There are rare moments in life when the experience of being human becomes incredibly lucid. I felt it in the crowd of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, as wonderstruck kids on 98th Street gazed to the sky to catch a glimpse of Snoopy. I felt it again, shout-singing “I'm gonna keep on dancing†amongst a sea of pink cowboy hats, as Chappell Roan chanted the chorus of “Pink Pony Club†at 2024's Governor's Ball, during a particularly tough time for LGBTQ+ rights. I felt it when the IMAX theatre erupted in applause at Project Hail Mary, as Ryan Gosling and his lovable alien friend completed their intergalactic mission to save the stars.​
In all of these moments — whether convenient or not — tears sprang to my eyes. I was suddenly overcome with the sense that I was experiencing a core moment of what it meant to be human. I felt part of something bigger.
In search of a definition for this sensation, I did what I imagine most Gen-Zers do: I took to TikTok and Google. From an initial search of “why do I get emotional at parades,†I eventually found the term “collective effervescence.â€
Defining Collective Effervescence
Though more recently popularized by Dr. Brené Brown, the term was first coined in the 1912 book the The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Author Émile Durkheim described collective effervescence as a loss of individuality replaced by a sudden unity with the gods, and as a result, a unity with the group. It's no surprise that this term originated in the context of religious theory. Across faiths, a shared sense of being emotionally moved in a collective setting (and attributing that to a higher power) is a unifying element amongst otherwise differing viewpoints. Today, this ‘collective effervescence' has evolved beyond religious framing to describe the emotional resonance we feel when we are part of something larger than ourselves.​
Why Businesses Should Care
Whether at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or at the theater for a film like Project Hail Mary, many of today's moments of collective effervescence happen in a commercial context. Businesses often underestimate their ability to create, support and invest in moments of collective effervescence. While commercial experiences need to satisfy a certain ROI, impress stakeholders and sell tickets, they must ultimately move people to feel something in order to have any lasting impact.​
Particularly in the U.S., corporations often hold the budget that can support the operational and organizational needs these experiences require. This financial requirement is scalable in nature (e.g., an acoustic concert can still spark the collective sensation… but wouldn't it be nice if there was a PA system, so more people could hear?). By investing in the pillars of shared communal experiences, businesses can act on the invaluable opportunity to foster, participate and create lasting cultural electricity.​
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The Pillars of Collective Effervescence
For businesses seeking to foster this collective effervescence and belonging for their audiences, there are three key pillars:​
1. Shared Attention: Parade balloons, a baseball game, a Taylor Swift concert, a light show — all of these elements provide one nucleus of attention, for an entire group to direct their focus at the same time.​
2. Physical Space/Meeting Place: Coming together requires some form of shared space. This pillar can be supported by nearly any business with a physical footprint, from small cafes to mega-stadiums. Digital and virtual meeting places are also powerful — highlighted by the existence of protests in Roblox or gaming competitions on Twitch. But experiences in physical space, which engage all our senses, continue to stand the test of time as the key human memory-makers.
3. Emotional Depth: Though harder to formalize, emotional depth in this context means prioritizing an element of human nature that can be shared. Nostalgia, for example, is often used as a vehicle for emotional depth; since everyone who's now an adult was once a child, nostalgia offers a valuable basis for shared emotional experience. Celebration is another — to look back on exerted effort, trials and tribulations with renewed joy after the outcome — is something most people can relate to. Emotional depth provides us with common ground to plant our feet.​
The Power of Design
Design empowers moments of collective effervescence by transforming the second pillar — physical spaces/meeting places — into vehicles for storytelling and memory-making. Diverse design disciplines (interiors, audio/visual, lighting, stage, set, exhibition, graphics, costume, special FX and more) deliver the tactical levers to help pull responsive emotion out of an audience.​
At Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show, the colorful set and stage design, combined with maze-like camera work, group choreography and grass-clad costume design worked together to deliver the bright, communal feeling of Puerto Rico's rich culture. At Disney World, epic theming, set design, practical effects and live performers collaborate to convince Star Wars visitors they've been captured on a stormtrooper ship.Â
When design choices like these work hand in hand to deliver a meaningful story, the physical space is transformed to support audiences and performers in finding the third pillar: emotional depth. When that resulting emotion is shared by many at the same time, collective effervescence is achieved.​​
Witnessing Design in Action​
To close out 2025, my Journey coworkers and I gathered to see our work in Stranger Things: The First Shadow play on the Broadway stage. Surrounded by a theatre of Stranger Things superfans, we eagerly awaited fan reactions to Journey's immersive design. As we heard excited cheers for the opening scene, audible “wows†at our projected Demogorgons and gasps at the scale of the Mind Flayer prop, I witnessed the power of design in collective emotional memory-making unfold in real time.
Artists and designers help set the practical, multidisciplinary fuses necessary to spark collective effervescence. When the sparks are successful, a shared fire will spread from person to person, until the whole room is alight. The outcome for the visitor is a shared — and sometimes spiritual — memory. And this very memory is a designer's greatest badge of honor: representing experience design, well done.​
