Tim Hill - From Liverpool FC's Anfield to Berlin’s Techno Clubs. Why Rituals Matter!

Steve Usher (00:00) So Tim, welcome to the Experience Designers podcast. Tim Hill (00:04) Thanks so much for having me. Absolute pleasure. Steve Usher (00:06) Yeah, very warm welcome. I'm very much looking forward to this conversation today. And I'd like to actually kick off with with something slightly more unique actually than what I normally do ⁓ is a bit of a reading, if I may, just with some of our like preparations for the for this particular podcast. I actually felt some of the content that you shared, I thought might be a really nice, like poignant kind of way in to this discussion. So and also for the audience listening to this. I also just invite you to like listen to these words as well and ground in and see what kind of experience resonates or comes to mind as I share this. ⁓ So let's start. So anyone who has ever experienced a mass outpouring of emotion in a packed stadium or music venue knows how it can lift us up into a state of elation and ecstasy. And that's because powerful live events contain a certain kind of magic that makes you feel psychologically and emotionally connected to strangers. So I just want to invite anyone listening, just to have a think about that for a moment. Was it a Coldplay or a Taylor Swift concert? Lots of Swifties out there. ⁓ Was it a certain event that came to mind? And as part of this discussion today, we're going to be diving into that magic and that emotion. element as we kind of explore the work that you've been doing. What was the specific kind of desire to explore ⁓ the specific research that you've undertaken? Tim Hill (01:42) Well, we know that sort of magic of live events is really important and it has a lot of very important outcomes for brands, organisations and designers from loyalty, ⁓ return visits to being deeply attached to the place, the venue and the community. However, it's actually really difficult to explain how it is to design these experiences that bring together hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of people. And it was that sort of ⁓ nice mix of we know this stuff is important and designs can benefit from it, coupled with how researchers haven't really explained that sort of magic sort of element of the experiences that we all have experienced and we all love. Steve Usher (02:34) Yeah, absolutely. what's some of the kind of the learnings or the journey that you've been on with these cases that we're gonna dive into and the thinking behind it? Tim Hill (02:47) Cool. OK, so I think it's important just to say that I'm an ethnographer by trade, trained in sort of anthropological methods. So how I go about investigating a whole bunch of contexts is by hanging out with people, observing what they do, participating in what they do. And this has led to a bunch of studies. I think we're mainly going to be talking about sort of a study of Anfield, which is the home of Liverpool Football Club. And the reason why I studied that, well, because when you look at what people say and what journalists say and what authors say and what footballers say, they always say that Anfield is one of the most sort of atmospheric stadiums in world football. And I wanted to understand what makes that particular stadium and the people and supporters who go there, what gives it that sort of energy that makes footballers ⁓ of the opposing team feel afraid and make them shake, but it also makes ⁓ the men in red, you know, 10 feet taller. Now, so that's one bit of the research I've been doing. And because I like to do things that I find personally quite enjoyable, I have also done ethnographic work into the sort of underground techno nightclubs of Berlin to understand the rituals, ⁓ the things from dancing to more explicit acts. that go on there and to understand what makes those venues tick as well. Steve Usher (04:19) Amazing. So we're going to unpack both of these, aren't we? Just to kind of go a bit deeper into the journeys on both of these and then share some commonalities or some learnings that we can extract and share with the audience. One thing I wanted to ask, because just the word research and particularly from an understanding the audiences or the fans or the humans in which we are designing for as experienced designers, know, human centric design is at our core. ⁓ and so I would really like just to kind of explore a bit further about how you approach that. mean, I love the intervention, like what makes Anfield what it is, like this mythical place, ⁓ that sometimes is a bit quiet actually. And then sometimes does suddenly come up, come alive. And so I'm just curious, you've got a lovely like research question hypothesis. How'd you then go about setting up that kind of that research? How did you kind of approach that and think about? and execute on that. Tim Hill (05:21) Great difficulty. These things are not easy. You never know where to start because there is no sort of template. So the way I start all of my research is by identifying people who can allow me to gain access. So in the case of Liverpool Football Club research, well, I had to introduce myself to hardcore football fans, the many supporter groups, ⁓ both international and based in Liverpool. Steve Usher (05:22) You Tim Hill (05:49) who then was able to provide me access to their friends, family, community, and essentially I lived the life of a hardcore Liverpool football supporter for about 18 months, which as a Coventry City fan was a quite troubling, but be quite enjoyable because I got to see a football team win things. So it often starts with speaking to the right people and building rapport and then working out and puzzling through what type of research can be done. Steve Usher (06:19) Yes. And did you find like, ⁓ as you kind of started to identify the different target groups or individuals to follow effectively into shadow, ⁓ how did that kind of demographic, what kind of characters did you start to, or did you follow basically? Yeah. Tim Hill (06:40) I mean, ⁓ yeah, I mean, it is a case of following and saying, do you mind if I just hang out with you? And it's quite awkward, you know, for I do remember one moment in which a very sort of, you know, very local Scouser just turns around to me and goes, why are you here? You know, nobody wants you here. ⁓ Now do bear in mind, I did have a gatekeeper, someone who's able to sort of build rapport. Steve Usher (06:45) Yeah. Tim Hill (07:10) and to say, actually, Tim's fine, Tim's fine. So it is very awkward. You do feel like you are an outsider, ⁓ but you just need to manage it through good rapport, being able to handle quite strange situations and feel comfortable in feeling uncomfortable. And ⁓ I am. So often it's just about maintaining cool ⁓ and just being an okay person to be around. And that's when you get all the juicy stories. That's when you get... Steve Usher (07:13) Hmm. Yeah. Tim Hill (07:39) to see ⁓ all the weird and wonderful routines and habits and rituals that football fans have. And that really provided what I think is quite rich insights into what makes Anfield Anfield. Steve Usher (07:47) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Can I go a bit deeper with this as well? cause I'm so curious. Tell me about the humans that you came across. Like how would you describe the humanity element of this? and the different characters but were there certain groups that you started to identify or whether it was by age groups or just local versus, ⁓ you know, coming from further afield. What started to materialize as part of that? Tim Hill (08:19) So I found two groups super fascinating. are obviously, you know, the English Premier League is a story of worldwide success. That's based from the nineties. That's based from them having a superior television production values from them securing the rights and being able to sell overseas. And as a result, there are, you know, thousands, if not millions of really passionate football fans who have never stepped foot in the UK. let alone step foot in Anfield or Old Trafford, who when they come to Anfield and they come to experience a game, and I spoke to many of these people, hung out with them for a day, the passion and knowledge that they have was totally unrivalled. And it was just amazing to see the efforts people took to integrate themselves in a community, virtually, essentially, until they step foot. And I found that really sort of amazing. I was trying to think of other instances where ⁓ you would be a fan of something on the other side of the world and the level of effort and care that they took into making sure that they knew the rituals, the traditions, the non-spoken, non-written down sort of rituals. I felt that was really fascinating. The other group who I found totally fascinating and were the hardcore local, you know, men essentially. And these are the people who provide the atmosphere and provide the spectacle that the English Premier League ⁓ depends upon when they're selling the league as the most authentic sort of version of football. Now, what's really fascinating about these groups of people is that on the surface, they're quite, you know, masculine, yeah, they're quite, can be sort of quite abrasive. But what they do when they are traveling to games and what they do when in the stadium is, I think, quite funny. Because what they do is they try to create songs to obscure 19th century classical music to 1970s pop songs to disco tunes. And it's quite creative and quite camp. And I mean, I remember sitting on a coach recording this of 20 lads who were, you know, Steve Usher (10:17) Mm. Tim Hill (10:45) rather, rather drunk. ⁓ For three hours, we're to get a lyrics, we're trying to create some lyrics to a bony track. And I was able to put this in the paper because I was like, if I want to put something in a paper that American marketing academics are going to read, I want to be a bony song with a footballer's names in. So they're quite creative, they're quite camp in what they do. But on the surface, they're quite sort of aggressive and masculine. And I found that sort of like paradox of of what they are on the surface mixed with what they do to demonstrate their love and care for the thing that they love most, football club, really quite fascinating. Steve Usher (11:24) I love that, I love that. And can it just also like community and this tribalism element as well? What did you observe those kind of angles and those lenses? Tim Hill (11:36) ⁓ Now there's obviously tribalism between supporters of different football clubs. If you've ever traveled the motorway network of the UK and you happen, unfortunately, to stop off on the M6 at 11.30 in the morning, you'll see that there are rival football supporters squaring up to each other, usually checking each other out. Sometimes it's just to sort of compliment what they're wearing because male football fans have a certain vintage. Steve Usher (11:41) Hmm. Tim Hill (12:04) do care about sartorial style and the choices that they make. Other times it can be for a bit of a quick sort of rock. So there are obviously tribal ⁓ elements to support it between groups, but there is also tribal rivalries within fan groups as well. Because we always need to work out and always realize that football stadiums, not everyone can go into them. Supply or demand outstrips supply. by a million times. And therefore there are rivalries within groups. I am more deserving of that group or that person because I've been a football supporter and I've been attending here for the past 15 and 20 years. Now, I didn't see any of that ⁓ for the Liverpool Football Club research because they were actually pretty good that season. But when things are tough, you do see these sort of rivalries happening between communities. And that's quite common for fans of brands for instance, you go on Glastonbury forums you'll see that people are being mean to each other and they can be quite sort of bullying behaviour on display. So when there aren't enough tickets to go around and there isn't enough space for everyone to go, you do get these sort of petty rivalries between groups. Steve Usher (13:21) Yeah. So you've, spent a lot, you know, a lot of time from the fan's lens and obviously walking the walk from whichever destination locally, obviously I just, just to caveat this conversation, I'm a massive Liverpool fan, you know, so I've walked this walk with you on many, many occasions. And so I, I really relate to this. ⁓ but I'm also like just for the audience to to kind of walk through that journey and also to kind of bring to life a little bit around how the clubs stage this because also they're the stager of the experience. They're the container, the holder of that space, this iconic stadium. ⁓ Just to kind of maybe bring out as well, what are the club doing in unique ways or smart ways to facilitate and to hold that space with and for the fans? Tim Hill (14:19) That's a really interesting question. And this is what many people who want to design atmosphere get wrong. They think it needs to be an NFL or Super Bowl style spectacle, which works for American sports where spectacle is what you need to produce. So fireworks, music displays, lots of things going on. What Liverpool Football Club are excellent at doing is keeping things simple. Yes, they stage things. Yes, they cue things up such as, you know, singing, you'll never walk alone. But beyond that, they understand that these sort of authentic atmospheres, these ones where people feel that they're not being forced to do something is one that is always co created. And it's one where fans want to fill in the gaps. As in, when fans are bored or, or are feeling like something's amiss, they'll fill in the blanks themselves. They'll start to do something creative together. That is what creates that sort of sense of authenticity. Many football clubs have tried to engineer atmosphere by, for instance, introducing a club anthem that has nothing to do with the supporter base or the local area. ⁓ Arsenal Football Club have done a very good job this season by working with the local fan groups. by working with local musicians to create an anthem and it appears on the basis of last season to really improve the atmosphere within the Arsenal Stadium. Steve Usher (15:53) Interesting. So it's this giving agency to the fans, because they're always going to find a way, ⁓ just because of the passion and the drive. ⁓ Tell us about the, you never walk alone moment. So this is something which is clearly, it's a ⁓ very iconic moment. ⁓ Just share what you unpacked on that particular ⁓ element of the experience. Tim Hill (16:20) So the singing of You'll Never Walk Alone at the start of the game is the sort of signature of the brand and it's the sort of signature sound of the fans. It's played two minutes before the game kicks off and what is fascinating about how the club do it is that everyone knows this is happening. So they start playing the music through the tannoy system However, after the first verse and chorus, they then turn the music off. This is really simple, it sounds way too simple to be something profound, but in turning the music down and then off, fans realise that the only thing that is keeping themselves together and in rhythm and in synchrony is by reading each other's body language. and essentially becoming attuned to those small things such as the movement of the face, the movement of the arms, the movement of the lips. And that is that real powerful moment where you feel, wow, there are 55, 65,000 people all doing the same thing. And where in the world can you experience that? Many people look to festivals, but this is each week or every other week. There's this sort of religious experience where The club don't need to do anything anymore is people who are so attuned to each other. know what's happening and it's just a magical experience. That's what makes people feel like they are together with strangers. Steve Usher (18:01) Yeah, it's a very emotional, I find it always very emotional actually, ⁓ mainly because my father was an Evertonian, so that was always interesting, but I actually anchor that to allow as an honor to my dad, because you know, with Merseyside and it's, but it is this, it's so hard to describe, it's just such an inherent like real emotion feeling of togetherness in that short moment of just singing some verses of a song together. ⁓ But it's, yeah, it's amazing. And also just interestingly as well is how much it also connects into the community of that message of you never walk alone. mean, there's a very, very strong, I think it's also a signature of the city itself. ⁓ What did you see from that in terms of that, just to build on that kind of community element? ⁓ Tim Hill (18:51) I mean, Liverpool Football Club are quite tasteful in how they use the you'll never walk alone branding. And the reason why it resonates so powerfully is because of that sort of local identity that exists within Mersey side of solidarity of feeling. ⁓ often like they're outsiders or unwanted within the rest of England, you know, over many decades, you could go into a whole social history, but the history of Merseyside there. So it really plays to that. And that's what makes it so sort of powerful and makes it resonate. mean, Steve, just like just to go back to the experience of singing, You'll Never Walk Alone Together. It's not like you're singing like a church. It's not like you're singing a hymn. Steve Usher (19:18) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tim Hill (19:40) I remember very vividly ⁓ the first time, one of first times I stood on the KOP which is the most passionate area of the stadium. And during You'll Walk Alone, some guy within the first sort of like three seconds, five seconds of the song just like pulls me to him. Yeah. And this is a stranger pulling me towards him. And I don't know, this is quite weird. I'm being touched by a stranger, but by the end of it, I had my arm around him. You know, and we chatted throughout the rest of the game. We had a great time and you know. It's really a moment of togetherness of touching. It sounds quite lame again, but touching strangers in a commercial setting is rare. But if you can do it and around rituals, then it builds a level of connection that just leaves a mark on your body. You know, I still remember it to this day, that moment of being, ⁓ okay, this is how we do things. And it was totally normal. That is really powerful. Steve Usher (20:16) Yes. Yes. Yeah. That's really interesting. you know, you, maybe I say I take it for granted, but I always, yeah, it's true. I mean, in this moment, particularly when you score a goal, it's really interesting. And I have shared this several times with people. It's like, there's this collective moment of this inward breath. If you really listen out for it, it's there. It's like a split second where 60,000 people go, and then just go absolutely bananas. And ⁓ And then to your point, you're just turning around to anyone around you, my son quickly, and then it's like, then it's the stranger next to me. And it's a very unique moment. hadn't, Now we're really focusing on that as a, yeah. Tim Hill (21:18) Yes, it is. I want listeners to also understand that you can witness similar things happening in different events. This is not a football specific thing. Think about, for instance, at nightclubs, when DJs know how to manage the room and at no certain point they need to, know, the beat is going to drop. And at some point, that's when everyone is on the same page and starts touching ⁓ each other and there's it's sort of like, OK, this is what we're doing together. Steve Usher (21:28) No. Tim Hill (21:45) If you go to sort of evangelical mega churches in America, you know, there comes a point where you are touching other people, you have your arms over other people. If you go to any sort of gig you mentioned, Taylor Swift, there's moments where artists do the same thing that happens at Anfield, which they drop the backing track and it's just the crowd singing to themselves. Those are the same, that's the same phenomenon across different sectors and different contexts. And that's... Steve Usher (22:12) Yeah. Tim Hill (22:14) that sort of special sauce that's the magic. Steve Usher (22:16) It's that giving agency to the audience. It's giving the agency to the fans to control, but it's done on an individual level, but also a collective level, which brings that togetherness, that energy and that bonding and that familiarity. ⁓ Tell me about some of the outputs from the research that you undertook, ⁓ how you kind of brought that together into kind of some meaningful outcomes and some learnings, particularly for experienced designers. Tim Hill (22:46) Yeah, okay. So from this, we were able to build a four step process by which ⁓ designers, ⁓ experience designers can go about trying to design rituals into what happens pre-event within the event itself, and then afterwards. So even though most of what we've discussed so far, Steve, has been on that sort of moment of what we call climax, which we think is the most important part. However, you can strengthen or intensify Steve Usher (23:11) Yeah. Tim Hill (23:16) that moment of climax by engaging in what we call and trying to design preparation rituals, activation rituals, climax rituals and recovery ⁓ rituals. So there is like a chain that when designed well, which is what Liverpool do particularly well, people are essentially on like a emotional roller coaster where they prepare weeks, days in advance, they get adorn themselves in symbols of the club. they were able to demonstrate that the parts and parcel of the in-crowd beforehand, they essentially psych themselves up by hanging out with other supporters where they might sing a song, that they're all talking about the thing that they all love. So when they enter the stadium themselves, they are essentially pumped up and they are, right, okay, I need to declare my love for my most cherished sort of ⁓ thing, which is the club and its supporters and its community fan base. So you can link these rituals together through activation, through preparation, and hopefully that then creates this sort of magical moment. ⁓ Steve Usher (24:23) Amazing. And how did this kind of, you developed around the model that you've developed around this? ⁓ just take us through each of those, like the steps and those elements? Tim Hill (24:34) Yeah, sure. So stage one is the preparation ⁓ element. So this is happens days, weeks before live events even start. Now here, experienced designers need to think about how they communicate some of the key sort of like values and ideologies that the event sort of contains and what it's meant to represent. For football ⁓ clubs, it's about encouraging fans to create their own sort of memory. their own artifacts, their own totems, so flags and banners, rather than saying you can't bring these in, you need to encourage them and say, look, we want this to feel like your second home. ⁓ encourage it, encourage the creation of things that ⁓ people will use to express their love. You think about Taylor Swift, for instance, very clever at encouraging Swifties to create their own... ⁓ beads that they then sort of bracelets that they then swap with other ⁓ Swifties. So these rituals, like you can start saying, this is what this, this is what this event is all about. So that's the preparation stage, encouraging fans and consumers to really create things that reflect and represent their love for whatever it is. So then, and I think this is often the most important stage and often what ⁓ football clubs do particularly well is that the activation stage sees fans given the space and opportunity to create atmosphere before the event has even begun. One of the things that Liverpool Football Club have done particularly well, even though it's not of their own doing, is that they have allowed supporters to essentially crowd the team bus before it enters. And some of these activities, shall I say, are quite dangerous. Steve Usher (26:22) Yeah. Tim Hill (26:28) ⁓ involving flares, fireworks, quite crowded spaces. However, ⁓ there is nothing more powerful than for a football supporter than seeing those people who you usually only see on TV or playing in front of you and being able to greet the coach, the players are like filming what's happening. That really pumps up the atmosphere. And when you look at television footage, I mean, they love. Steve Usher (26:33) Hmm. Tim Hill (26:57) ⁓ being able to broadcast what's happening before a game that symbolizes the passion. So it's allowing the atmosphere to sort of what we call activate before the event itself. So those are stages one and two. Now, when you get these stages right, people are pumped up together to go and experience what we call the climax phase of the ritual chain. So once groups have built up this sort of shared sense of excitement, Steve Usher (27:08) Hmm. Tim Hill (27:25) experienced designers must do something to sort of unify these groups into larger crowds. And this is where the magic happens. We've previously talked about the power of the ritual of singing, you'll never walk alone. But as I said, you can see those sort of formal rituals across the nighttime economy, across festivals and so on. And as I said, that climax stage where you're able to bring together and unify people by sharing a focus of attention, by getting them to think. Steve Usher (27:43) Mm. Tim Hill (27:54) feel and do the same thing together. That's the magic. That is the magic. And the key thing is to get people up for it beforehand so you know it's going to happen. Now, we also have a final stage after the event, which is what we call the recovery stage. And this is important because this is where shared emotions and memories essentially get stored into objects and into things such as the scarf you may have bought after the game. or the pin badge that you bought from a person outside, those memories get sort of stored in those objects. What's great about this is that when you want to pump yourself up for the next game or game 20 years down the line, those memories and experiences are stored in there. And that's what you use to get yourself into that mindset of being a fan. So there's this wonderful sort of loop that, and yeah, the wonderful loop. Steve Usher (28:51) Hmm. Tim Hill (28:53) that can exist into next year, the year after that and into decades. And Steve, I'm sure you have like an object ⁓ that you got from a Liverpool game that you treat as like a cherished possession. Steve Usher (29:01) I might have. Yep. Yeah, I do. ⁓ Yeah, well, I have my scarf, which I had for years, but also the various badges that I have that are very symbolic. ⁓ Yeah, very much so. Tim Hill (29:18) Yeah. And like, I'm sure, you know, I remember interviewing a family or not interviewing, but hanging out with a family in their home and they had two young kids. And it was a real moving moment for the parents to say, look, my dad took me to the game in the sixties and in the seventies and in the eighties, he gave me this, I'm now passing it on to you. And you know, it's a really powerful moment to pass on these things that are simple commodities. They're objects like everything else. They're not particularly special, but because of how it's been involved in these quite meaningful moments of celebration, ⁓ they conjure emotions and they set other people, they set your children on the same path. And I think it's just a real powerful and quite profound experience to watch. Steve Usher (29:48) Yeah. Tim Hill (30:12) people pass on these traditions and these mundane objects become really sacred to the family and how it's really vital to the design of these experiences. Steve Usher (30:19) Yeah, agree. So what we have is preparation, activation, climax and recovery. I mean, it's great. Tim Hill (30:26) I mean, I just regret not being able to make it slightly better. ⁓ I mean, I didn't think people would find so much value from the sort of framework. And I wish I'd spent a great amount of time sort of tweaking and refining it. Steve Usher (30:30) Ha! Yeah, it's a great model. the thing is, simple wins the day, ⁓ for sure. And I think underpinning a journey and ultimately a loop because it creates this kind of ultimate loop from recovery into then preparation. it's a continuous virtuous cycle. ⁓ So just kind of broadening out, just taking a step back, how do we need to think as experienced designers? Like where are some of the wins or opportunities that you observed? ⁓ Let's move away from football and just go, you know, high level to think about some of those reflections and those opportunities for us as designers. Tim Hill (31:27) So think the starting point and also the end point is designing rituals and designing is possibly the wrong term. It's about staging the potential for rituals because the most authentic, most powerful shared experiences are ones where users, fans, consumers feel that they have ownership of. So it's not about saying this must happen. Steve Usher (31:36) Yeah. Tim Hill (31:55) It's about saying we're going to set the stage for you to hopefully be able to come together ⁓ either through, you know, shared sort of singing or dancing some even small ritual, but just something that appears to be fan created or user generated. The best experience designers are able to get. Okay. There is, there is a catalyst here, or there is a spark that we can take and use. So I go back to the Arsenal example here. They saw that a local musician had created a song, put it on YouTube and was getting tons of hits and became viral. You know, it's all about Arsenal and the local North London area. And they go, okay, there's something here that if we possibly play this with the artist's blessing, with supporter group's blessing, maybe this becomes our anthem and the ritual that defines the arsenal experience. that's not given, that's not prescribing, that's not saying you must do this. It's not overbearing, it's not paternalistic. It is setting a stage where if fans are able to then go, ⁓ okay, I'm actually on the same page, this works, this really works. That's how these things start. So trying to stage rituals and in full knowledge that they may fail and that's okay. Yeah. Steve Usher (33:20) Yeah, yeah, agree. And it is, and I think there's two things that can come to mind there. One is experimentation for sure. ⁓ I think to extract the kind of the elixir from the Arsenal example is it's smart, right? Because what they're doing is that they're aligning for a moment and they're just sitting, listening, observing, and used an opportunity in the kind of the organic kind of fan base. Tim Hill (33:21) And that's quite hard. That's really hard for people to think about. Steve Usher (33:50) to go, there's an opportunity to your point. Like here's a way of us weaving in a connection with the fans and also to actually co-create something with them that could actually then be for the broader fan base as well. So it's a really nice, I think there's a lot of learning in that too, for anybody really, mean, designers to kind of start what we mentioned right at the beginning, this human centricity. It's like, who are we actually staging and designing for? And if you're coming at this from a top down, very controlling pushing mechanism, ⁓ then the risk of course is that you creating something that just doesn't resonate at all as part of that. Tim Hill (34:27) Yeah, I mean, that is bang on because I know I've come across some people who want to make their mark. Yeah. But this is not about making your mark. It's about working with and reducing the distance between you as an organization and the people you're staging experiences for. Ideally, you want to minimize that distance. You want to get them onside. You want to know who the main important people are, who the people who sway opinions. who are the taste makers and get them onside and use them. They know what's going to work. Steve Usher (35:01) Yeah. I mean, everybody's got their own recipe and I do, and just, again, just very going back to Liverpool football club, like you can't replicate that anywhere else. it does too much of a melting pot of elements, history, nuances, culture. ⁓ I mean, you could throw lots of words and elements into this that's ultimately culminated in this pot of Anfield effectively. So I think it's also as well like, honoring some of those like, I guess, historical or legacy or cultural elements to your experience or to the event or whatever it is that you're creating. ⁓ Tim Hill (35:43) yeah. I mean, the term that I would encourage people to think about is what are the symbols of the group? Yeah. What are the symbols of your fan base? What are the symbols of your users, your consumers? This sounds quite out there, but if you go to, for instance, Club Med, So slightly luxury high-end, ⁓ hotels, They have their own rituals that have existed for 20 years. from singing particular songs, there are particularly things that have existed for 20 years, and just tapping into that again and again, and going to the most loyal ⁓ users of the hotel. That's how they come up with ideas about how to keep things fresh. Because fans and heavy users know the culture, often better than the organization itself. Steve Usher (36:34) Yeah, great. Let's bounce into Berlin nightclubs. Let's switch the context for a moment. Share more about the research there and again, like what some of the observations and insights you generated. Tim Hill (36:47) Well, well, Steve, you said bounce in because, you know, let's let's be very clear. No one is bouncing into Berlin nightclubs without. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, one's bouncing in because in order to get in. And this is what makes the context interesting is it is the most sort of it runs the most elusive door policy across the whole of the nighttime economy. And that's what we wanted to. Steve Usher (36:51) You No they're not, no that's true. ⁓ Tim Hill (37:16) kind of make sense of and demystify. So for those people who haven't been to Berlin and sampled some of the experiences that occur after 10 o'clock and often last 72 hours, is that Berlin nightclub are not places for the rich and the famous. They aren't places for the conventionally beautiful. There aren't VIP lanes. There isn't a sort of bottle surface. ⁓ It is places of for marginalized groups who listen to often obscure non-mainstream music to sort of live out their sort of utopian vision of what society could be like. ⁓ And as a result, to get into these places that offer people, you know, shared hedonistic experiences, the chance to bond in really deep, meaningful ways with strangers, It's not easy to get in because they want to protect that sort of special atmosphere, that ambiance of being open, of experimenting with a whole bunch of things. And that's why it's so hard to get in. And that's why you wanted to understand what are the types of things that what they call selectors are making when they're judging if you're going to get in or not on any given night. Steve Usher (38:35) Yeah, it has a reputation for sure. What's this kind of less balanced that you as well around exclusivity and inclusivity? Any kind of observations of that? they, I don't know, it is legendary, the door policy. No one knows. I mean, I think it's like one in eight, I think is the average or something. can't remember. I can't remember that number for some reason. Tim Hill (39:00) So bear in mind, I can vouch for those figures. So again, as an ethnographer, I didn't just speak to people, know, could have spoke to these selectors and the door staff to say, hey, how are you making these decisions? But they're not going to tell you the truth. So again, you know, I shadowed a selector as they made like 800 decisions on any given night. And I'd say a success rate of 20 % is actually quite a generous. You know, I'd say it's more like, yeah, maybe three in 20 got in. So yeah, it is harsh, it is strict, it is also elusive. So there's a few things that means you will be excluded. Now, I don't want to too fine of a point on it, but speaking English with other English people, Steve Usher (39:51) Hmm. Tim Hill (39:56) is one way where, you know, unfortunately, the reputation of English people abroad is not so good. So how do you get in? First thing is you want to ensure that you speak a bit of German, that you aren't part of a big group. Why? Because what selectors are looking for are groups of people, small groups of people to intermingle and to mix inside. So if you go with a group of eight people, they're like, no, because you're just going to hang out to hang out together. So you need to break that up. And what they're trying to do, selectors, is they're not trying to select and bring in the same types of people. So what they're trying to do is provide a surface level sense of diversity. So if, for instance, ⁓ it's a normal sort of techno club, well, then they'll start to sort of include on the basis of sexuality, on gender, of age and things like that. So over the course of the night, they sort of put together and mould this wonderful mix of like cosmopolitan, diverse city life. Now, underneath all of this is the idea that if you want to get in, you'll need to be essentially what they say on the same page. So you need to be coming from a shared understanding of the musical scene that's going to be on display and that you are interested in integrating yourself into different groups on the dance floor. So you have to have a level of charisma, you have to have the interpersonal skills that mean like, you'll be an asset in my club because I know you'll bring people together. So there's a whole range of factors that go into these things. ⁓ And that's the special source of Berlin nightclubs. It's that mix, it's that sense of slight difference. It's not all the same crowd, it's the mix of different crowds, but they feel like they're deeply interconnected with one another. Steve Usher (41:42) Yeah. Yeah, I going back to your model, that preparation and that kind of activation that that that's super interesting because then your activation, the kind of outside the venue that I would imagine because of the difficulty to get in, the anticipation is quite interesting, the nervousness, the emotion, the feelings don't talk to anyone. I'm just here on my own, you know, that kind of thing. So I ⁓ it's it's a I think what I'm thinking is like it's a lovely intentionality funneling. ⁓ that enables them to dictate to a certain degree and curate, is probably a better word, but curate ⁓ the night based on an initial process that they go through. ⁓ It's an immense amount of control, isn't it, actually? ⁓ Mm. Tim Hill (42:28) I mean... Indeed. you know, they, I love how you said the word curate and curate is used for many, many things. You know, it's that sort of ⁓ way in which you turn a mundane process into something that seems quite artistic, but they use it and say, look, I'm curating the evening and I'm not curating the music. I'm curating the people inside because I know the people inside matters as much as how talented the DJ is at reading the room. And When we spoke to club goers, you know, they were like, this is like passing a test. And the amount of preparation that goes into it is, is absurd. It covers things such as, well, okay, what do need to wear tonight? Cause it's not that particular genre. I need to understand, you know, how I might need to change what I usually wear. I need to get up to scratch with the DJs that are playing and bear in mind, know, ⁓ selectors like to throw. quite obscure questions at would be club club goers. It's like, okay, like, name me who's playing tonight. And I'm not talking about the people who can, who can be playing at, 6am on a Saturday morning, I want obscure, I want who's down on the old list. So you need to know who's playing and you need to be able to demonstrate some sense of authentic knowledge and understanding. So you need to do your prep to get in. Because that's what they're testing. Steve Usher (43:56) Yep. Yep. Amazing. What's this paradox, just also this kind of paradox around fitting in and standing out as well? Interesting. Tim Hill (44:07) Yeah, so, so at the door, selectors are like deciding who will contribute to the evening as much as who will disrupt it. But it's not just about blending in as you'd assume. The most powerful atmospheres are those ones that rely on like this, this paradox of people will need to both fit in by understanding the music scene and being ready to contribute to dance and so on. But selectors want certain people to stand out. Steve Usher (44:09) That's what I Tim Hill (44:35) to be different because that adds something fresh, unexpected and underrepresented to the mix of people within that club. And that provides people that sort of ⁓ snapshot or experience of like diversity and cosmopolitanism, which is at the root of ⁓ electronic dance music. So that's the sort of the mixing and that sort of difference. You need people to stand out, to give people that sense of, I'm experiencing something new and something different. So that's the... That's the trick, ⁓ and that's what selectors is so good at doing, getting people who stand, who fit in, but also those people who stand out. And that's the special sauce we think, to the selection process in Berlin. Steve Usher (45:16) Yeah, and also anchoring back into the football example, I mean, they've built a hell of a reputation similar to Anfield. So the some of the Berlin nightclubs reputationally have become, you it's a nightmare to get in. It's just almost impossible. and that from an intentionality perspective is like that's the uniqueness of what they've created. Tim Hill (45:40) I mean, we we call this the mystification process. And I remember this, this wonderful, this wonderful, wonderful ⁓ moment in the field work where a guy is queuing by himself, which is a no, no, you're not going to get in that way. And selectors, some selectors have a reputation for being like really cold and they won't say anything, just say, get out. But in the main, most of them are really sweet and really nice. And she took this guy over and said, look, if you want to get in, this is what you need to do. However, when we spoke to her afterwards, I was like, that sounded really general. And I know, or we know from observing that that isn't enough. And she goes, no, of course not. I I want to deliberately ⁓ misrepresent what it takes. want to, on the one hand, be really nice and really sweet, because they know that they're always welcome. On the other hand, I don't want to give them the codes to get in. So it's this wonderful sort of customer service element of the being really sweet while they're also lying to you or providing really generic advice. ⁓ Steve Usher (46:46) Yeah. Did you get a sense that that code changes Tim Hill (46:52) changes every night to night. it's usually the vision that they have is guided by the genre of music that's being played and also the nightclub's history and reputation. However, what selectors do like to do is sometimes... just reject and say you're not coming in to someone who might be a bit of an insider, who might have been, you know, maybe 10 times, they might be a slightly familiar face on the grounds that they want to keep things fresh. And B, I think a lot of it comes down to power and influence and maintaining a sense of I'm in control. And often what happens if a person who's used to being accepted is rejected, they come back following week and they, you know, they do, they put bit more energy in sort of doing what they need to do to get in, to demonstrate, yeah, I'm going to contribute to the club night, I'm going to contribute to the vibe, I'm going to contribute to the party. So it's keeping people on their toes and just mixing things up a little bit. And sometimes, you know, if there's too much of a certain sort of profile of person, so say you're like a 50 year old who's been going to Berlin for, who's lived there 15 years, you're a familiar face, if there are simply too many people who fit that profile, they go, No, I can't accept any more people ⁓ of your kind tonight because I want that mix. want that nice blend of demographics. want that nice cosmopolitan, diverse audience inside. Steve Usher (48:29) So what can we extract? What's the elixir ⁓ for experienced designers from this space? I'm really curious to see what you observed. Tim Hill (48:39) So I think it comes down to, and I think it's quite unique, it's not going to apply to everyone, but exclusion matters. Excluding the wrong people matter, but also including the right mix of people. Also, it's just as important. There are so many instances in which either a festival or a private members club or a football club or a once sort of iconic sort of left field football club become too popular because of the great experience that they have staged. If you look at, for instance, private members club in London, you know, as soon as they open the doors because of the popularity, well, suddenly that sort of special ambiance, that atmosphere starts to dwindle. So it's really hard to understand the implications of opening the neck too broad. to try to cash in whilst you've got a growing reputation because what happens is the experience, the very thing that people want to experience suffers as a result. So keeping things exclusive, I think can in the long run pay dividends because we all know how Burning Man turned into a totally different experience once Silicon Valley types ⁓ got hold of it and became something totally different to what it was in the 90s. previous decade. Steve Usher (50:06) I love that. It's a nice reminder that I think we sometimes over obsess a little bit on the people we want in as it were and actually designing to repel people is also equally as important. ⁓ I think there's a previous guest a while ago now, Brian Adams, who focuses a lot on employer value proposition and employee experience. I remember his... His tagline was repel the many, attract the few. And that's just from an employee perspective, be honest about who you are as a business and be actively, if this isn't for you, this isn't for you. And that's just as important. And I think this message is quite similar as well in this context. Tim Hill (50:52) Yeah, I mean, that really resonates with me and it resonates with the selectors who, you know, in their eyes are protecting a subculture. They're protecting marginalized groups. Now, obviously it does come with sort of ethical issues as well. We can't ignore the fact that, you know, exclusion, you know, sometimes it can be heavily linked to a long gender, race, whole bunch of categories that are protected. So it's not an easy... Steve Usher (51:02) Yeah. Yeah. Tim Hill (51:22) It's not an easy thing to do and it would be ⁓ remiss of us not to sort of highlight how this could border on discrimination. And that's the sort of risks that Berlin selectors are playing around with all the time. Steve Usher (51:33) Yeah. So Tim, let's bring this together, what would you share with the listeners around just some of the learnings if we brought this together and gave some insights. Tim Hill (51:45) Yeah, so if you're looking to create atmospheric events that leave people feeling that they are emotionally and psychologically connected with the people they're experiencing something with, you always have to start with the rituals, how you go about staging those rituals. It doesn't need to be the mad sort of ecstatic dancing you see in nightclubs. It doesn't need to be quite camp singing you see on football terraces. It can be something very, very simple. It can be how you start a meeting in the case of designing interesting organizations that people want to work for, ritualistic ways of welcoming each other and things like that. So don't overlook rituals. I think it's quite an outdated concept, but think about rituals of an organization. Think about the rituals of an experience and think about how you can start to make something a little bit more ritualistic that can over time become the sort of signature experience, the thing that people are really wanting to experience. Steve Usher (52:44) That's amazing. An idea came to mind just to share and might inspire some thoughts for people. ⁓ explore what are some of those moments already existing and rather than kind of trying to build something, can drop it in, find the places to weave into existing. I think that's always a nice place to get started. And I think for something like, let's just say in an organisational context, you might have a monthly quarterly town hall. where you're bringing everybody together, or maybe you just kind of pick that town hall as a concept and go, okay, like what's, how could we create some rituals inside of that? Because it's something that's already happening. It's a consistent, regular thing that people are dialed into and expect. How can you uplift that and start to embed elements of ritual that could be intentionally fun, drives community? don't know, could be whatever the intention is behind it. ⁓ Yeah. Tim Hill (53:42) Yeah, I think that's really smart. Yeah, start with what you've got already, because whether you know it or not, there will be some sort of ritualistic element that represents what it means to work for an organization that you can kind of co-opt and bring in. And I think that's a really good starting point. Steve Usher (53:56) Yeah. Nice. I would basically ask Ivan to sing, Never Walk Alone. But anyway, that's my thing. Okay, good stuff. look, Tim, thank you so much for sharing. I I love this. It's such a very concrete focus that you've undertaken. But I love that you've also kind of extracted the experience design elixir from it for us. ⁓ Tim Hill (54:04) Hahaha Steve Usher (54:23) just to show how do people contact you and also like what other projects have you got on your horizon? Anything else like we can follow your journey with and explore with you. Tim Hill (54:32) ⁓ You can find me if you just search Tim Hill, University of Bath. ⁓ Feel free to email me. I'm always happy to have a chat about absolutely whatever. As for what I'm working on at the moment, I'll try to weave in a experience design angle to it, but I'm currently doing an ethnography of conspiracy theorists and looking at conspiracy entrepreneurs. So those snake oil sellers that you can find online. to try to understand what makes them tick and how people become conspiracy theorists in the first place. So that's what I'll be doing and as soon as I get the experience design angle, I will let you know what it is. Steve Usher (55:12) Please do. I'm really curious as to how you weave into their lives from an ethnographic point of view, but I'll leave you to figure that one out. But look, Tim, thank you so much. We really appreciate you and the work you're doing and of course your contribution to the Experience Designers podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much. Tim Hill (55:31) Absolute pleasure, Steve. Thanks.