Orlando Trip #2: TEA / SATE, Day 1

Today was the first day of the SATE conference. SATE stands for Story, Architecture, Technology, and Experience. This is its first year, and it is run by the Themed Entertainment Association. It is a conference that is designed to bring together leaders in the themed entertainment industry and try to get a better understanding of all the different parts required in order to make a good experience.

The conference was split up into two days. The first day contained the story and architecture sections. For the story part they brought in Bill Lepp, a "professional" storyteller who told us some tall tales. His stories were hilarious and they were a great way of showing how to keep people entertained in one of the oldest forms imaginable: oral tradition.

We then had different speakers talk about different projects they were working on and how they tried to create a story in order to market it to consumers. This included someone who had created stories to market for events such as the Olympics and the Pan American Games, and someone who tries to create stories for Coca-Cola. It was a nice way of allowing different people in the industry to explain some of the stories they had created and why they did it in that fashion.

The afternoon portion focused on architecture. In this section leaders in architecture talked about different projects they were working on or had created in the past, and why they had chosen a certain layout. One of the speakers was a former Imagineer and showed some of the past creations he had made for the Disney parks. The day ended with a charette in which we had to create a ride based on one of the stories Bill Lepp had told us. There were certain constraints on throughput and budget, and so it was interesting to see what ideas different people had.

There was also a mixer tonight in which we were able to relax and talk with people from different areas of the industry. It was a nice way to settle down and chat with leaders from vastly different fields. They all seemed interested in our program and what we were doing. We all had a great time and we met a lot of nice people.

On a side note, a lot of us now have colds. I'm guessing that the cruise made a lot of us sick. Hopefully we'll get better soon. One day down, one to go!