From Blue Curtains to Big Takeaways: Your Event is a Story

“Sometimes, the curtains are just blue.” It’s a common online joke that highlights how not every detail in a book has to be a poignant metaphor. Sometimes, the blue curtains can symbolize the main character’s deep sadness, and sometimes, the curtains can just be blue. But personally, I love to debate the ways you can interpret a single passage, single sentence, or even a single word. And here’s my conclusion: yes, the author might have just needed to pick a random color for the curtains. But regardless of the author’s intentions, my experience as a reader is impacted by the mention of that color - as much or as little as my personal experience calls for - and as the reader, I have the authority to use those details to craft my interpretation of that scene as I see fit. As event designers, we author interactive stories for our attendees - and like it or not, they are free to interpret every little detail in ways we can’t fully control. It’s our job to craft an experience - from the speakers to the curtains - that guides them towards the outcomes we pre-wrote for them.

Building Trust by Setting Expectations

In the reading world, there is a loaded term: “DNF” - did not finish. For folks who track their reading progress, it’s used to denote a book that was started but never finished. Personally, I really try to stick a book out, even if I don’t enjoy it in the start. So for me to DNF a book, I’ve lost trust that the author can turn things around. Events work in a similar way. In the Meeting Professional’s May-June 2026 article, “Trust is a competitive advantage,” Mark Cooper, CEO of IACC, notes that, "Meetings aren’t just about bringing people together anymore, they have to deliver real value.They have to be engaging, purposeful and worth people’s time”. While industry-speak might call it engagement and retention, attendees’ active engagement in the event experience (both now and in the future) boils down to their trust in you as someone who can deliver a worthwhile takeaway - otherwise, they’ll DNF your event.

That desired takeaway will be different for different people - some might want to be entertained, while some may want a traditional learning environment. Look no further than the common library to see how clear communication is key to building trust with attendees regarding takeaways before, during, and after the event. In a library, when you walk among the shelves of different genres, you’ll notice the book covers in the various sections communicate genre expectations instantly. A bright, illustrated romance cover doesn’t try to trick you into thinking it’s a thriller. You can, in a way, judge a book by its cover. Events should follow that same principle: promise what you will deliver, and deliver exactly what you promised.

For example, imagine a conference session advertised as an interactive workshop on creative problem‑solving. Attendees walk in expecting hands‑on activities, discussion, and collaborative work. But instead, the presenter spends the entire hour reading bullet points off a slide deck with no interaction at all. You can feel the energy drop as people check phones, slip out early, and mentally disengage.

Nothing catastrophic happened, but trust was quietly broken; the session didn’t deliver the experience it promised. Even if the rest of the conference is outstanding, those attendees will hesitate to sign up for that presenter again or may even think twice about returning next year. In essence, they “DNF’d” the event, not because the content was bad, but because the expectations and the delivery didn’t align. Pre-plotting your event, especially the key takeaways, and clearly communicating those upfront will support attendees in matching up expectations with the final delivery, building trust from the beginning to the end of the event storytelling experience.

Engineering Transformation

With trust and expectations built, we land in the final aspect of reading and event crossover - the one where the real change happens. Reading is a powerful mechanism of change because, as we read a book, we tend to identify with the main character. Reading the story from their perspective, we’re given an opportunity to confront a series of choices alongside the author’s narrative of why the character is choosing the path they go down. As event designers, we too want to guide our attendees along a specific combination of information and emotion that delivers them to our pre-designed final takeaways. Having earned their trust through consistent marketing and delivery of the expected experience, they feel safe enough to enter the vulnerable space of open-mindedness, exploration, and play that results in those transformative experiences.

Think about a leadership workshop where the stated goal is to help managers give more effective feedback. If the event simply presents tips on a slide, attendees stay in passive mode. But when the facilitator shares a vulnerable story, walks participants through a real conversation, and then gives them space to practice with a partner, something shifts. Attendees step into the role of the “main character,” facing choices, emotions, and consequences in a guided environment. With the right crafting, our event becomes the plotline for attendees, with our expert hand guiding them through each situation, to arrive at the key takeaways we planned from the start.

At the end of the day, maybe the curtains are just blue. Or maybe they symbolize something deeper. Either way, attendees will read meaning into every detail we put in front of them. When we design events like stories - with intentionality, clarity, and trust - we guide them toward interpretations that matter. And if we do it well, they don’t just finish the story. They carry it with them long after the last chapter ends.

The MPI MN feature articles cover the people and stories happening in Minnesota's events community. Have a story idea or know someone who should be featured? Send it to Ellie Hartmann at ehartmann@lmc.org.