The Participation Economy News
How presence became more valuable than attention. Reporting and analysis on the shift from screens to showing up, and what it means for brands, events and the audiences who attend them.
The smartphone was supposed to end the night out. For most of the past decade, the working assumption was that as screens absorbed more of daily life, the physical world would quietly recede. Concerts would be streamed, conferences would go remote, friendship would move to the feed. Some of that came true. What almost nobody priced in was the reversal underneath: the more hours people give to a screen, the more they want the one thing it cannot return to them, which is presence.
The saturation is not in dispute. The average internet user now spends more than six and a half hours a day online, according to DataReportal. Yet the box office of real life has never been busier. Live Nation hosted a record 159 million fans in 2025, and for the first time more of them attended its concerts outside the United States than inside it. The two curves are rising together. When everything can be watched, being there becomes the scarce thing. 50+ Internet Statistics: Users, Websites & Traffic (2026) +2
From the Feed to the Front Row
The generation that grew up inside the feed is leading the way out of it. In Eventbrite’s 2026 study of American and British consumers, 79 per cent of 18-to-35-year-olds said they plan to attend more events this year, and 74 per cent of Gen Z rated in-person experiences above digital ones. The more telling finding is where they want to go: more than half prefer events that feel under the radar, found through word of mouth instead of an algorithm. barchartprevuemeetings
Formula One shows how the conversion works. Netflix’s Drive to Survive, which debuted in 2019, is widely credited with opening the sport to new audiences. The series did not replace the grandstand. It filled it. In the sport’s 2025 global fan survey, women accounted for three in four new fans and 73 per cent of American fans said they plan to attend a race. A screen made the introduction; the ambition it created was a ticket. newsworthyblackbookmotorsport
The Program Outside the Program
Look closely at where the crowds form and a pattern emerges: the energy has moved to the edges of the official event.
Milan is the clearest case. Salone del Mobile is a furniture trade fair. Fuorisalone, the citywide program that grew up around it, drew more than 500,000 visitors to over 1,100 events across seven days this April. The longest queues now belong to fashion houses, including Prada, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton, whose installations rival the design on show for attention. The lines have become so defining that organizers introduced a visitor passport this year to manage them. Fuorisalone 2026 draws record crowds, reinforcing Milan's global design leadership +2
The Olympics tell the same story. At Paris 2024, Team USA House opened to the public for the first time, charging 325 euros for a day inside the Palais Brongniart. A hospitality room once reserved for athletes and sponsors had become a product people would pay for. francsjeux
Then came this summer’s World Cup. FIFA’s fan festivals passed two million visitors while the tournament was still in its early rounds, most of them without a match ticket. The most instructive brand story was a small one. GoGo squeeZ asked organizers for permission to hand out samples outside a stadium, heard nothing back, and staged its own pop-ups in three host cities instead. The official perimeter was closed. The city around it was not. eventmarketereventmarketer
From Attention to Presence
For brands, this reorders the playbook. The last era of strategy was built on attention: impressions, dwell time, the cost of interrupting a scroll. Attention is now abundant and cheap. Presence is scarce and expensive. The shift is from an advertising economy, where the goal is to be seen, to a participation economy, where the goal is to be there.
The largest players are already spending accordingly. LVMH’s partnership with Formula One, which began in 2025, runs for ten years, and it is built around hospitality and bespoke activations as much as signage. That is not a media buy. It is a decade-long lease on a place where people have chosen to be. formula1optionstheedge
The screen does not disappear. It becomes the invitation. The feed is where people decide what is worth leaving the house for; the event is where the value is made. The brands that grasp this stop counting how many people they reached and start counting how many they were actually with.
Where to Show Up
This is the ground the Frynge covers. The best experiences at the world’s biggest events are rarely on the official program, and a new generation wants to know exactly where to find them. Connecting brands with the audiences ready to walk through the door is not a media play. It is a recognition that in a world built almost entirely of screens, the most human thing left is also the most valuable.
The smartphone was supposed to end the night out. For most of the past decade, the working assumption was that as screens absorbed more of daily life, the physical world would quietly recede. Concerts would be streamed, conferences would go remote, friendship would move to the feed. Some of that came true. What almost nobody priced in was the reversal underneath: the more hours people give to a screen, the more they want the one thing it cannot return to them, which is presence.
The saturation is not in dispute. The average internet user now spends more than six and a half hours a day online, according to DataReportal. Yet the box office of real life has never been busier. Live Nation hosted a record 159 million fans in 2025, and for the first time more of them attended its concerts outside the United States than inside it. The two curves are rising together. When everything can be watched, being there becomes the scarce thing. 50+ Internet Statistics: Users, Websites & Traffic (2026) +2
From the Feed to the Front Row
The generation that grew up inside the feed is leading the way out of it. In Eventbrite’s 2026 study of American and British consumers, 79 per cent of 18-to-35-year-olds said they plan to attend more events this year, and 74 per cent of Gen Z rated in-person experiences above digital ones. The more telling finding is where they want to go: more than half prefer events that feel under the radar, found through word of mouth instead of an algorithm. barchartprevuemeetings
Formula One shows how the conversion works. Netflix’s Drive to Survive, which debuted in 2019, is widely credited with opening the sport to new audiences. The series did not replace the grandstand. It filled it. In the sport’s 2025 global fan survey, women accounted for three in four new fans and 73 per cent of American fans said they plan to attend a race. A screen made the introduction; the ambition it created was a ticket. newsworthyblackbookmotorsport
The Program Outside the Program
Look closely at where the crowds form and a pattern emerges: the energy has moved to the edges of the official event.
Milan is the clearest case. Salone del Mobile is a furniture trade fair. Fuorisalone, the citywide program that grew up around it, drew more than 500,000 visitors to over 1,100 events across seven days this April. The longest queues now belong to fashion houses, including Prada, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton, whose installations rival the design on show for attention. The lines have become so defining that organizers introduced a visitor passport this year to manage them. Fuorisalone 2026 draws record crowds, reinforcing Milan's global design leadership +2
The Olympics tell the same story. At Paris 2024, Team USA House opened to the public for the first time, charging 325 euros for a day inside the Palais Brongniart. A hospitality room once reserved for athletes and sponsors had become a product people would pay for. francsjeux
Then came this summer’s World Cup. FIFA’s fan festivals passed two million visitors while the tournament was still in its early rounds, most of them without a match ticket. The most instructive brand story was a small one. GoGo squeeZ asked organizers for permission to hand out samples outside a stadium, heard nothing back, and staged its own pop-ups in three host cities instead. The official perimeter was closed. The city around it was not. eventmarketereventmarketer
From Attention to Presence
For brands, this reorders the playbook. The last era of strategy was built on attention: impressions, dwell time, the cost of interrupting a scroll. Attention is now abundant and cheap. Presence is scarce and expensive. The shift is from an advertising economy, where the goal is to be seen, to a participation economy, where the goal is to be there.
The largest players are already spending accordingly. LVMH’s partnership with Formula One, which began in 2025, runs for ten years, and it is built around hospitality and bespoke activations as much as signage. That is not a media buy. It is a decade-long lease on a place where people have chosen to be. formula1optionstheedge
The screen does not disappear. It becomes the invitation. The feed is where people decide what is worth leaving the house for; the event is where the value is made. The brands that grasp this stop counting how many people they reached and start counting how many they were actually with.
Where to Show Up
This is the ground the Frynge covers. The best experiences at the world’s biggest events are rarely on the official program, and a new generation wants to know exactly where to find them. Connecting brands with the audiences ready to walk through the door is not a media play. It is a recognition that in a world built almost entirely of screens, the most human thing left is also the most valuable.
The smartphone was supposed to end the night out. For most of the past decade, the working assumption was that as screens absorbed more of daily life, the physical world would quietly recede. Concerts would be streamed, conferences would go remote, friendship would move to the feed. Some of that came true. What almost nobody priced in was the reversal underneath: the more hours people give to a screen, the more they want the one thing it cannot return to them, which is presence.
The saturation is not in dispute. The average internet user now spends more than six and a half hours a day online, according to DataReportal. Yet the box office of real life has never been busier. Live Nation hosted a record 159 million fans in 2025, and for the first time more of them attended its concerts outside the United States than inside it. The two curves are rising together. When everything can be watched, being there becomes the scarce thing. 50+ Internet Statistics: Users, Websites & Traffic (2026) +2
From the Feed to the Front Row
The generation that grew up inside the feed is leading the way out of it. In Eventbrite’s 2026 study of American and British consumers, 79 per cent of 18-to-35-year-olds said they plan to attend more events this year, and 74 per cent of Gen Z rated in-person experiences above digital ones. The more telling finding is where they want to go: more than half prefer events that feel under the radar, found through word of mouth instead of an algorithm. barchartprevuemeetings
Formula One shows how the conversion works. Netflix’s Drive to Survive, which debuted in 2019, is widely credited with opening the sport to new audiences. The series did not replace the grandstand. It filled it. In the sport’s 2025 global fan survey, women accounted for three in four new fans and 73 per cent of American fans said they plan to attend a race. A screen made the introduction; the ambition it created was a ticket. newsworthyblackbookmotorsport
The Program Outside the Program
Look closely at where the crowds form and a pattern emerges: the energy has moved to the edges of the official event.
Milan is the clearest case. Salone del Mobile is a furniture trade fair. Fuorisalone, the citywide program that grew up around it, drew more than 500,000 visitors to over 1,100 events across seven days this April. The longest queues now belong to fashion houses, including Prada, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton, whose installations rival the design on show for attention. The lines have become so defining that organizers introduced a visitor passport this year to manage them. Fuorisalone 2026 draws record crowds, reinforcing Milan's global design leadership +2
The Olympics tell the same story. At Paris 2024, Team USA House opened to the public for the first time, charging 325 euros for a day inside the Palais Brongniart. A hospitality room once reserved for athletes and sponsors had become a product people would pay for. francsjeux
Then came this summer’s World Cup. FIFA’s fan festivals passed two million visitors while the tournament was still in its early rounds, most of them without a match ticket. The most instructive brand story was a small one. GoGo squeeZ asked organizers for permission to hand out samples outside a stadium, heard nothing back, and staged its own pop-ups in three host cities instead. The official perimeter was closed. The city around it was not. eventmarketereventmarketer
From Attention to Presence
For brands, this reorders the playbook. The last era of strategy was built on attention: impressions, dwell time, the cost of interrupting a scroll. Attention is now abundant and cheap. Presence is scarce and expensive. The shift is from an advertising economy, where the goal is to be seen, to a participation economy, where the goal is to be there.
The largest players are already spending accordingly. LVMH’s partnership with Formula One, which began in 2025, runs for ten years, and it is built around hospitality and bespoke activations as much as signage. That is not a media buy. It is a decade-long lease on a place where people have chosen to be. formula1optionstheedge
The screen does not disappear. It becomes the invitation. The feed is where people decide what is worth leaving the house for; the event is where the value is made. The brands that grasp this stop counting how many people they reached and start counting how many they were actually with.
Where to Show Up
This is the ground the Frynge covers. The best experiences at the world’s biggest events are rarely on the official program, and a new generation wants to know exactly where to find them. Connecting brands with the audiences ready to walk through the door is not a media play. It is a recognition that in a world built almost entirely of screens, the most human thing left is also the most valuable.
4 min read