Guest · Episode 12
The Attention & Entertainment Economy
we look at the attention and entertainment economy — live events, shared experience, and why people are leaving the house again.
September 28, 2026 · 47 min
The Argument
The Attention & Entertainment Economy is the research object this week. We look at the attention and entertainment economy — live events, shared experience, and why people are leaving the house again. Live events are projected to grow from a $736 billion industry to $2.5 trillion by 2035.
That number is not just concerts. It is conventions, stage work, and immersive rooms you cannot stream from the couch.
We call that active-engagement entertainment: you have to go somewhere, and you have to do something. That hunger for shared experience also shows up at the box office, which is having its strongest year since 2019, and in films like The Odyssey that sell craft — shot on film, light on CGI — as the point.
Read this as a research object, not a résumé. Story still has to lead. Performance has to be directed. Mechanism comes last, or it is a science-fair.
In This Conversation
00:00
Who they are
We look at the attention and entertainment economy — live events, shared experience, and why people are leaving the house again. Live event…
10:16
The work
That number is not just concerts. It is conventions, stage work, and immersive rooms you cannot stream from the couch.
22:24
Studio
We call that active-engagement entertainment: you have to go somewhere, and you have to do something. That hunger for shared experience als…
33:35
What to steal
From there the conversation turns to IP, small teams, and slop. Established worlds like Spider-Man still work when they stay good.
Takeaways
- We look at the attention and entertainment economy — live events, shared experience, and why people are leaving the house again.
- Live events are projected to grow from a $736 billion industry to $2.5 trillion by 2035.
- It is conventions, stage work, and immersive rooms you cannot stream from the couch.
Transcript
The conversation as recorded. Speakers are unlabeled on purpose.
Open the full transcript
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Also In The Conversation
- Guest · Episode 13Noveltywe examine novelty in the age of generative tools — what gets built quickly, what actually gets used, and why character robots are starting to leave the lab.
- Guest · Episode 10Kimate RichardsA mechatronic engineer on the collapsing on-ramp: inverse kinematics getting cheap, form factor as expectation, and why you cannot skip from a vacuum to a humanoid.
- Guest · Episode 9Nate StrayerFrom no-budget features to Super Bowl spots: how virtual production, dark rides, and Texas ambition can make physical storytelling feel like cinema.
If you are in this work, write us.