ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates and develops the notion of experiential planning as a theoretical construct and as planning practice. Theoretically the chapter takes its point of departure in the classical concept of the experience economy, in which actors are united in experiential staging processes. It is suggested that city planners act as stagers of urban development. The chapter unfolds the case of experiential planning in Vancouver, in which planners act as stagers of complex and participatory planning processes. It concludes the lessons for urban planning and questions the difficult balance between liveability and economic development. The pursuit of non-functional values by consumers is the starting point for Pine and Gilmore in their writings on the experience economy. Rather than seeing experience offerings as a separate production system, they see the most important potential for value creation in the integration of experiences in mundane products and services.
