 11 6.2.- The importance of small bands and venues 12 6.3.- Experience-based designing 14 7.- A focus on the human experience 17 7.1.- Planning the research 17 7.2.- Taxonomy of Experience 19 7.3.- Immersion 21 7.4.- Unexpected conversations 23 7.5.- Exploration: formal interviews 23 7.6.- The SEEing method 25 8.- Summary of results 29 8.1.- Experience insights 29 8.2.- Key findings 33 8.3.- Relative weight 35 9.- The move from research to design 37 9.1.- Ideas and concepts 37 9.2.- Analysis of the results within the context of the objective 40 10.- Conclusions and reflections 48 11.- References 53 Eloi Fernández Aisa - Master’s Thesis at Experience-based Designing Centre - 5 - Understanding the experience of attending a modern music concert 5 INTRODUCTION Before start reading this document, you (the reader) should make the effort to imagine yourself in the situation of attending a modern music concert. One day, you read in a music blog that one of you favourite bands is going to make a gig in your town. Then, you quickly surf the website-service that will let you buy the tickets and, in a few minutes, you have been able to pay through the credit-card payment system and got your ticket printed using a printer in your own house. Then, there is a period of time when you are constantly dreaming about the day of the concert. You surf the online video storage services –like YouTube and Vimeo– in the search of music videos of the band, trying to see them playing in their previous concerts in other cities, which helps you feeding your imaginations. Finally, the day has arrived. In the afternoon, you take your car and drive to the venue. It’s very difficult to find an empty place for your car, and you end up parking it quite far from the venue. After walking back to the venue for 15 minutes, you see the long queue of people standing in front of the door and you join them. When you finally get inside, the concert is about to start. You feel tired and a little bit upset: there’s not a better system for this? Then you use your smart phone to contact with your friends via Whatsapp service and you meet them. When musicians appear and start playing, there are a lot of elements that create an amazing atmosphere, such as smoke, lighting and sound systems, among many others.