By Karim Radwan
June 26, 2025
No event is ever the same. Each one has distinct format, purpose, atmosphere, audience, budget, duration, venue, media coverage. Your birthday bash is likely nothing like your boss’s and your wedding will hardly resemble the one of Kate and Prince William. Yet, despite these differences, they do all share fundamental commonalities. They are limited in time, designed for an audience to engage with, and usually very stressful to manage.
Luckily, there is one philosophical concept that, when applied, can help you master any event and make it a memorable one. This article will explain you exactly how to make it work for you.
Learn what Your Brain Chooses to Keep (and Why)
The Peak–End Rule developed by Daniel Kahneman and Barbara Fredrickson is defined as a cognitive bias that shapes how people remember past experiences. It has been demonstrated that we humans judge an experience based on how we felt at its most intense positive or negative moments (the peaks) and at its conclusion (the end), rather than considering the entire experience.
Doctors apply this principle to make painful treatments more bearable. By gradually reducing pain inducing factors towards the end and following up with a pleasant conversation, they ensure the patient remembers the experience more favorably. This makes patients more willing to undergo similar treatments in the future.
Now you might be wondering, what does this have to do with event management? Let’s dive in.
Don’t Polish Every Pebble— Spotlight the Diamonds
Whether you’re managing a surprise birthday gig for your better half or a multi-million-dollar concert for thousands of passionate fans, your instinct will be to try making everything perfect. The more experienced you are, the further you’ll go—not just ensuring the event itself is perfect but fine-tuning every surrounding detail. The ride to the surprise anniversary? It has to be in a unique car. The post-concert transport? There must be enough taxis so no fan waits longer than 15 minutes. The goal is simple: eliminate anything uncontrollable that could spoil the moment, make everything perfect.
But here’s the trap, striving to make everything perfect, implies you are giving everything equal importance. You need to prioritize and give more love to the specific elements (peaks) that will make the experience unforgettable.
If everything is very good, nothing will stand out. If most things are good while some elements are amazing, that’s when you’ll have a memorable event. The challenge is to strike the right balance. You must meet your industry quality standards while leaving enough room and budget to accommodate spectacular positive peaks.
To achieve this, you must:
- Pick your battles wisely – invest resources in what will be your positive peaks
- Eliminate negative peaks – bad experiences easily overshadow the positive ones
- Finish strong – people remember the ending over anything else
Understand Memory Engineering Through Theme Parks
Famous theme parks master the Peak-End rule to perfection. If you chart your level of enjoyment throughout the day, you will notice your spend around 95+% of your time with neutral or slightly negative emotions – queuing, walking from one ride to another, checking show schedules, looking for a place to rest your legs.
But then? You would notice massive highs. The adrenaline of being propelled into the air by the latest high-speed rollercoaster, gripping your neighbour’s arm in exhilaration. This, followed by the grand finale – the dazzling parade of oversized mascots escorting you out of the park. Despite lasting 2-minutes in average, these few peaks make the experience unforgettable.
You could easily find a less crowded, queue-less playground offering better food, but without those intense peaks, this experience will be forgotten overnight.
In event management, it’s not about eliminating all inconveniences and imperfections—it’s about creating moments strong enough to eclipse them. That’s how you design an event people will never forget.
Craft Unforgettable Memories
To create unforgettable moments, you must actively manage the peaks of your event and ensure you deliver a “wow” effect attendees will still remember years later.
For example, take the music festival “Burning Man” that brings together 70’000+ attendants every year. The peak of the event is setting ablaze the burning man effigy. While the original was only 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall, recent versions have reached 40+ feet (12+ meters). This symbolic moment created a distinct peak celebrated by all participants. While events’ success is always a combination of factors, this certainly made the event stand out and helped build its unique brand.
Memorable peaks don’t necessarily require a massive budget. Creativity can bring you a long way. As well, a lot of money can be spared by scaling back elements that don’t contribute to creating a “wow” factor.
Try recalling the best events you’ve attended. Chances are, you will recall them through well-crafted peaks. Maybe something as simple as a singer asking everybody to turn up the torches on their phones and wave them in the night.
When designing your event, focus on maximizing intensity in those wow moments. Don’t settle for a nice steady experience, go for high impact moments. Think rollercoaster, not lazy river.
Don’t Fade—Finish
Too often, great events have lacklustre endings. Think about the countless events that end with people wandering aimlessly in a half-empty parking lot, waiting endlessly for transportation, or being rushed out by uncourteous security guard.
Even if short, always keep a peak for the end of your event. A weak or unpleasant ending, can erase all the positive memories from attendees’ memories.
Once a music festival taking place in the desert boasted an amazing lineup of celebrities, gourmet food trucks, and stellar entertainment. When the last concert ended, people started queuing up for taxis. With too few taxis available in this remote location, thousands of attendees had no choice but to walk home – a not so pleasant 4-hour stroll in the sand along the motorway. The festival never saw a second edition. The disastrous ending eclipsed everything that made the event great, bringing all efforts and investments value to zero.
Successful events finish strong. The Olympics have a closing ceremony, concerts end with fireworks and synchronized light shows, and burning man concludes with the temple burn, a silent, reflective ritual where Burning Man attendees watch a temple filled with their tributes and messages burn, symbolizing release, remembrance, and renewal – bringing deeper meaning and connection to the event.
Bringing It All Together
Whether your are in charge of organizing the next Olympics, the launch of a new luxury product, or a birthday party for your toddler, use the Peak-End rule to your advantage:
- Consciously map out your event’s positive and negative peaks
- Invest in making positive peaks as intense as possible and eliminating negative ones before investing in anything else
- Time each peak strategically
- End strong with a memorable peak
If step 1 reveals no true “wow” peaks, it is time to go back to the drawing board and rethink the concept of your event.
The higher the peaks, the higher the return on investment of your event (event ROI).
Karim is a distinguished PMO and Transformation leader with over 15 years of experience orchestrating strategic, high-impact initiatives across industries. Through his writing and advisory services, Karim supports governments and corporate leaders in navigating strategic transformation, regulatory alignment, and enterprise-wide change.
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