Water Slide: [waw-ter slahyd] a slide that parents and children can enjoy together.
Slides are fun, of course, but you wouldn’t exactly call them trans-generational. It’s the water that pulls adults out of their lawn chairs to get into the action. Bad back, arthritic knees, and zinc oxide slathered noses notwithstanding, a water slide is perhaps the only relic of childhood that adults won’t leave behind when they graduate from college.
That said, not everyone enjoys them: that board member with no kids who has already burned through four wives? Hates them. Everyone in the accounting department? Won’t go near them. And don’t even ask the marketing folks: they like them a little too much.
Thus, you really want to save your water slides for the people that love them most: families. If you want the audience to have fond memories of you, just find a way to get their children to sit quietly by their side, get them laughing, and keep it that way for 1-36 hours. If you can get some popcorn and Twizzlers in the mix, all the better.
Of course, remember that water makes super 140s Italian wool smell like a wet sheep. It’ll wipe the crease right out of a pair of slacks, too, so if your audience is full of financiers, board members, or high caliber businesspeople, you may want to lay off on the water slides.
The Takeaway: Family friendly is always good with regard to content maturity. When it comes to complexity, though, audiences can sometimes want a little more meat than what a 7-year old can handle. Keep the content on par with the average capacity of your audience.
