Recorded live at Ministry of Sound in London, this episode is in partnership with London Experience Week and the studio dressed by USED Creative., a circular Marketplace.

Dr Amna Khan is a Senior Lecturer in Consumer Behaviour at Manchester Metropolitan University, a PhD researcher, and one of the UK's most recognisable consumer behaviour commentators, with over 400 appearances on BBC Breakfast, ITV, and Netflix.

Amna turns a decade of consumer research on the experience industry, and the picture isn't always comfortable. She makes the case that designers are building experiences without truly understanding the people they're designing for, unpacks why the emotional dimension of trust is twice as powerful as the cognitive dimension, and connects this directly to what the industry keeps getting wrong.

We cover the P. Louise pyjama crisis, why the retail assistant is still the most powerful person in any physical experience, what Lush and Fortnum & Mason do differently, Gen Z's relationship with brands, and why showing up brilliantly in three places beats showing up badly in fifteen.

Chapters

00:01:16 — Welcome to London Experience Week: Amna's first impressions of LXW and, what brought her to the stage.

00:02:52 — The Science of Trust: What trust actually is, how it develops, and why the emotional layer matters most.

00:08:28 — Service Recovery and Critical Moments: Why getting it wrong can actually strengthen trust — if you show up.

00:10:31 — How Trust Has Fragmented in a Social World: The shift from institutional trust to personal, founder-led relationships.

00:19:28 — The Role of Physical Retail and Human Connection: Why the human element in stores remains the most underutilised asset in retail.

00:26:32 — Popups, Brand Experiences and Memory: Why showing up in the right moment is one of the most powerful trust-building tools.

00:32:28 — Generational Shifts and the Empowered Consumer: How fragmented consumption and social media have changed who holds the power.

00:38:15 — Live Shopping, Belonging and the Future of Connection: Why TikTok live shopping is less about transactions and more about community.

Bio

Dr. Amna Khan is a Senior Lecturer in Consumer Behaviour and Retailing at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School. She holds a corporate PhD from Alliance Manchester Business School, awarded via a prestigious scholarship from AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, where she studied the mechanics of trust — including the guanxi relationship networks that shape business and consumer behaviour in Chinese markets.

A leading media commentator, she has made over 400 appearances across BBC Breakfast, ITV, BBC Radio 5 Live, Morning Live, The One Show, Watchdog, and Netflix, and is a regular expert on Channel 5 retail documentaries covering Tesco, Primark, M&S, Aldi, Deliveroo, and Coca-Cola. She speaks internationally on consumer psychology, cultural identity, diversity in experience design, and the future consumer, and is represented by London Speaker Bureau (USA).

Connect with Dr. Amna Khan: www.linkedin.com/in/dramnakhan

Credits

Special thanks to USED Creative for dressing the studio: https://www.linkedin.com/company/used-creative/

Grateful to The World Experience Organization for the collaboration at LXW26 :https://www.linkedin.com/company/wxo/posts/?feedView=all

Dean Rodgers is the Experiential Director at Secret Cinema, one of the world's most iconic immersive entertainment companies. With over a decade of building some of the UK's most beloved live experiences, including the Crystal Maze Live Experience, Time Run, and now Secret Cinema's ambitious Studio arm, Dean has watched the experience economy grow from an underground art scene into a global industry.

In this episode, Dean makes a bold case: the experience sector has spent the last five years playing it safe, and that era is over. He breaks down the four phases of experiential entertainment, explains why audiences are moving away from their screens and craving genuine human connection, and reveals why creative excellence, not commercial formula, is the only real path to survival in what he believes is the biggest boom the experience economy has ever seen.

We also go deep on Secret Cinema's creative process, the hospitality principles behind their most successful shows, what it actually feels like to build an X-wing for a live audience, and why Dean thinks the next wave of experiences is already arriving from an unexpected corner of the world.

Chapters

00:00:00 — The Accidental Experience Designer: From theatre director to escape rooms to Secret Cinema — Dean's unlikely twelve-year journey to his dream role.

00:07:35 — The Four Phases of the Experience Economy: Dean maps the evolution of experiential — and why the fourth phase will separate the bold from the comfortable.

00:10:33 — Why Audiences Are Changing Faster Than the Industry: Screens, AI slop, and a hunger for real connection. The cultural forces the sector is failing to keep up with.

00:15:40 — The Projection Show Problem: Why the sector became saturated with investor-driven, low-risk formats — and what that gap is costing the industry.

00:20:24 — How to Design for Creative Excellence: Dean's core creative process — one big idea, the audience as protagonist, and why novelty is non-negotiable.

00:29:45 — Inside Secret Cinema: Grease, Greenwich and What's Next: Behind the scenes on their most successful show ever, the new permanent venue, and the Studio arm's ambitions.

00:41:50 — The Future of Experiences: Boom, Survival and the Next Wave: Why the best days are still ahead — and what a Chinese phenomenon called Jubensha signals about where audiences are heading.

Bio

Dean is a creator of live immersive experiences. A pioneer with over a decade of leading in the sector.

He has designed many of the UK’s acclaimed escape rooms, including Time Run, and was co-founder and creative director of The Crystal Maze Live Experience.

He led the immersive department at the multi-award-winning creative agency Bearded Kitten, where he worked with brands including LEGO, Disney, Warner Bros and Netflix. He is currently the Experiential Director at Secret Cinema, where he leads the development of their in-house agency Studio Secret Cinema. There, he oversees new projects, including large-scale brand activations and IP partnerships.

Connect with Dean

https://www.linkedin.com/in/deanjrodgers/