Featured Guest Speaker at TEA SATE North America (New Orleans)

Roots Before Rides: Using Cultural Truth as Design Material

The most memorable experiences are not built from rides, media, technology, or architecture alone. They are built from cultural truth.

As designers, we often begin with an attraction system, a technology platform, or a story concept and then look for ways to layer culture on top. But the most successful destinations work in the opposite direction. They begin with the values, traditions, rituals, behaviors, landscapes, and lived experiences that make a place unique, and then build experiences from that foundation.

Drawing on projects in North America, Asia, and the Middle East, including the development of culturally grounded attractions and destination experiences, Corey Rosen explores how creative teams can transform authentic cultural identity into meaningful guest experiences without reducing culture to decoration.

Through examples ranging from regional flying theaters in China to New Orleans itself, and a case study from Super 78’s…