Emergency Nursing 2022 Opening Session
Role: Creative Director
Live Event • Brand Experience • Experiential Design • Flash Mob
By 2022, it had been three years since the last in-person opening session. The audience was returning after prolonged isolation, sustained trauma, and relentless pressure. This moment needed to do more than energize the room. It needed to acknowledge what had been endured and create space for healing, connection, and shared release.
Designing the Moment
Rather than beginning with a traditional keynote or scripted program, the opening was designed to unfold slowly.
The session opened with a restrained violin and piano performance of Ode to Joy, establishing a quiet, reflective tone. Members of the Northwell Nurse Choir were seated throughout the audience, indistinguishable from other attendees. What followed was a gradual reveal. One by one, choir members stood, transforming the room into a collective experience rather than a performance to be observed from a distance.
This approach was intentional. By removing the visual boundary between stage and audience, the experience mirrored the shared reality of the people in the room. These were not performers brought in to inspire from afar. They were peers.
Why the Northwell Nurse Choir
The choir formed during the pandemic as a way for nurses to process grief, resilience, and hope through music. Their presence carried meaning before a single note was sung.
Inviting them to perform was not about celebrity or recognition. It was about representation. The message was implicit but unmistakable: you are seen by people who understand this work from the inside.
Keeping the performance a surprise preserved its emotional integrity. Anticipation can dilute impact. This moment needed to arrive unannounced and land honestly.
Experience Outcome
As the choir moved through the audience and the room filled with sound, the emotional energy shifted in real time. What emerged was not applause-driven excitement, but collective release. People stood. People cried. People recognized themselves in the moment.
This was not a designed “wow” for its own sake. It was an experience shaped by listening to the audience first and allowing that understanding to guide every creative decision.
Reflection
This opening session set the tone for the entire conference. It demonstrated how brand, experience, and care can coexist when design is grounded in empathy rather than formula.
I explore this approach to listening and experience design more deeply in my Substack post, Listening to the Room.
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