Why did 24 people book a workshop without knowing what it was?

Twenty-four people bought tickets to a workshop without knowing what they were going to do. It was fully booked two weeks before it happened.

We had told people that it would be creative, that no previous experience was needed and that all the materials would be provided. But the activity itself remained a secret until they arrived.

What interested me was not only that people were curious enough to book. It was that they were willing to commit their time and money to something they could not fully predict.

Normally, workshops are sold through certainty. We show what people are going to make, explain the materials, share examples and give a fairly clear picture of what the experience will look like. This time, we removed most of that.

And it made me wonder whether the appeal was not only the mystery itself, but the feeling of experiencing something without already knowing how it would unfold.

We live in a time where we can know an extraordinary amount before experiencing almost anything. We check restaurant menus before arriving, see photos and videos of destinations before travelling, read reviews before buying something and look at what other people have made before joining a workshop.

More and more, what reaches us is also shaped by what we already know we like. We are recommended music based on what we already listen to, films based on what we have already watched and products based on what we have already bought.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with this. It is useful and convenient. But it also means that much of what we encounter has already been filtered through our previous choices.

So what happens when we leave a little space for the unknown?

What do you think we are doing today?

When people arrived at the studio, we asked them what they thought the workshop was going to be. There were plenty of guesses, but nobody guessed correctly.

The workshop was cyanotype. For some participants, even the word was new. One person told us they had never heard of it before and that this made them excited to try it.

Another participant described the feeling this way:

I loved not knowing what we were going to do. It made the whole experience feel more exciting, and I probably wouldn't have chosen cyanotype myself.

That last part stayed with me. If the workshop had simply been advertised as a cyanotype workshop, would everyone who came have chosen it? Probably not. And perhaps that is part of what mystery can do. It can occasionally take us outside the things we already know we like and put us in front of something we would never have searched for ourselves.

There is some psychology behind this. George Loewenstein's information-gap theory of curiosity suggests that curiosity can emerge when we become aware of a gap between what we know and what we want to know. Missing information creates a desire to discover what is on the other side.

The Mystery Workshop created a very simple version of that gap: people knew an experience had been prepared for them, but they did not know what it was.

Research into uncertainty and emotion also suggests that uncertainty around a potentially positive experience can be connected with feelings such as interest, excitement, anticipation and surprise. Not knowing is not automatically something negative.

That distinction matters. There is a difference between uncertainty that makes you feel unsafe and uncertainty that allows you to be surprised.

People still knew where they were going, how long they would be there and what kind of environment they were entering. The intention was never to remove the information people needed to feel comfortable. The unknown part was simply the experience waiting for them.

Once they had decided to come, they did not have to prepare for it, compare it with somebody else's result or decide beforehand whether they would be good at it. They could encounter it first.

The mystery continued after the reveal

Cyanotype turned out to fit this idea unusually well. It is a photographic printing process that uses light to create its characteristic blue images. You arrange your composition, expose the treated paper to light and then wait to see what appears.

You have some control over the process, but not complete control over the result. So even after people discovered what the workshop was, there was still something to wait for.

People watched the paper change, compared results and noticed how differently things had turned out from what they imagined. Some pieces developed unexpectedly, and that became part of the experience rather than something that needed to be fixed.

One participant later described the workshop as "innovative." Others talked about enjoying the people they met and the experience of trying something completely unfamiliar.

Another participant told us:

I came for the mystery, but I really enjoyed how easy it was to talk to people. Because none of us knew what to expect, it felt like we were discovering it together.

That social part became important too. Most people in the room were learning the process at the same time. Nobody needed to be the expert. People looked at each other's prints, asked questions, compared what was happening and reacted together when the images began to appear.

Someone who arrived alone already had something to talk about with the person next to them. The activity created the conditions for connection without making connection itself the assignment.

Maybe we don't want to control every experience

What stayed with me after the workshop was the feeling behind all of this.

We spend a lot of our lives trying to reduce uncertainty. We check, compare, research and try to make the best possible choice before committing our time or money. And of course, we need to do that.

But I am not sure we want to do it with everything.

There is a difference between knowing that something will be enjoyable and discovering that it is enjoyable. There is a difference between seeing the final result before you begin and watching something appear in front of you. There is a difference between choosing something you already know you like and unexpectedly finding yourself interested in something you would never have chosen.

Those experiences bring back something that is difficult to create when everything has already been explained: anticipation, nervousness, curiosity, discovery and surprise. They ask us to respond to what is actually happening rather than constantly measuring the present against what we expected it to be.

Perhaps that is something we need more space for. Not uncertainty for the sake of uncertainty, and not giving up control over the things that genuinely matter. But small moments where we do not need to know the ending before deciding to begin.

For me, that became the real idea behind the Mystery Workshop — not hiding cyanotype from people, but giving them room to encounter something before judging it — not chosen from an algorithm or researched in advance.

Maybe we do not always need another experience we already know we are going to like. Sometimes we might just need the chance to feel something we did not plan.