The Seven Most Dangerous Words in Business

Why consumers get the same pablum over and over….

Some people just care more than others. As the years go by, I wonder why I see the same events delivering the same bland experience over and over and over. Let us consider the event planning space. Imagine for a moment that your town hosts an annual chili festival every June 1st. Let’s call the event Chilidelphia. Through some hard work and luck, Chilidelphia becomes a successful event and draws visitors from all over the region to your town to experience the environment, take some culinary adventures and hear some local bands that got booked. Fantastic! The local merchant/maker community has been supported, and that is fabulous.

The next year rolls around, and Chilidelphia 2 happens, and is largely the same event as it was in its inaugural year, but maybe in year two there are more sponsors and the budget gets a bit larger. Outstanding.

Fast forward to Chilidelphia 10. The same bands have been playing this event every year without exception. The event organizer has now served up the same musical menu ten times in a row.

Taking this example out of the abstract and into the real world, I recently submitted one of my musical projects for consideration to play Chilidelphia 18 (obviously, that a pseudonym for the real name of the event). Within twenty four hours, the festival founder and promoter responded.

Below is the response from the unnamed festival promotor, redacted to protect third party identities. The promoter’s response was simultaneously surprising and unsurprising: