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The 10-year Transformational Journey of Raven Sun Creative: Why we exist and where we are headed

On the 10th anniversary of Raven Sun Creative, its founder and chief creative officer Louis Alfieri shares the critical importance of definitively answering the “why” of your business.

April 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of Raven Sun Creative’s founding.

On this celebratory occasion, the Raven Sun Creative team and I would like to very humbly, and with deep gratitude, thank our clients, partners, collaborators, friends, and family members, who have made this entire endeavor possible. No one is self-made; it takes a village of people providing support, sacrifice, and wisdom to succeed. Neither the company, nor I, would be what we are without the community of those around us, teaching and guiding us on the journey of life. This is especially true in our creative industry – powered by the collaboration of talented and passionate people from the worlds of art, culture, technology, marketing, and business. It is remarkable what we can achieve together. Thank you so much for the privilege of being part of this space. The team and I owe everything to this industry, you, and to outstanding partners like Blooloop.

The path forward

We are excited about 2022 and the next 10 years ahead. This is going to be a big year for our resurgent industry and the Raven Sun Creative team. We are launching a series of new offerings that provide clients with more ways to tailor our services to their needs. These include:

New content platforms: in addition to our existing publishing platforms, such as our blog, social media channels including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Weibo, and Zhihu, and industry distribution points, we will be introducing Medium and Quora boards, coming soon.

Customizable retreat experiences: we’re opening the doors to our US studio, located in the tranquil Adirondacks, for one-of-a kind seven-day, five-day and three-day workshops to aid our clients and partners in evolving their next experiential entertainment endeavor.

International and domestic benchmarking trips: we’re offering members of our team to accompany clients on benchmarking excursions to provide insights and sound strategic approaches in developing the next guest experience.

Masterclasses: Masterclasses are scheduled throughout the year and provide ongoing educational and relevant industry content.

Published works: A news series of monthly downloadable content ebooks, and a new 400+ page book encompassing our curated collection of articles and insights.

All these offerings were conceived to make our customer experience more flexible, personalized, valuable, and cost-effective. We’re equally excited to be evolving our public speaking offerings with in-person and virtual engagements available on topics like experiential design across the phygital frontier, the future of entertainment and culture, brand storytelling, IP development, and more. Check out our website for more details on all of these new developments, and stay on top of our content on Blooloop, through our weekly blog, videos, and monthly newsletter.

raven sun creative studio garden. raven sun creative anniversary
The gardens at Raven Sun Creative’s studio in Middle Grove, New York.

The power of why

A milestone anniversary for any business can be a time of big questions, the most obvious one being: what’s next?

It’s an essential question. I’d submit that it isn’t the most essential question. Before you can confidently answer what’s next, you need to know your why.

Why do we exist as an organization? Why are we doing this? Why does what we do bring value to people’s lives?

These are not questions you ask just once. These are questions that you need to return to again and again as a human, artist, creator, community, family person, and business leader.

What is Raven Sun’s why?

We call ourselves the Transformation Experience Firm. That’s not just empty hyperbole – what do we mean by that? There are literal, figurative, and philosophical answers to this question.

Raven Sun Creative is a platform for your transformation. We are focused on taking each and every person, guest, brand, company, and destination we partner and collaborate with on their journey of the hero. This journey is not about us, it is about you. We are the guides on that transformational journey, whether we are serving as creators, designers, or consultants our goal is to elevate the human brand. Company, and destination potential through the experiential artform (physically and digitally).

As a fine artist, my work is about my creative vision exclusively; it is an expression of my creative will to be shared externally, in hopes of touching a viewer, holding a dialog with my audience across time and space. Raven Sun Creative is not my vision alone, nor was it ever meant to be. There is no room for auteurs here. We have always been a team and a culture dedicated to collaboration with others – which is why I did not name the company after myself (more about the meaning of our name below). Raven Sun Creative is boundaryless. We are about a larger impact, a creative collaborative, working to make a difference in the world around us through the power of imagination, teamwork, and the experiential medium.

Louis speaks at the 2019 Asian Attraction Summit, raven sun creative anniversary
Louis speaks at the 2019 Asian Attraction Summit.

What it means to us to “do it better”

Many people know I am a big fan of Nike’s core value proposition and their ability to think like a creative force rather than simply an end-user retailer. Nike is an aspirational platform that allows every athlete on the planet to achieve their greatest athletic potential–to Just Do It.

There are plenty of places to buy shoes and shirts, Nike is a platform, an ecosystem, for people to reach their fullest potential as athletes.

Raven Sun Creative was born with the single intent of helping people push their limits, to grow, to expand, to discover what exists within you – we are here to help you take whatever it is you are or seek to do and – Do It Better. On a personal level I want to do the projects that scare others, that people say can’t be done, and take them to another level.

There are some exceptional creative talents in our industry and the wider associated creative industries. I am inspired and continuously blown away by creators, thinkers, and entrepreneurs like Joe Rohde, Fri Forjindam, Christian Lachel, Robert Tercek, Richard Taylor, Jean-Christophe Canizares, and MAciej Woroniecki, and others. These are the vision keepers, pioneers, luminaries, and seed planters who bring together passion, culture, imagination, and business acumen to lift up humanity.

There are also a number of entities around the globe you can call to do “good enough”, to support the status quo, to slap another vinyl graphic up at the entrance of a roller coaster, to produce another repetitive and uninspiring museum interactive or average projection mapping experience. As with every other business sector, there are entities who promise what they can’t deliver.

We’re all walking our own paths. That said, I’d rather be losing sleep knowing we’re achieving something extraordinary than doing what is comfortable and repetitive.

raven sun creative whiteboard
Image Credit: Raven Sun Creative

Catching the 100 foot wave

I find that one of the best analogies to our creative process is that of surfing. Using surfing as an analogy, I am in pursuit of the creative equivalent of that famous 100-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal. We are part of a community of people that share a philosophy, a way of life that is in pursuit of expression, being in the moment, and feeling the extraordinary. The pursuit of that moment on that massive wave, when we commit, and drop in to ride this massive expression of the power of mother nature. It’s beyond our skill set, we are in the unknown, the unpredictable, pushing us to the edge, and potentially life threatening. When everything else in life totally falls away and fully immersed in the moment, creating, living–that’s the best expression of what we do on our creative journey. I am chasing that wave in every facet of my life; I always have been, and as long as my body and spirit will allow it, I always will be. The community we are a part of, and the team we have built at Raven Sun, share this same pursuit. It’s the reason we see so many of the same faces at the far corners of the world under the same crazy conditions. We are all kindred nomadic spirits trying to catch the 100’ wave of our lifetime.

a surfer surfs a giant wave
The HBO series 100 Foot Wave follows pro-surfer Garrett McNamara to Nazare, Portugal where he is pursuing his decades-long ambition to surf one of its famously gargantuan waves. The documentary captures the highs, lows, community, vision, and family impact of a lifestyle in pursuit of the abstract. Image Credit: HBO

Our company is founded on the idea that great guest experiences have the power to transform lives for the better–the lives of individuals, of organizations, of the planet. The experiences with the greatest impact are authentic, purpose-driven, and unique, expressing the core emotional truth of their brand. Our clients look to us to partner with them to bring out their truth and unlock their deepest value through the creation of exceptional guest experiences.

This is the purpose that has led our company from the beginning. The expression of our purpose took a lot of time and effort to be captured, understood, and articulated accurately.

Rediscovering the definition of “success”

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

Abraham Maslow

A decade ago, I made one of the most life-changing decisions of my career in experiential art and entertainment. I left a position as a Sr. Creative Director at Universal Creative to launch my own experiential design and consulting firm, Raven Sun Creative.

Working at Universal Creative was an amazing opportunity. I had the privilege of leading teams of world-class talent and working with global brands and IP on blockbuster projects in Asia and the US. When I joined UC, I had a 15-year career under my belt; I had been an artist, fabricator, designer, project manager, director, and small business owner. For someone else following a similar path, my position at Universal might have been the culmination of that journey, a realization of a career ambition.

After almost 5 years of working there, however, I realized that success looked different to me.

I am by nature a very restless person; exploration, inquiry, discovery, discomfort, and imagination are deeply rooted in me. To me the most exciting frontier to explore is our limitless potential. Whether an individual, a brand, a destination, or a team, there is always something else to be created, discovered, experienced, accomplished, or shared. I wanted to be a catalyst for change that extended beyond the confines of a location-based entertainment environment. I remain immensely proud of our collective teams’ work at UC. At the same time, I knew I had a calling to fulfil a greater need elsewhere by pursuing new inventions, development in emerging markets, and global projects that would integrate every bit of knowledge I had accumulated on my journey. I wanted to help inspire imaginations, career people, and organizations to define their paths forward on projects of unimaginable scale that would have impact and influence on the global challenges facing us and future generations. I wanted to cultivate, nurture, and assemble a team of like minded people to build a collaborative creative community to pursue this goal.

totem pole against stone
Currently on display in the Penn Museum, this memorial pole of the Haida, an indigenous people of the islands of the northwest coast of North America, depicts Raven. Image credit: Raven Sun Creative

The power in a name

In Native American mythology, the Raven is an important figure. In a creation story of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Raven is responsible for bringing light into the world. In an act of rebellion against the all-encompassing darkness enveloping humanity, Raven takes the light from the Sky Father and carries it to the people creating the sun, moon, and stars – completely transforming the lives of every being in the world.

This was one of the two core Raven stories that inspired my wife and Raven Sun’s Vice President, Kym [Hance], and I to name our daughter Raven in 2004; the idea of world-changing light being brought into the world felt like the perfect metaphor for the child we had on the way.

There are, after all, few events in life as transformational as the birth of a child.

Seven years later, when it came time to name our firm, the same story felt emblematic for this new endeavor and how we worked with our clients: we were intent on bringing transformational experiences for the human spirit from the darkness into the light.

mint the merciless and his merry band of miscreants stand infront of a whiteboard
In Hersheypark’s Reese’s Cupfusion, Mint the Merciless and his merry band of miscreants hatch a dubious plan. Image credit: Raven Sun Creative

The ones who ask why

From the beginning, it was clear that to accomplish what we wanted to do that Raven Sun needed a different sort of work model, one that a decade ago was still unusual: a globally distributed team. The X factor for any business is its people, the individuals and the company culture. By removing geographical limitations, we could bring together world-class talent and a more culturally diverse team. As important as the curation of disparate capabilities is, there were (and still are) certain commonalities that are an even higher priority for our personnel: emotional intelligence and an exploring spirit. In my experience, these are the people who are the constructive challengers who raise the bar and spark change, passionate and curious, collaborative and focused on finding solutions. In other words, these are the people who ask why–and are committed to finding an answer.

hengdian world studios dream bund
Concept art from the development of Hengdian World Studios’ Dream Bund immersive theater attraction retelling the Monkey King’s Battle in Heaven. Image credit: Raven Sun Creative

Why did we focus on China?

Three things happened simultaneously that led me to go to China to grow our young company in 2012. First, immediately after Universal I took on a freelance contract with Forrec. Very nice people there; Cale Heit was especially kind to myself and our family. Ultimately, that effort was not the right fit creatively, responsibility, or growth wise, and reinforced my decision to pursue our company.

Second was that China’s historically unprecedented building boom was underway, its burgeoning middle class driving a huge demand for leisure and recreational activities. The skyrocketing growth of China’s leisure and domestic tourism market presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in an accelerated evolution of entire location-based entertainment culture from the ground up.

Third was the reality that owners in the United States were not as receptive to a young firm competing in a field with much older, larger, and entrenched entities such as JRA, PGAV, Thinkwell, and others. In that time period, domestic owners were unwilling to take risks on us, where Chinese owners were. Our team could compete–and excel–internationally.

It was a giant leap into the unknown. Since I was a child, I have always had an affinity for Japan, and Asian culture in general. While working with UC, I had lived and worked in Japan and my love for its culture and people deepened. China was a whole new world, radically different, no safety net, an incredibly steep learning curve ahead of me. I didn’t know the language. I came equipped mostly with a hunger to learn, and many lessons learned from the community at UC, and all of the wonderful people I met and learned from while living in Japan.

jiulongkou scenic area
The Jiulongkou Scenic Area project focuses on the development of a lifestyle destination centered around nature and health and wellness that would integrate, celebrate, and protect the varied ecological and cultural inheritance of the Jianhu region.

I toured the country, meeting with industry leaders and laying the groundwork for the kind of personal relationships that are so important for doing business in China. Guanxi (关系), the network of connections you have, is evidence trustworthiness, substance, and commitment. Those relationships formed the basis for a thriving business collaborating with major brands on projects like Wanda Qingdao Movie Metropolis, the China Central Television Spring Gala, the Shaogang Steel urban redevelopment project, and Hengdian World Studios.

Owners, developers, and brands in China were intent on competing on a world stage and bringing a new leisure industry up to speed for an emerging demographic unfamiliar with destination experiences. The absence of an existing guest culture or local talent pool meant projects needed to distill decades of LBE learning and expertise into compact timeframes for new-to-the-industry employees. In an executive consultancy role, we began providing end-to-end training in every aspect of the LBE process–storytelling, experiential design, business models, project management, production techniques, installation, operations, sustainability, and more.

Serving as guides into the world of LBE was a natural extension of Raven Sun’s mission. It also provided new clarity around our creative priorities and values. Often, a client’s desire to “catch-up” with a global marketplace manifested in the form of a wishlist of features cherry-picked from successful destinations around the world, a global greatest hits list. That tendency toward imitation is by no means exclusive to Chinese clients. It’s a universal impulse.

ocean flower island at night lit up
Ocean Flower Island is a mixed-use project including 7 man-made islands, 8 museums, 3 theme parks, 5 parks, 24 hotels, resorts, and spas, 18 retail areas, a night spectacular, and 25,000 residential units.

The lesson we returned to again and again was about avoiding the pitfalls of conceiving an experience or destination from the outside in. The why–the real source of power, identity, and audience identification–flows from the inside out. Creating by analogy, looking to existing forms first and the vision of others, is an obstacle to unlocking intrinsic potential.

We grew substantially as a company, taking on larger and larger projects, like Ocean Flower Island project, a massive mixed-use destination in on a man-made archipelago that incorporated 8 museums, 3 theme parks, 5 parks, 24 hotels, resorts, and spas, 18 retail areas, a nighttime spectacular, and 25,000 residential units. As executive consultants for the Evergrande Fairyland project, our team also participated in the development of more than 600 destination conceptual narratives and master plans with more than 400 global vendors for more than 40 attractions and events in each of the planned 15 Fairyland theme parks across mainland China. For Hengdian World Studios’ Dream Bund, aa1-to-1 full-scale recreation of Shanghai’s early 20th century waterfront, we developed 5 major immersive experiential attractions that drew upon China’s history and storytelling traditions.

Celebrating a culture of collaboration

I attribute our success, in large part, to approaching every new opportunity as an open collaborator. We welcome the opportunity to work with, share, and learn from everyone, whether they are a lifelong friend or a business competitor. We begin with a mindset of “Yes, and…” What is the client’s vision and what do we need to make it happen? I also believe in knowing when–and–how to say “no”. Our goal when interacting with a client or prospective client is always to be productive, even if it means passing on a project. We never want to get a job that we aren’t right for; there’s ultimately no benefit for either party. Being honest and transparent, while it doesn’t always result in short term gain, pays dividends in the form of long term relationships.

rec room immersive training simulator
Raven Sun Creative developed REC-Room, an advanced immersive training simulator designed to build the skills of soldiers and emergency responders in hyper-realistic crisis scenarios. Image credit: Raven Sun Creative

A big part of that collaborative spirit is treating everybody you encounter with respect, empathy, and attention. You truly need to leave your ego at the door. I am surprised by the culture that still exists in certain quarters of our industry where firms talk down to owners or vendors. Confidence is terrific. Arrogance is a form of ignorance, and it keeps you from being present and open to creative possibility. Elitism is the enemy of collaboration. We are creators and contributors, not celebrities.

From the beginning, Raven Sun Creative has been a team endeavor. That’s a feature we frankly haven’t always sufficiently celebrated our marketing. Over the years, I became the public face of the company, more by happenstance than design. It’s somethin I’m not comfortable with, as it doesn’t reflect our true makeup as a business. Our greatest superpower is the collective strength of our team members and community. The emphasis is on “We” over “I”. Some businesses are built around a cult of personality-style leadership–that runs counter to how we work and create. In recent years, we’ve collected some invaluable feedback from our clients, partners, and advisors that has really helped guide our development. As a result, we’ve shifted much of our marketing and messaging to elevate key individuals and voices. I’m thrilled to make the change, as it reflects our deeper truth. I cherish the environment, community, and work we have created over the past decade–and I am so gratified that our clients and partners encouraged us to make that our message.

skeletal tracking raven sun creative collaboration
Raven Sun Creative concepted a touring phygital sports training experience in cooperation with the NFL, Microsoft, and EA Sports. Image credit: Raven Sun Creative

Challenging the status quo

The boundaries of our industry–of all industries–are constantly changing, dissolving, expanding, reforming. As the medium of experiential storytelling has evolved to span physical and digital worlds and media platforms, we, too, have evolved our ability to tell stories that transcend physical boundaries and live across multiple media at once. Experience has shown us that it is far more rewarding and meaningful to explore the limits of possibility and act as an agent of positive change.

Over the past decade, Raven Sun Creative has worked on many projects that challenged industry norms and always endeavored to break new ground by…

  • ..championing holistic practices, strategies, and business models for the sustainable conservation of natural and cultural treasures in projects like the redevelopment and renewal of Beijing’s Shougang Steel Industrial Park and the Jiulongkou Scenic Area development.
  • …empowering clients to tell their own stories and develop their own IP. Hersheypark’s Cupfusion, the destination’s first story-driven dark ride, brought to life a whole new storyworld with a cast of colorful characters for guests to interact with,
  • …and pioneering prototypes and innovations that use experiential technology and storytelling to solve new challenges and level the playing field. The REC-Room immersive training simulator employs a phygital environment to train first responders and military personnel for crisis and combat scenarios. The Ultratower® ride system and Saturn V turnkey dark ride were developed to put world-class experiential attractions within the reach of smaller destinations.

What’s next?

raven sun creative ultratower
The Ultratower®, designed and developed by Raven Sun Creative in partnership with Intamin, a customisable immersive media drop tower ride system conceived to provide a world-class guest experience at a fraction of the cost. Image credit: Raven Sun Creative

ENDLESS TRANSFORMATION

The word “transformation” gets bandied about a lot in business, but what do we mean when we say “transformation”?

Transformation is an experience of fulfillment, of elevation, of crossing a threshold. An aspirational desire is realized. It can be a grand epiphany. It can also be something more subtle that shifts your view of the world or yourself. We are all on a quest for our best selves; life is a journey of “becoming”, and whether physical, spiritual, emotional, we are always seeking out for experiences that are capable of granting us that transformation.

We are evolving far beyond where we started in LBE. While we still love that work and have much respect for the craft, what we have found is that it is seemingly locked in a kind of minimalist loop of regurgitating the same thing over and over right now.

When I was a child, LBE was the place where you’d want to see the future; it was the pinnacle of innovation, but now, it’s living in the past. Children don’t see the same wonder I saw as a child; they don’t see their future in this medium. It’s hard to be when we’ve romanticized an apocalyptic future, humor built on snark at the expense of others, and an ever increasing class stratification of the entertainment experience. I want to help bring that wonder, risk, and imagination back, and to do so means to take bigger, bolder steps.

Over the next 10 years, I want our team to help recapture the idea that experiential entertainment is meant to be transformative. We will continue to build our team, help mentor the next generation, and to advocate for sustainability, environmental stewardship, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Exterior of Raven Sun Creative Studio in Middle Grove, NY.
Exterior of Raven Sun Creative Studio in Middle Grove, NY.
Collaborative workspace of Raven Sun Creative Studio in Middle Grove, NY.
Collaborative workspace of Raven Sun Creative Studio in Middle Grove, NY.

As I mentioned earlier 2022 is going to be a big year for our resurgent industry and the Raven Sun Creative team. We are launching a series of new offerings that provide clients with more ways to tailor our services to their needs. These include new content platforms, customizable retreat experiences at our domestic studio and international locations, a subscription based Masterclass service, a series of e books, and a new book encompassing our curated collection of article sand insights, all of which are conceived to make our customer experience more flexible, personalized, valuable, and cost-effective. We’re equally excited to be evolving our public speaking package with in-person and virtual engagements available on topics like experiential design across the phygital frontier, the future of entertainment and culture, brand storytelling, IP development, and more. You can check out our website for more detail on all of these new developments, and stay on top of our content on Blooloop, through our weekly blog, videos, and monthly newsletter (which you can sign up for here).

Over 2022 and beyond are going to continue expanding our investments in inventions, new self-operated projects, and in launching world-changing experiences such as Turning Point: the world’s first fully immersive, real-time art and technology experience. Highly interactive, it is built upon combining emerging manifestations of the Metaverse and cutting-edge game engine technology with the physical world, art, and science, and to deliver a first-of-its-kind visitor experience.

Turning Point is a purpose driven project where we can meld every bit of knowledge and passion the team and I have for art, technology, gaming, and social impact at a global scale.

Today, the emergence of a blended physical and digital world with boundaryless business and creative opportunities has me most excited. We can do anything we want anywhere, anytime.

Abraham Maslow talked about transformation in terms of peak experiences: “powerful, meaningful experiences in which individuals seem to transcend the self, be at one with the world, and feel completely self-fulfilled.” That’s certainly one of our “whys”: we want to create those experiences that aid in that transformation, or work with others to help them uncover that epiphanous moment. In our core, that is what propels us forward, and what will motivate us as we work upwards and on toward our 20th anniversary.

In closing, on the celebratory 10th anniversary occasion, the team and I would again like to very humbly and with deep gratitude thank our clients, partners, collaborators, friends, and family members, who have made this entire endeavor possible. It is remarkable what we achieve together. Thank you so much for the privilege of being a part of this space. The team and I owe everything to this industry and you.

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Louis Alfieri Raven Sun

Louis Alfieri

For over 30 years, Louis has worked with global brands as an authority in leading, designing, and building experiential entertainment destinations, mixed-use developments, immersive media-based attractions, retail locations, cultural sites, and experiential events. He has a long track record of success collaborating with large multidisciplinary teams on the conceptualization, design, and implementation of location-based entertainment mixed-use resorts, theme parks, waterparks, museums, and cultural destinations.

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