The Stand-Up Lounge

National Comedy Center

Agency

Cortina Productions

Project Type

RFID-driven interactives with personalization

My Role

Lead Creative Producer

As the lead creative producer on the National Comedy Center project, I oversaw a team of six producers, as well as designers, editors, and software developers to develop and deliver 30 interactive exhibits featuring RFID-driven personalization. Along with my overarching role on the project, I directly produced several exhibits including The Stand-Up Lounge.

The Stand-Up Lounge is one of the first personalized experiences visitors encounter. It evokes a comedy club with five cocktail tables and a “stage” where videos of famous comedians are projected onto a faux brick wall. Each cocktail table has a projected surface with four RFID readers. Visitors tap their wristband to log in their “sense of humor” profile and begin the experience.

The Challenge

To make this feel like a comedy club and teach about the art of standup comedy, we knew the main wall projection needed to feature both documentary style video and short bits from featured comedians. The real challenge then, was to find a way to utilize the visitors’ individual “senses of humor” in a communal experience and have an engaging way for visitors to interact with the content at the tables and curate their profiles. Adding to the challenge, R&D prototypes found that the initial idea of using gesture cameras would not work as desired, so we had to come up with a new way to interact with the table surface.

The Solution

A multi-part experience kicks off with an animation that “mixes” together the audience's profiles and finds a common type of humor from which to select a comedian, allowing the audience to feel like part of the show. Because visitors already needed to tap their RFID wristband on a table to activate the experience, I expanded on that familiar action to create an interactive surface with three additional RFID readers at each table. After the opening sequence, visitors can then use their wristbands to vote on what to watch, answer trivia, and select comedians to add to their profile. This kept the interaction simple and fun, engaged visitors in the content, and provided ample opportunity to refine their profile—a critical goal at this early part of their visit.