Bailey Alysse: Designing Experiences That Bring People Together
- Mark Walmsley FRSA AGSM
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
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Meet Bailey Alysse.
In this interview, Mark created Bailey Alysse's fantasy cultural year from the answers to some easy questions to which there were no wrong answers.
Mark had a magic wand and a time machine at his disposal, so expect some surprises, laughs, anecdotes and conversational detours.
For Bailey Alysse, creativity isn't simply something to observe. It's something to experience, share and use to connect people.
Based in Porto, Portugal, Bailey is an experience designer and creative strategist whose career has grown from hospitality and service through independent arts showcases into events, creative production and building experiences from the ground up.
At the heart of her work is a deceptively simple question: how should people feel when they are in the room?
Bailey believes successful experiences are about far more than flawless logistics.
They require an understanding of the people involved—the client with an objective, the audience experiencing it and the collaborators responsible for bringing the idea to life.
That philosophy draws on two qualities Bailey considers central to her work: intuition and emotional intelligence.
She uses them alongside creative and strategic thinking to understand what an experience needs, identify the details that can turn participation into genuine connection, and create those special moments that people remember long after an event has finished.
Her career began in hospitality, where understanding people and creating positive experiences were fundamental. From there she moved into art spaces and self-produced showcases before developing a broader career across events and creative production.
Often joining organisations as an early hire, Bailey has helped build companies, venues, teams and creative projects from the ground up. She particularly enjoys the challenge of taking an idea and turning it into something real, bringing together people, place, purpose and creativity.
But her focus isn't only on the audience. Bailey believes the teams and collaborators creating an experience should themselves feel supported, motivated and proud of what they are producing. For her, emotional intelligence is as important behind the scenes as it is in understanding the people who eventually walk through the door.
Alongside her professional work, Bailey has an evolving artistic practice spanning painting, sculpture and murals, which she is increasingly bringing into her everyday and professional creative life.
Ultimately, her ambitions reach beyond individual events. Bailey is interested in creating platforms and spaces where art can encourage togetherness—places where people can live, work, play, create and connect.
Her definition of success reflects that philosophy beautifully: to live an arts-filled life while curating experiences, creating platforms and building connections that inspire and empower others to pursue their own passions.
For Bailey, creativity is not the finishing touch. It's what brings the room to life.
Examples of Bailey Alysse's work:
Bailey Alysse's Fantasy Cultural Year ... with a magic wand and a time machine to hand.
Every Arts and Culture Network full member is invited to embark on a Fantasy Cultural Year—an imaginary journey inspired by their passions, creativity and curiosity.
For Bailey Alysse, the journey begins with something that doesn't yet exist.
Her dream Live Work Play centre.
Bailey imagines a welcoming, art-fuelled place where people can live, work, create and play; where artists are supported, creativity is encouraged and people come together through shared experiences.
With a wave of the magic wand, the first LWPÂ has opened in Seattle.
It's 6pm on a warm June evening and Bailey is sitting at a pavement café across the street, enjoying the feeling of a successful launch. On the table is a Port and Tonic, connecting this imagined future with Porto, the city where she began to believe more deeply in her vision.
Beside it are two constant companions: Rick Rubin's The Creative Act, whose reflections on creativity Bailey frequently recommends to other artists, and her journal.
Then comes an extraordinary opportunity.
A wealthy Seattle family foundation has discovered the LWP concept. Its mission—art, togetherness and peace—aligns perfectly with their own, and they want Bailey to spend a year travelling the world to identify locations for six more centres.
First-class travel, a PA and a television crew are provided. The adventure will lead to a book deal, a TED Talk and a global university lecture tour.
Bailey's first stop is Tenerife.
On the flight, however, the foundation sets her a challenge: for an entire year she can listen to only one kind of music. Her choice is unexpected but immediate: Chopin's Nocturnes.
In Tenerife, Bailey settles into an apartment overlooking the sea before being taken to a dance performance. With any performance in history available, she chooses to relive the first flamenco show she saw in Seville—an experience so powerful that it moved her to tears and has remained with her ever since.
Dinner is equally Spanish: a huge traditional paella, shared with her new friends.
Next comes Seoul, South Korea, chosen partly for the possibilities of connecting different cultures and creating opportunities for artistic cross-collaboration.
Sport becomes culture for the day. Bailey is fascinated by the artistry, skill and physical courage found in disciplines such as the X Games and parkour, so the magic wand conveniently brings the World Parkour Championships to Seoul.
Then it's on to Rio de Janeiro, during Carnival.
Bailey sees Brazil's extraordinary creative energy as fertile ground for an LWP and an opportunity to platform its wealth of artistic talent. A newly opened immersive gallery provides another adventure: virtual reality makes it possible to physically step inside the work of any artist. Bailey chooses surrealist Leonora Carrington, entering one of her strange, dreamlike worlds and wandering through it in three dimensions.
Finally, it's time for a cultural week together in London—with liberal use of the time machine.
For the concert, Bailey travels back to the Sands in Las Vegas to experience the Rat Pack in their prime: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. etc. She had always wished she could have heard Sinatra perform live.
London's theatre scene follows, with Shakespeare's Globe and the West End on the agenda. Les Misérables and Matilda enter the conversation, before Bailey fulfils another ambition by choosing opera and experiencing Carmen, appropriately transporting us back to Seville.
For movie night, the destination changes again.
We're off to the Sphere in Las Vegas, where Bailey chooses a film that helped shape her imagination as a child: Disney's Fantasia, transformed into a spectacular immersive cinematic experience.
But the final destination is more personal than any of them. For her Fantasy Lunch, Bailey can choose anyone, living or dead. She chooses her grandfather. And when asked whom he would bring to join them, Bailey knows the answer. Her mother.
After a year imagining extraordinary places, performances and possibilities, Bailey's most treasured experience turns out to be the simplest: three generations of her family sitting around a table together.
Perhaps that's fitting. Because beneath all the art, travel and creative ambition, Bailey's Fantasy Cultural Year is really about the same thing as her dream LWP centres:
creating places and experiences that bring people together.
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Mark Walmsley FRSA FCIM AGSM
Chief Culture Vulture
Arts & Culture Network
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Chief Culture Vulture
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