Can You Measure an Aha Moment?

Oprah is trying to build an extraordinary experience at the Sphere. But will it really induce awe?

Oprah Winfrey had an aha moment at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

After attending U2’s opening night in 2023, she was so struck by the experience that she began imagining an entirely new kind of live event. The result is Oprah Winfrey’s AHA, a two-hour experience coming to Sphere in April 2027.

The event combines music, poetry, storytelling, light and the Sphere’s enormous visual and audio capabilities. Oprah describes the goal as creating an experience of “awe, wonder and joy.”

That raises an interesting question: How will the designers know if it works?

Designing for Awe

Live experiences have entered an arms race.

The Sphere cost $2.3 billion to build. Its screen surrounds the audience and its sound system creates an environment unlike a conventional arena. Oprah’s AHA adds an extraordinary collection of talent, including musicians Jacob Collier, Max Richter and Jon Hopkins, poet Ocean Vuong, and artist and stage designer Es Devlin.

Every element is being carefully orchestrated to produce a powerful response.

But creating an experience that is expected to be extraordinary has, until recently, been informed guesswork. Knowing which parts are extraordinary has been nearly impossible.

Traditionally, experience designers have relied on experience, applause, post-event surveys, and social media posts. These measures provide useful information, but they miss something important.

The human brain continuously evaluates experiences while they are happening in order to modulate the energy spent processing them.

The brain does not wait until the end of a two-hour event to decide what was important and what should have been skipped.

The Brain Leaves a Trace

My academic lab spent two decades studying how the brain values experiences.

This work led to the discovery of a brain network I named Immersion. Immersion is a one-second frequency neuroelectrical signal that captures the value the brain obtains from an experience. Peak Immersion experiences provoke actions, including purchases, social sharing, and a desire to repeat the experience. 

Immersion is not a survey of whether someone “liked” something. It is a continuous neurophysiologic signal.

That distinction changes how live experiences are designed and optimized. The data reveal when the audience’s brains place the greatest value on what is happening. They also show when people need a break—a calmer moment to recover before the next powerful experience.

These are not opinions collected afterward. They are biological responses measured while the experience is happening.

Finding the Aha Moment

This is where neuroscience becomes especially useful for experience designers.

An aha moment, like the kind Oprah is trying to create, is by definition a moment.

Yet most methods used to evaluate live experiences average across the entire event. A survey might reveal that attendees rated an experience 9 out of 10. It cannot reliably identify what happened at 8:17 p.m. that made the experience unforgettable.

ImmersionLive was built to solve this problem.

Participants are invited to wear sensors on their arms during an event. The data identify the moments that produce peak Immersion—and the moments that do not.

Published research from my academic lab as well as eight years of client use of the Immersion platform has shown that Immersion predicts post-experience economic behaviors with 90%+ accuracy.

This provides something experience designers have rarely had: an objective measure linking individual moments in an experience to outcomes.

Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better

The Sphere represents the extreme end of experiential design. Few venues have a 16-story screen wrapping around an audience or a $2.3 billion price tag.

But the goals of Oprah’s AHA apply to every live experience.

More technology does not necessarily produce more impact. Neither does a larger budget, louder music, or more elaborate staging.

What matters is how the audience’s brains respond.

Without measurement, designers are guessing.

Stop Guessing

Oprah’s AHA represents an ambitious attempt to engineer a powerful experience, and she deserves credit for pushing experiential design forward. Its creators have assembled world-class talent and one of the most technologically advanced venues ever built.

The next frontier is knowing, second by second, what actually works.

That is the opportunity measuring Immersion brings to experiential design.

ImmersionLive reveals the moments the brain values, giving experience designers objective evidence of what works, what doesn’t, and what to change.  

Extraordinary experiences should not be left to intuition.  By measuring Immersion at rehearsals and previews, shows can be improved so audiences are guaranteed to experience awe.  And, will return to have the experience again.

Measure them.

See how ImmersionLive measures live experiences, schedule a demonstration with me.

FAQs

Can you actually measure an “aha moment”?

Yes. Rather than relying only on post-event surveys, neurophysiologic measurement can capture how audiences respond throughout an experience and identify moments associated with peak Immersion.

How is measuring Immersion different from an event survey?

Surveys capture what attendees remember or report after an experience. Immersion measures neurophysiologic responses continuously during the experience, helping identify when audience value rises or falls.

How can neuroscience help improve live experiences?

By identifying the moments audiences value most, as well as moments when engagement declines or recovery may be needed, experience designers can use the data to refine pacing, content, and production.