Ever imagine attending a major pop music/art festival with your officemates in tow? Is that Bob from accounting, dancing freestyle in Technicolor tights and a Dr. Seuss hat with glitter sparkling from his face? And who knew CFO Susie could act with such reckless abandon once the quarterly report was filed with the SEC?
A sight to behold and perhaps secretly log for posterity, for sure. But many corporations and other groups we once may have associated with bland conformity are stretching the boundaries of incentives and even meetings themselves by attending premier cultural events such as Burning Man or Las Vegas’ Electric Daisy Carnival and Life Is Beautiful Music & Art Festival. These events put a premium on creativity, and many organizations believe they provide returns to the bottom line through the spark of free thinking.
Our cover story this issue travels to the desert West to explore how some of these festivals are reaching out to groups—major tech companies such as Google have long been proponents—and how destinations are getting in the game.
And lest you think this is mainly a Millennial experiential activity, I must admit I just came back from a little desert foray myself to see some of my all-time favorite bands at Indio, Calif.’s Desert Trip, waggishly dubbed “Oldchella”—think the Stones, The Who, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters and new Nobel Prize-winner Bob Dylan (who was fantastic, btw).
I figured I’d take the week before off, drive the VW camper down and grow that beard I hadn’t seen since college. And you know what? That sucker came in as white as a winter in Woodstock! Happy to conform.
