“The cat in the box is both dead and alive.”
Existence is wibbly-wobbly, especially if you’ve studied philosophy or quantum physics. From ancient Pyrrho to modern Ludwig Wittgenstein, thinkers have debated the nature of uncertainty for millennia. Fortunes are built and broken on the kick of a ball or the whim of a leader, now all from an app at our fingertips; uncertainty is the game, the reason, and the reward.
Our statistics come with confidence intervals and standard deviations. Predictions come with disclaimers. When forecasting anything from markets to the weather, our responses fall along a spectrum of uncertainty, each with a different degree of validity. The one thing we can be certain of is that we can’t be certain of anything.
When asked to predict the future of exhibits—a global industry within a global economy, subject to workforce changes, supply chain disruptions, bubbles, pandemics, and every other item listed in a force majeure clause—I’d have as good a chance with a Ouija Board or tea leaves as with all the data and models already collected and those still unimagined. Our work is driven as much by the creativity and curiosity of the people who design and engage with our exhibits as by data, budgets, and KPIs. We plan with our heads and build with our hands, and our audiences still experience with their hearts. There are too many variables, known and unknown, to know exactly what we will do in the future. Data and experience can help us make our best guess, but we cannot know the future with certainty. What we can do is set our course and boldly go into the future, where no one has gone before.
As we sail into the uncharted waters of the future, tomorrow’s horizon taunts us as a line we will never reach, no matter the winds or currents propelling us. Our industry’s future is the same, pushed forward by trends and technology still a day away. Programs grow, and timelines compress, always doing more with less. The busy season never stops. The quickening pace makes it hard to lift our heads and check our progress, to climb the crow’s nest and scan for land. But when night falls, and we rest, we can look at the stars to see how far we’ve come, photons from eons ago pouring out of Polaris or the Southern Cross to guide us into tomorrow. We’ve improved our methods of measurement with astrolabes, sextants, and GPS, but when we look for guidance—for a new course for our ship, our business, or our lives—we still turn our eyes to the heavens, as our ancestors have done since before time began. We will continue to move forward, increasing output and expanding creatively, but still looking to the traditions and lights from the past for inspiration and guidance.
They say the journey is the reward. We’re supposed to set out on our voyage and be delighted, or at least educated, by what we find along the way. Yet, we find ourselves tracking minute-by-minute progress toward some potential safe harbor across an open ocean. When we’re stuck in the doldrums of shrinking budgets or caught in the tempestuous winds of change, no chart or manifest will save the ship. It’s the crew by your side who will pull the oars or batten down the hatches. If we can’t predict everything, we can prepare for anything by gathering a crew that can do it all, who will teach the ropes in calm waters and keep all hands on deck through crashing waves. If we continue to invest in industry education, teaching not just the knots and safe ports but also the knowledge and signs of the sky and sea we’ve learned through long careers and voyages, we will be able to rest on the shore when the sea air makes our aging bones ache.
We do not know what the future will be, only what we hope it will be when we get there. We could be cautious, hedging our bets and protecting our peace as we remember recessions and pandemics. We could be strategic—advancing, pausing, and planning every step forward while trying to stay just one step ahead of or behind the competition. Or we could lift our eyes beyond the horizon to the stars and into the unknown, to a future we have not yet imagined, where uncertainty and a grand adventure are the only sure things. I know which course I’ve set—the same one as Captain Kirk and Peter Pan—second star to the right and straight on ‘till morning.
Onward and upward.
This story originally appeared in the Q4 2025 issue of Exhibit City News, p. 26. For original layout, see Print Version
