Hey there,
You are among the very few - and I do mean very - who will cast their eyes upon the pre-release of PlanMixPlay.com. Let me just namedrop that domain one more time so it sticks:
Now that you're here, grab a glass of complementary imaginary champagne, and let me tell you a little bit about my vision. It is at this point that you're free to pretend that you've suddenly spotted someone you know in the party crowd and quickly excuse yourself. You, you... you meanie! OR - you could do the honorable and respectable thing, which is to take a small sip of air and put on your best 'I'm super interested look'. You chose wisely.
Now where was I? Oh yes... The vision. No wait - let's call it an idea. `Vision' sounds too gauche.
A few years ago, I noticed touch surfaces were growing in size, and thought 'Hey - why don't we make a cool DJ interface on that?'. The end.
Well - I did think a few more thought's but that's basically the original motivation for PlanMixPlay. But the whole goal, you could say, is to try and push nightclubs and social gatherings forward. Nightclubs are such an interesting social concept. There are a lot of things that seem weird to me about them. For example, we go there with people we already know, talk to people we've met before, and socialize with as few new people as possible. Depite the fact that nightclubs seems like the ideal place to meet new people. It's rarely the case anymore I feel. Perhaps because clubs used to be run by eccentric party people who did it for the sake of the party, and these days clubs are mostly run by people who do it for the sake of money. I'm not here to dump all over clubowners though. I don't envy anyone running a struggling club as I'm sure it's a seemingly endless battle to stay relevant and popular. To the best of my knowledge, most places (around 90% or more) tend to last for a few years and then are mandatorily shut down, re-tooled and re-opened six months later. All for the sake of `newness' in an ever desparate chase for the ever elusive customer crowd.
Nightlife has become standardized. DJs, bars, dance floors, VIP sections, bouncers, you name it. There's a blueprint for what makes a club and another blueprint for what makes an event.
So why don't we see any new cool stuff in nightclubs? Interaction, live voting, networked socialization, casual gaming. Well. I'd argue there are two reasons for this:
I bother. That's why. Imagine if we could dissolved the barrier between the performer and the audience a bit. Not remove it completely, but make it permeable. Make it so that you could reach through and they could reach back?
We live in a time where the vast majority has been well catered to for the past decade. Business' like Amazon.com have realized that it's well worth going after the long tail. The endless line of niches that follow their top sellers. There's no reason we can't apply the same mentality to live performances. A portion of your audience wants to interact with you.
Encourage that.