By the time we are 20 years old, we have half the number of tastebuds we had as children1. However, our gustatory perception, or sense of taste, remains a highly impactful and essential part of our sensory perceptions of the world. It powers us to look for and consume the food we need in order to live and be well.
 
Our Chief Engagement Officer Georgie Stayches wrote about how the catering at an event can play a major role in the event’s success, and why considering menu choices carefully is essential in this blog post ‘The way to your guest’s heart is through food’.
 
In this blog, the next in our series on sensory event design, let’s look at how our sense of taste actually works.

When it comes to our sense of smell, it’s quite easy to immediately recall a time or place where a certain smell had an impact on us. Maybe it’s the experience of smelling fresh coffee first thing in the morning, or the scent of flowers in the garden or herbs wafting from a pizza. Or maybe we think of a specific event held at Christmas or in a special location, and the smells that were there on the day.
 
Incorporating scent into an event gives us the opportunity to elevate the event and enhance the experience of attendees and participants. Let’s look at some of the evidence around the power of this sense and just how effective it can be. 

Air is something humans clearly can’t live without. And fresh air is often something we crave – that feeling of opening up the window and breathing in clean, new air is one we can all relate to.
 
In this blog, the next in our series exploring the senses and how to harness the power of our sensory perceptions in the design of our events, we’ll take a look at air. We’ll also briefly incorporate the feeling of touch, which is not dissimilar to our experience of feeling air on our skin or the movement of air in our environment. 

Often the sounds we are surrounded by are seen as background and not really thought about deeply, be it the soundscape of a busy city, a workspace, our daily commutes, or the sounds that exist around our homes and home offices. It’s understandable that much of what we hear is just accepted as the soundtracks of our lives.
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Sound can have quite an impact on our emotions, however. Just think about the time when a certain song on the radio or TV or in a shop brought back particular memories or evoked feelings of sadness, happiness, or nostalgia. Sound can also encourage us to move our bodies, sometimes without even intending to do so first – the rhythm gets you!
 
When it comes to staging events, the most obvious of sounds to look at and consider first is, quite literally, the sound of music.

​This blog continues our series on sensory event design and is focusing on the sense of vision, and some of the surprising ways that what we see and what sights are within a space or environment can impact how people feel and function. From an event perspective, understanding the benefits of what visuals can improve performance, reduce stress and provide comfort gives us a great advantage in providing attendees with an event experience that feels good and where retention is optimised. 

In the first of our series of blogs focusing on sensory event design we will look at the sensory experience of light and its significant impact on event success and attendee/participant experience.

Fetching’s Chief Engagement Officer Georgie Stayches has previously written about light as the ‘secret’ to event success in this blog.

​Here, we’ll build on this and explore more deeply.

There are many different types and styles of events, each with their own purpose and objective. But whatever the event, it will be a sensory one.

​​Our senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste are always in operation, and our whole bodies are sensory organisms, processing information from our environment and sending it up to our brains to help determine how we function and feel in any given setting.
 
In this blog series, we will look at how our very nature as sensory beings can be leveraged to enhance an event experience.

Why would we want to pay attention to and harness the senses when it comes to our event design?

​Because our senses are the ultimate hack for creating social connections, absorbing and retaining information, stimulating ideas, providing feelings of comfort and wellbeing, and reaching our potential.

If the last 12 months (and more) has taught us anything, it’s that the world can change in the blink of an eye. From long-term lockdowns to snap circuit breakers and shifts in COVIDSafe regulations, Event Managers (and Project Managers) are constantly facing shifting sands.

It can be an overwhelming and unsettling time (to say the least) as the best laid plans are disrupted. Sometimes it can be hard to change direction when you are sprinting to the finish.  

​Yet, last year made us stronger, better, more informed and taught us many things. Lessons we can bring into 2021.

"Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.” Randy Pausch

With National Volunteer Week just over a month away, we are pleased to provide a copy of our free Toolkit, to help you with your planning.