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[0:00] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Hello and welcome to the Drama Book Show. My name is Mark-Eugene Garcia. In this episode we explore the art of creating meaningful experiences and what it really means to make people feel seen, special, and connected. We're joined by Tony Award-winning producer Nathaniel Hill, author of The V.I.P. Effect. Drawing on his journey from theatre producer to founder and CEO of Broadway Plus, Hill explores how intentional planning, thoughtful hospitality, anticipation, and care can transform ordinary moments into unforgettable experiences. Through stories of Broadway crises and show-stopping triumphs, The V.I.P. Effect looks at experience designed through a simple idea. V.I.P. isn't about fame or wealth.

It's about very intentional planning. Hill examines how leading with care and designing with feeling can create emotional resonance and leave a lasting impact at work, at home, and on stage. Hill is the founder and CEO of Broadway Plus, the first and only company to offer official V.I.P. experiences and corporate events for Broadway shows. His work at the intersection of art, business, and human connection has been covered by Forbes, Sirius XM, Entrepreneur, and the New York Times, and he has spoken at Advertising Week, BroadwayCon, Duke University, and NYU. Here's Nathaniel Hill live at the Drama Bookshop. So please help me in welcoming Nathaniel Hill and Julius Thomas III.

[1:38] Nathaniel Hill: Oh, thank you so much for that. I kind of want to take you everywhere I go just to introduce me and introduce us. Congrats to you, my multi-hyphenate friend. Oh, producer, I'm sorry, Tony Award-winning producer. Cannot forget that part. And you can now add author to your list of credentials. Has that sort of set in yet? Are you fully walking in your author era yet?

[2:22] Nathaniel Hill: No, not at all. But thank you. No. And thank you so much for being here. How handsome is he after a full day of rehearsal? Thank you. Yes. Glad to be here. Wouldn't want to be anywhere else. And what an incredible era it has been for you, both personally and professionally. It's been really wonderful to watch. You've had a big personal milestone that just happened. Do you want to clue everybody in?

[2:47] Nathaniel Hill: Oh, sure. At first, I thought you were asking about Broadway Plus 10 years, but I know you're asking about the fact that I got married in December. It's true. Yes. For those in podcast land, I think most of these folks are friends, Vinny is in the front row. Hi, Vinny. Everybody say hi, Vinny. Such a sweet human. You are so lucky that you are also incredibly lucky. How much did he pay you? But that is incredible news. So congratulations. And now we get to celebrate your latest accomplishment. And before we touch on that, I kind of want to go back just a little bit because we heard a bit about you founding Broadway Plus, but I'm interested in the larger journey that led up to the founding of your company and subsequently the writing of this book. So I'm going to rapid fire question a couple of questions at you to just give us a bit of your history. So bear with me for those of you that might know this information already, but where are you from?

[3:33] Nathaniel Hill: Lancaster, New Hampshire.

[3:34] Mark-Eugene Garcia: New Hampshire. Actually, I did not know that. Did you grow up in theater, around theater, doing theater, going to see shows?

[4:00] Nathaniel Hill: I did. Both of my grandmothers loved theater a lot. My parents couldn't have cared less, but were supportive. So supportive that instead of bringing me to the sports games they'd hoped to bring me to, they brought me to be the local little boy in productions at the Weathervane Theater, which is a great summer stock, really one of the best summer stock theaters, which happened to be in the town over. So when they needed a Winthrop in The Music Man or a little boy in Ragtime, I was cast. Truly the peak of my performance career.

[4:32] Mark-Eugene Garcia: But what you're saying is that there are pictures of baby Nathaniel in costumes doing theater on stage.

[4:38] Nathaniel Hill: Can confirm. Vinny, you have homework. You have to find these pictures and you have to send them to my inbox. I must see them. Like everyone in theater, we all have those photos. It's true. It is true. Did you always know that you wanted to be a part of the entertainment community in some way?

[4:56] Nathaniel Hill: I think so. I would force my sister to put on shows with me and charge my parents money for the tickets, which was truly a harbinger of things to come. Yeah. But I was also always really interested in business. My parents ran a business together and clued me in and educated me on what they were going through a lot. So when it came time to decide what do you want to do, I was like, how about the business of the thing I love the most? Theater.

[5:22] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Okay. Interesting. Where did you go to school, by the way?

[5:29] Nathaniel Hill: I went to Duke University in North Carolina.

[5:30] Mark-Eugene Garcia: With a degree in?

[5:34] Nathaniel Hill: Theater. Okay. With a markets and management certificate, which is basically business. No, not performance. I had to take an acting class and I did get an A, but also a peak. So then a degree and then you moved to the city in?

[5:47] Nathaniel Hill: 2012.

[5:48] Mark-Eugene Garcia: 2012. And from there we were off to the races. And I know that Broadway Plus eventually became a thing, but I'm very interested in that sort of period between you moving to the city, what jobs you held in what parts of the... I know specifically one job that you held. Also, the person also employed me for quite a few years and was responsible for the reason why I got into theater. And is an owner of this very bookstore.

[6:13] Nathaniel Hill: And is an owner of this very place. So thank you to him, Jeffrey. But yeah, tell us about that.

[6:18] Nathaniel Hill: Yeah. Duke had a program where instead of going abroad, you could come to New York and take classes here and we had to do an internship in it. We actually have a Duke in New York intern with us tonight and with us at Broadway Plus this semester. So instead of, as I say, going to Spain and getting drunk, I came here and started my career, which was really incredible in hindsight. And so I did that program, started here in 2009. And when I graduated, people who I'd met through that program helped me get a job at Sereno Coin, which is one of the ad agencies that handles Broadway shows. I worked there for a year, learned a lot about advertising, marketing, how we sell millions of tickets a year to Broadway shows, which is not easy.

And then my friend, Andy Jones, who had been my direct supervisor during the internship, he was going out and starting his own company and he hired me as his first assistant in what is now Baseline Theatrical. It's now one of the biggest, best management firms because they manage Hamilton worldwide. But at the time, Hamilton was still in development. We were mostly working on a show called The Last Ship that Sting wrote. And yeah, it was just me and Andy for a while. And as The Last Ship took off and got going, it was part of my job to handle Sting's friends, friends of friends, and all of the other VIPs coming to see the show. I was like their point person. And then I was also doing some internal group sales and special events.

And we were working on this who knows what it's going to be show called Hamilton at the time. And it was in the readings and workshops and development phase. And we did not know what was going to happen. It was like, I don't know, a hip hop musical sounds like a stretch. We don't know if people are going to want to buy tickets to that. And that was the job I had when Hamilton eventually started, took off, exploded. Those things led me to the idea for Broadway Plus. And then I was working for Jeffrey Seller on Hamilton, the producer of it. And he and many other people encouraged me to try out this crazy idea that I had.

[8:20] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Wow. Incredible. So getting into the meat of the thing, the VIP effect, designing experiences to impact and impress. What is your logline, elevator, one sentence pitch for the book?

[8:39] Nathaniel Hill: It doesn't actually have to be one sentence, but give it to us short.

[8:43] Nathaniel Hill: How to design VIP experiences. And by the way, your whole life can be a VIP experience.

[8:50] Mark-Eugene Garcia: So in essence, you have curated a surefire way to maximize any experience, not just theater. This is overarching, correct?

[8:57] Nathaniel Hill: Yeah. So what happened was I realized I Googled it and realized there was no book out there on how to design VIP experiences. Similarly, I had Googled 10 years ago, is there a travel agency focused on Broadway? And there wasn't. Another thing that led me to Broadway Plus. But anyway, I Googled, there's no guide on how to design VIP experiences. At Broadway Plus, we design certain kinds of VIP experiences, starting with meet and greets. But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized everything in life is an experience. And I think that you can design and optimize that experience if you want to. So when you wake up, you're deciding what kind of day you want to have. When you travel, that's an experience you're creating for yourself and the person you're traveling with.

If you're going on a date with your loved one, that's an experience. And so much, I even have a part about how going to work every day is an experience that I think can be designed and can be made VIP for yourself and for the people with you.

[10:01] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Excellent. And within the book, you've got a method that you teach that gets to the heart of this. It's called the five Cs. And we're going to stick a pin in that for just one moment, but I just wanted to dangle that carrot in front of everyone. But I'm very interested in sort of the beginning idea to the finished product. Your career has been rooted in creating experiences for people and Broadway Plus is a product of that. That's where you and I began our friendship and really got to know each other a lot better. What made you feel like there was a larger story to tell about VIP experiences? And why did you feel like now was the moment that book needed to be written?

[10:39] Nathaniel Hill: I had a head start because theater going to a show is an experience. So anytime we're putting together a piece of theater, which I've been doing since I was a kid, you're working with a whole team to put together the experience of seeing the show for people. So I think that was really a great background and something that informed my how to design a VIP experience. Like I said, I believe so much of life is an experience that you can design if you want to. And something else I came up with is that VIP can mean very intentional planning. So, so many experiences can be planned and designed as I would say. VIP, very intentional planning.

[11:14] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Exactly. Yeah.

[11:16] Nathaniel Hill: Yeah. So you spent close to 10 years with Broadway Plus specifically building a company and designing experiences in real time. You are so busy. You're like the busiest person I know. You're constantly traveling. Writing a book requires that you stop and zoom out and examine the work from a different perspective. Was there like a specific experience or customer or moment where you thought, okay, it's time this, this thing needs to be put out so that everyone else can do what it is that I'm doing?

[11:48] Nathaniel Hill: Yeah, it was really hitting 10 years and wanting to reflect back on all the different kinds of experiences that we're doing, whether it's a lifelong theater fan or student meeting the actor or writer or director that they've looked up to forever. And this is, they'll tell us later it's the greatest day of their life or people who we work with groups of people who most of whom I've never seen a Broadway show. And we're that entry point where we're educating them and showing them how great Broadway is and how amazing Broadway performers are. So I was just sort of taking stock of all the different kinds of ways that we're connecting people with theater and how much I love that. And again, how many different kinds of experiences there are to have.

And I worked with a coach on the book who forced me to write and forced me to think of stories that illustrated the points I wanted to make and who would give me deadlines and assignments. And it was a really great collaboration. And so that was really what, I'm not a writer. So that was what got a lot of what you can read about in the book out of me and out of the recesses of my brain. And also just going to work every day with my amazing team and they're designing dozens of experiences every day and talking to them and hearing their highlights and their funniest, wackiest stories, many of which made it into the book was really inspiring and fun.

[13:06] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Yeah. You say you're not a writer sitting here holding a book that you have written. I would disagree with you, my friend.

[13:11] Nathaniel Hill: I mostly write emails.

[13:18] Mark-Eugene Garcia: This title, I feel like in this day and age, grabbing the attention quickly and snatching folks in the first moment is incredibly important. And I feel like that this title does it. Did you always have this title in your mind or was this something that sort of...

[13:33] Nathaniel Hill: No.

[13:34] Mark-Eugene Garcia: No.

[13:35] Nathaniel Hill: My first title was, What a Feeling, because I talk a lot about how...

[13:40] Mark-Eugene Garcia: Also good.

[13:42] Nathaniel Hill: Taken by a song. But I talked a lot about how experiences are not the details, they're the feelings that they leave us with. And most people forget that. They think it's about how much money did you spend? How great was the champagne? Did you wait in line?

[13:56] Nathaniel Hill: Those things matter, but what really matters is how did those details make the person feel? And we focus a lot on that at Broadway Plus. And so, yeah, my working title was What a Feeling, and then I just thought it was, like, a little too Flashdance, right?

[14:11] Julius Thomas III: Yeah.

[14:12] Nathaniel Hill: Like, it's Flashdance-y, and maybe a little too Woo, and then I wanted to come up with something that was more how-to-guide-sounding, because I don't think of this as a memoir. It's not a memoir in any way. It's not, oh, look at me and my amazing career. It's how can I be helpful and show people how to design experiences, create an experienced business, and show them that so much of the way that they're working and they're living is an experience that can be designed.

[14:39] Julius Thomas III: Yeah.

[14:40] Nathaniel Hill: In the zooming out process and, like, putting together your method, was the method already in place, like the five Cs, or was this something that you discovered that you were doing?

[14:51] Nathaniel Hill: It was very much in place at Broadway Plus, but not named, or not as specifically named. My book coach was like, you gotta come up with devices, like the five Cs. So it's exactly something that we have, and we have operationalized and perfected over the years, but I found snazzy names and emojis to go along with each step. Very important part of the process.

[15:14] Julius Thomas III: Amazing.

[15:17] Nathaniel Hill: When I've tried my hand at writing, I feel like the outline is where I shine, and then the meat of the body, the sort of flushing out the stories and things of that nature are where I fall apart. What part of the writing process came more naturally? What part of this was like, you wanted to throw your laptop out the window? What was the?

[15:41] Nathaniel Hill: I would say the stories are easy to write, because I've told them before. The more specific how-to guide things, they did come out, because it's stuff that I've been thinking about for 10 years, and building into our operations, and our training, and the company. I would say I wanted the book to be 80 pages, and I was told that's way too short, that it'll look like a pamphlet. So sometimes, and I always try to write concisely, like in emails, like I said, so sometimes it was harder to make things longer, and more drawn out, and really ruminate on, okay, why? It's like that thing in therapy where you ask yourself, why 10 times in a row? I had to do that, and really think about what's behind the behind, and what are the motivations and the real reasons, and the deep inspirations of why we need to do things, and why I believe what I believe.

[16:31] Julius Thomas III: Yeah, so the flushing it out.

[16:33] Nathaniel Hill: For those aspiring authors who are listening right now, just wanted to point out that you come out with this incredible product, but it's not always sunshine and flowers along the way.

[16:45] Nathaniel Hill: Yeah, it did take over a year, and also great advice that I got was from Jeffrey Seller, who wrote an actual memoir about his life, and he just said, put one hour in your calendar, sit down, force yourself to write. I don't care, like no excuses, I don't care if it's a good day or it's a bad day, you just sit down, and you write, and you get it done, and you edit it later, and that helped me a lot.

[17:08] Julius Thomas III: Yeah, did you stick to it, hour a day?

[17:10] Nathaniel Hill: Not every day. I did put time in my calendar, that was important, like as though it were a meeting. And speaking of not all sunshine and flowers, the pandemic brought us some really, some particular challenges, mainly, how do we continue to serve people when we couldn't gather? And I learned so much from you and from the folks at Broadway Plus during the pandemic, mainly about pivoting, me and my blue background, I don't know if you remember, we all had to go out and buy these little backgrounds, don't you shake your head at me there, Corey, you used to make fun of me because of my blue background that we all had to go out and buy so that you weren't looking at our homes.

[17:50] Julius Thomas III: I literally remember the shade of blue that it was, it's like that hat, true.

[17:55] Nathaniel Hill: Mainly about pivoting is what I learned. Do you talk about this period in the book and what you learned during that time?

[18:02] Nathaniel Hill: I do, yeah, because it's one of the questions I get most often, and a lot of people think the company was created during the pandemic, because we started doing different things and became more widely known then. And it's just a wild story, I thought I had no company for a few weeks, and then started trying out new things. The amazing Corey Steinfast joined my team, and we really just tried out everything we could think of and took it from there. And as I mentioned, Hamilton was a big part of it. And I would love to read a page about that.

[18:36] Nathaniel Hill: It's called the Hamilton effect. Sometimes good experience design seems like luck from the outside. During the pandemic, Disney unexpectedly released the film capture of Hamilton on Disney+. Side note, I'm often asked about, I named Broadway Plus two years before Disney Plus answered the lexicon. Disney's decision to drop the show transformed our virtual offerings overnight. Suddenly fans who had never set foot in the Richard Rodgers Theater on Broadway could watch the show at home, and minutes later, sit face to face with someone who had performed it. We made a promise, watch tonight, ask tomorrow. Our Hamilton Q&As paired audience-fresh curiosity with lived onstage experience. Guests arrived brimming with specific questions about breath control and satisfied, quick change choreography, or performing nerves, while our artists shared the very human reality behind the phenomena, swapping stories about flub blocking, inside jokes, and backstage rituals.

We even welcomed original cast performers featured in the Hamilton release into some sessions, which heightened the feeling that you were hearing something special, maybe even singular. Julius Thomas III, a fantastic performer who was playing Alexander Hamilton on tour when the pandemic began, was doing five to 10 events per week with us. I was especially proud when he later told the New York Times that Broadway Plus had been instrumental in helping him stay financially afloat during that time.

[20:04] Julius Thomas III: Thank you.

[20:06] Nathaniel Hill: Just eternally grateful.

[20:11] Julius Thomas III: Let's get into the meat of the book, the five C's of experience design. Do you want to rattle them off, or would you like for me to?

[20:22] Nathaniel Hill: Go for it.

[20:23] Julius Thomas III: All right. Clarity, connection, climate, change, and celebration.

[20:31] Nathaniel Hill: No charge.

[20:32] Julius Thomas III: Charge.

[20:33] Nathaniel Hill: Oh. I wrote this down wrong. Please forgive me.

[20:36] Julius Thomas III: Can ... Maybe start again.

[20:41] Nathaniel Hill: Thank you. Yeah. I'll do it again. No celebration. Charge. Charge. Clarity, connection, climate, charge, and celebration.

[20:54] Julius Thomas III: Nope.

[20:55] Nathaniel Hill: No?

[20:56] Julius Thomas III: Charge and celebration.

[20:57] Nathaniel Hill: Charge and celebration.

[20:58] Julius Thomas III: Thank you. Take three. This time we will get it for real. Here we go. Clarity, connection, climate, charge, and celebration.

[21:11] Nathaniel Hill: Can anybody use these to create an unforgettable experience?

[21:16] Julius Thomas III: Absolutely. That's the point, is that they're very versatile and can go with any kind of experience. The chapters after that, I go into how they're applied to a party, a trip, a date night. That's the idea, is that they can be implemented no matter the experience. Or, if you're creating a business, you're with customers, which most businesses have customers, you can think through those five and how are you creating them for your customers.

[21:44] Nathaniel Hill: Excellent. Do you want to walk us through it a little bit here?

[21:47] Julius Thomas III: Yes.

[21:48] Nathaniel Hill: Okay. So clarity. We like to start by removing the doubt and the questions about what's going to happen. So we've learned that when they're getting ready for an experience of any kind, people are nervous, they have a lot of questions, and we want to get ahead of those and answer them. However, we don't want to overshare and promise a lot of things that might not happen. For example, with the Broadway Plus experience, it's the basics of who, what, where, when, maybe why, concise, clear, but we don't like to get into all the details of what's going to happen, how are you going to feel, exactly how long does it take. The secret, which I learned from Simon David, who's here tonight, one of my earliest partners and mentors at Broadway Plus, is to under-promise and over-deliver. Clarity is all about how are we carefully and specifically what we know is under-promising but doesn't feel like that to them.

[22:51] Nathaniel Hill: Number two, climate. This means we're taking care of every detail of the space that the experience is happening in. So how does it look? Is the lighting correct? Can everyone hear each other? Is it too hot or too cold? What's in the background of the photo? A photo opportunity is very important and we talk about that a lot because that's how the experience is going to be remembered. So it's setting the climate, the physical space in which the experience is going to happen. Connection is that we're engineering a genuine human moment in the very beginning of the experience. I think that all great experiences are about people connecting and being together and so it can be as simple as properly introducing two people.

The next one is charge, which is making sure that the connection that's created between two or more people feels genuine, feels real, is not awkward. We do a lot of meet and greets, which are two strangers, one of whom is often a fan of another. It can be awkward. So it's our job to make sure it's not and facilitate a great conversation and we want people to leave an experience feeling like they got to know someone, they learned something and they are joyful at the end. And again, that goes for any kind of experience, whether it's a three-week vacation or just a simple you're getting your coffee. The last one is celebration, which is a follow-up to ask people how they felt about it, to maybe send them a photo celebrating what happened and reminding them that a genuine, joyful human connection was had and was shared and ask how we can make it happen again. So by using the five Cs of experience design, I'm going to come out with an incredible experience.

[24:43] Julius Thomas III: You've already done many. I know that this book is full of nuggets of wisdom, but if people only walked away with one thing from the book, what is that one nugget that you want them to have?

[24:59] Nathaniel Hill: VIP is very intentional planning and you can plan anything in your life to be a great experience.

[25:07] Julius Thomas III: Yeah. I also enjoy, these are words that I got from you, life is an experience worth designing thoughtfully. I thought that was absolutely beautiful.

[25:18] Nathaniel Hill: Lastly, we talked about your many hyphens. You've got a book you are now presenting to the masses. You've got an incredible company that you are running. And I know that those things will keep you busy, but can we expect any other hyphens from you soon? Maybe putting out an album, joining the Alvin Ailey Dance Company?

[25:38] Nathaniel Hill: Absolutely not. We're done. Life is full. No more books for a while.

[25:44] Julius Thomas III: Okay. Thank you for sharing this one with us and congratulations on it. I cannot wait to read it.

[25:53] Nathaniel Hill: Thank you. And I'm going to have mine signed by the author, Tony Award winning producer, pop star dancer a little later. And how about one more round of applause for Nathaniel Hill?

[26:04] Julius Thomas III: Thank you. Hi again, I'm Julius Thomas III and that concludes our moderated portion of the Q&A, but I want to-

[26:14] Nathaniel Hill: Round of applause for Julius.

[26:16] Julius Thomas III: Give us, I usually, we were just talking about how we're usually in the other foot and I'm interviewing you on stage. Give us two sentences for how the tour of Oh Mary is going to be and how rehearsals are going.

[26:31] Julius Thomas III: Oh, oh my goodness. I will just say that you all are not ready for the storm that is Alaska as Mary. She is brilliant and I've seen the show probably six or seven times at this point. Just absolutely incredible. So if you get to see us somewhere on the road, I hope you will. But yes, we usually are on the other sides of this. So I told him right before that I was incredibly nervous for this, even though I've done a hundred interviews in my life, I've just never been the one asking the question. So thank you for-

[27:02] Nathaniel Hill: We did one in Kansas City a few months ago. I was interviewing you on stage the morning the Tony Award nominations were announced, I remember.

[27:10] Julius Thomas III: That's right, yeah. I want to open this up now to you all for your burning questions that you have for our authors. Some hands are already going up and I'll start here.

[27:20] Julius Thomas III: So I'm just going to repeat that. When you hear VIP, you think exclusive. How do you stay inspired to create new-

[27:27] Nathaniel Hill: Yeah, unique ideas.

[27:28] Julius Thomas III: Unique ideas. But also scalable.

[27:30] Nathaniel Hill: That are different but also scalable. A huge point that I make in the book is that VIP has the reputation of meaning all champagne, skip the line, thousands of dollars. And I don't believe that's what makes things VIP at all. It's about the experiences carefully designed and it's about a human connection that leaves.

[30:52] Nathaniel Hill: What is one piece of advice you would give to people who want to be entrepreneurs?

[31:22] Nathaniel Hill: Is there anything that surprised you or that you learned about the process of writing the book that you wouldn't have anticipated?

[31:52] Nathaniel Hill: What is one piece of advice you learned about the process of writing the book that you wouldn't have anticipated?

[32:12] Nathaniel Hill: What is one piece of advice you learned about the process of writing the book that you wouldn't have anticipated?

[32:33] Nathaniel Hill: What is one piece of advice you learned about the process of writing the book that you wouldn't have anticipated?

[32:56] Nathaniel Hill: What is one piece of advice you learned about the process of writing the book that you wouldn't have anticipated?

[33:26] Nathaniel Hill: What is one piece of advice you learned about the process of writing the book that you wouldn't have anticipated?

[33:56] Nathaniel Hill: What is one piece of advice you learned about the process of writing the book that you wouldn't have anticipated?

[34:26] Nathaniel Hill: What is one piece of advice you learned about the process of writing the book that you wouldn't have anticipated?

[34:57] Nathaniel Hill: So you just celebrated 10 years. What's the next 10 years?

[35:10] Nathaniel Hill: Where are you going to be in 10 years?

[35:26] Nathaniel Hill: Where are you going to be in 10 years?

[35:55] Nathaniel Hill: Where are you going to be in 10 years?

[36:05] Nathaniel Hill: Where are you going to be in 10 years?

[36:22] Nathaniel Hill: Where are you going to be in 10 years?

[36:51] Nathaniel Hill: Was there a chapter that was especially hard to write?

[37:21] Nathaniel Hill: My favorite chapter is chapter 11, which is how to design a VIP experience business.

[37:26] Nathaniel Hill: Let me think, what was the worst one?

[37:38] Nathaniel Hill: If it was horrible, I just didn't write it.

[37:42] Nathaniel Hill: They're all fun in the end.

[37:43] Nathaniel Hill: Would you mind giving us a little bit of your favorite chapter?

[37:46] Nathaniel Hill: Okay, sure.

[37:49] Nathaniel Hill: Chapter 11, how to create an experience business. I believe that any business can become a VIP experience business and most of the good ones already are. If you interact with real people, in other words, if you have customers, clients, or guests, you have the opportunity to treat them in a way that makes them feel valued and special. This can be in almost any kind of business from a medical office to a clothing shop to a car wash, anywhere customers show up and receive a product or service. Today, there are more ways than ever to build connections. We can communicate through video calls, personalized video messages, audio notes, emails, or even a text. The key is not to overwhelm people or invade their privacy, but to meet them where they are, on the platforms and in the ways that feel most natural to them.

For businesses with physical spaces, the opportunity for VIP design begins the moment a guest walks through the door. There's nothing worse than stepping into a store, restaurant, or hotel and feeling invisible, unsure where to go or whether anyone has noticed you. I recommend having a host or greeter present at every single interaction point. The greeting is more than a mere formality. It's a moment of human acknowledgement, a kind of emotional handshake. That first hello, the simple act of being seen, can change the whole dynamic. When someone asks about your day, remembers your name, or takes a genuine interest in you, it sets the tone for the entire experience. This principle applies whether you're selling Broadway tickets, coffee, software, or real estate.

Even in a digital world, the smallest human touch can transform an experience. For example, a friend of mine recently told me a story about signing up for an online course. A few days later, she received a handwritten postcard from the creator. It was just a simple thank you, nothing fancy. However, she still remembers it. That tiny, unexpectedly personal act turned a routine transaction into a story she retells. That's the bar for VIP.

[39:43] Nathaniel Hill: Incredible.

[39:47] Nathaniel Hill: I will leave space for one or two more. Yes.

[39:51] Nathaniel Hill: How do you define success for your events and also for your personal life?

[40:02] Nathaniel Hill: For both, it's are we leaving feeling like we connected with a person in a real way, in a way that enriched both of us, in a way that brought us joy.

[40:16] Julius Thomas III: That's good.

[40:19] Nathaniel Hill: If all hearts are clear, I want to thank the Drama Bookshop for having us.

[40:24] Julius Thomas III: Thank you, Drama Bookshop.

[40:26] Nathaniel Hill: And we are back.

[40:28] Julius Thomas III: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Drama Book Show. Coming up next, we'll talk with members of Fake Friends, Michael Breslin, Patrick Foley, Rory Pelsu, Kat Rodriguez, and Ariel Sibbert about their digital theater work created during the pandemic. Their book collects Circle Jerk, the first digital theater work to be shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and This American Wife. The plays explore AI influencers, social media, queer fandom, reality television, and the possibilities of theater on the Internet as our political and personal lives become increasingly online. Joining the conversation is arts and culture writer and critic Juan A. Ramirez, who moderates a discussion about the creative, practical, and interpersonal process behind bringing these digitally native works to life.

[41:16] Julius Thomas III: So remember, follow us on Instagram at Drama Book Show Podcast. Follow our event pride at Drama Bookshop. And remember, all the books we talk about can be found here at the Bookshop. And so can we. And we will see you at the Bookshop.