The ultimate REMIX recipe: a dash of creativity and a spoonful of joy, resulting in time well spent.

How many times do you hear people say "There aren't enough hours in the day" or "If only we had more time". Time is a finite thing, so doesn’t that make it our greatest gift, or most valuable asset? 

As I left REMIX 2025, a two-day celebration of innovation at the intersection of culture, technology, and entrepreneurship, I couldn’t shake the sense of responsibility for us as experience creators to design moments that deliver time well spent. Whether it’s for internal events where we’re asking attendees to break routine and be away from their families, or externally, when audiences have paid hard earned money for a ticket – the experience needs to be worth it. Once it’s over, all that’s left is a memory. No rewind, no money back guarantee. 

When creating and experience from this perspective, and delivering on the trust people have in us with their time, it certainly raises the stakes. But, the future is for the fearless – as the REMIX Summit 2025 theme boldly points out!

How can we guarantee our experiences and events will be worth it? Is there a secret recipe? What does time well spent even mean? Just a few of the many questions whirring around in my head since approximately 17:30 on 29th January, as the lights went down on REMIX 2025.

Overview

The questions began as ‘We Are Socials’ planted the first seed, kicking off the summit with their Think Forward 2025 report – a memorable highlight from REMIX 2024, so I was eager to see what was trending in 2025. Two stood out in particular:

• A new drive to participate in culture instead of passively consuming.
• The shift from micro-trends of more content and faster trend cycles to a desire for balanced consumption of conscious choices, based on the content chosen to consume. 

So, quality over quantity, which only reinforced our responsibility as creators. When people make the conscious choice to pick your event, experience, or content from the volume of noise –audiences are making sacrifices elsewhere. The last thing you want them to do is second guess, or even worse…regret the choice they made.

Ingredients

"What audiences are craving to pay for are memories", claimed Andrew McGuinness, CEO at Layered Reality, as he kicked off his keynote. With this they have internally rebranded the experience economy to ‘The Memory Business’. 

I love this. Memories are so personal. They make up a fundamental part of who we are, being deeply connected to our emotions and the way we feel. If we consciously considered the experiences we create as a canvas for audiences to make memories, would this ignite an even deeper level of investment from creators? What could this do to the level of output?

The memory-making ingredients shared included technology, live theatre, and physical senses. The convergence of these three areas is their recipe for delivering successful environments to tell stories and create memories. 

By igniting the senses, often silently without the audience realising, people are more likely to create a long-lasting memory. I mean we’ve all had that moment when a particular smell has the power to transport you to a specific place in time, like that first smell of freshly cut grass letting you know spring is around the corner.

It’s all about evoking feeling, putting this at the heart of the narrative. Using the convergence of elements to punctuate the experience – amplifying storytelling into story-feeling, or story-living. 

Creating memories won’t go out of fashion. They aren’t a trend. It’s a deeply personal experience and something people hold onto forever. A token of time well spent.

Method

Accessing the flow-state is a method used by creatives the world over as a way for them to completely immerse themselves in the task, avoiding outside distractions. Furthermore, our producer teams incorporate this into the design of all our communications, events and experiences, tailoring solutions that allow audiences to truly be 'in the moment', able to absorb, and embrace, the content being addressed. So when Megan Wastell, Global Creative Director of Merlin Entertainments, outlined that we’re 500% more productive in the flow-state and referenced this as a fundamental part of their process for designing experiences across the globe – as you can imagine, I was super interested to hear it. Particularly in relation to enhancing audience experience and as a tool to successfully deliver time well spent.

How did they do this? By using technology as an enabler device to unlock the story with the sole objective of serving the human experience. It isn’t tech for techs sake, or an opportunity to be deemed 'on trend'. Instead, it’s seen as the enabler of the experience that allows the audience to get lost in the moment, forget what day it is, or what’s at the top of their to-do list. As Wastell phrased it, these carefully placed ‘superfood moments’ have the ability to draw you deep into the flow-state, and it’s here you create memories that are crucial to deeming time well spent. Great design makes you feel, not think.

We know what it’s like deep in the weeds of planning, with decisions being made at 100mph with deadlines looming. But this session emphasised the importance of taking those moments to pause, step back, and evaluate. Keep examining creative decisions, keep asking questions: does this serve the objectives? What does this bring to the moment? How do you want to make people feel? Is this an environment to create memories? 

Here at CTL we provide creative solutions to your challenges. Contact us today to discuss how we can elevate your next communications campaign or event. We know how precious time is, and it’s our guarantee that we’ll make it worth it. 

And one thing's for sure, REMIX Summit 2025 certainly was time well spent!

Authored by Laura Singleton