How to Design Premium, In-Person VIP Days + Weekends
Ep. 10 BTS on Designing Premium VIP Days + Weekends
In this episode of The Midnight Edit, I’m taking you behind the scenes of how I design VIP days and weekend intensives so they create real transformation, alongside a beautiful experience.
In this episode, I’m sharing:
The core difference between virtual work and in-person experiences
Why cognitive load, physical environment, and pacing matter more than you think
How I structure a VIP weekend from big-picture vision into strategic architecture
Why embodiment and environment shifts (like spa, movement, location changes) deepen integration
The mindset shift from “just flow with it” to intentional design
How to balance flexibility with structure so the container feels both held and alive
Whether you’re designing your first VIP day or refining one you already run, this will give you a more intentional lens for how every element supports the transformation.
Mentioned Resources
Episode Transcript
Tonight I wanna take you behind the scenes of how I think about designing a VIP experience. I have just been joined by my co-host, Toulouse, who has decided he needs to be part of this episode too. So if you hear purring in the background, that’s what’s going on.
What Prompted This Episode
This episode was prompted because I was on Threads and I saw someone talking about how they’ve done a lot of virtual group experiences, a lot of one-to-one coaching, and they were feeling called to start offering a VIP in-person experience. In this case, they were talking about doing it for one person, and so they were asking the Threads universe: how do people structure their VIP days?
How do they think about it? How do they set the scope? How do they set the flow?
Unfortunately, a lot of the responses were very vague. It was like, “Oh, I just go off vibes. We meet together and we just kind of flow through the day and I just kind of do whatever the client needs. I just go off vibes.”
Now, the beauty of an in-person experience is you very much can be in deep responsiveness to what the client is bringing up in that moment. Even if you set a scope or set a structure when they book it, let’s say a couple months in advance, that’s still probably gonna change for what is alive for them in that current moment when they come see you for the day or for the weekend, depending on the experience.
What’s Different About In-Person Work
But when we are designing an in-person experience, there are very specific factors that we have to take into consideration that we don’t necessarily have when we are working virtually with someone.
When we’re working virtually, we’re dealing with someone’s capacity for transformation: their current context, their lived experience. What skills do they have or not have? What blocks do they have or not have?
And we’re balancing the cognitive load of what can they take on in any given opportunity, what can they take on in any given moment to move themselves towards transformation?
Now when we are working with people in person, we’re now bringing in the physical body. Literal logistics: how long can a body sit? How can it walk? What does it need for food?
What does it need for movement? What does it need for bathroom breaks?
We’re bringing in a physical, semi-controlled environment depending on where you host your VIP days. What does the atmosphere feel like? How loud or quiet is it? What does the vibe look like? What does it feel like? How does it support or work against the work that you’re trying to do?
So we are layering that in addition to the work that is actually being done as part of the VIP day or VIP weekend, depending on how many days you do in your experience.
Why Structure Matters
What I want to do is walk you through how I think around structuring a weekend so that as you are thinking about whether you already offer VIP experiences and you want to shift it, or you are thinking of stepping into this, you can hear the thought process of why decisions are being made.
Because if you’ve been in my world for a while, you’ll know I’m such a big proponent that everything needs to be intentional. We don’t do anything just for kicks. The intention can be because it’s fun and it brings me joy, but we still need to be able to say why we are making a decision.
So what we want to do is avoid the trap of structuring our days or our weekends just because that’s how we’ve always seen it done.
Where it’s like: show up, meet, do a butt load of coaching all day, and then bye. And by the end of the day, someone’s brain is absolutely zonked. Ideally, that’s what we’re trying to avoid.
So what we first want to think about is: what is the intention of the experience? What is the goal that you are hoping to meet?
Now, sometimes we will get people who are like, “I just wanna come spend a day with you and we get done what we get done.” It’s great when that happens.
But more often than not, we want to have a set purpose or a set goal for the day, and think about what is actually realistic for us to achieve in the timeline.
The Two Main Reasons Clients Book VIP Weekends with Me
In my case, I often find clients book a VIP day or a weekend, which is a two-day experience. I call them weekends, even though they can happen at any point in the week. It’s just easier for copywriting.
They come to me for these experiences in two different capacities.
One is when we’ve already been doing some work together for a while, or we’re about to kick off our work together. You can get so much more done in person than you can virtually, so they’re like, “Let’s power out some stuff and meet in Paris,” or “meet in Milan,” or “come to Vancouver,” or whichever it may be.
But my favorite way, my favorite intention where clients come to me, is when we are at the big-picture visioning stage of their business. When they’re at a point where they’re in a threshold. They’ve gotten so far, they’ve accomplished so much, but they know they have somewhere else they’re stepping into.
They are ready for more. They are ready for the next evolution of their business. But it hasn’t fully come forward yet.
And so I see the VIP weekend, the goal of that, as helping someone anchor into: what is this next evolution that’s coming forward? What is the life that you’re creating, the business model that’s gonna get you there, the revenue that you want, the offer structures that you need?
Where are we going, and how does your business get to support that life?
The Arc: Vision to Architecture
So the weekends, I design them around that being a slow, gentle spiral from the big-picture vision of where we’re headed down into the details of the strategic architecture that needs to be in place to make that vision a reality.
Because often I see in-person experiences falling into the trap of being so focused on one or the other.
They either go all in on big-picture vision and you’re like, “Yay, amazing, inspired, this is wonderful,” but then you get home into your own reality and you’re like, “Wait, what am I doing again?”
Or they go so deep in the weeds of strategy and details and mapping and notes and writing that your brain burns out and you can’t actually execute on anything because you’re tapped.
So in general, I find the sweet spot is to balance both.
And so as we’re thinking about designing an in-person experience, we are always playing with: what is the energy of what we’re doing, and how can we make sure there is a nice flow?
It doesn’t feel like an abrupt shift, but it also doesn’t feel like it’s all the same all the way through.
Opening the Weekend
The weekend opens in the morning. Often, if my clients are flying in from out of town or we’re meeting somewhere fun, like I love hosting these experiences in Paris, we might meet for an informal dinner the night before.
It’s not officially part of the container, but it’s always nice if it lines up that way so we can touch base about what to expect.
But the container officially opens in the morning. I usually start mine around 10 o’clock because I’m not a morning person and I want to make sure I’m at my best.
If a client is like me and they’re also not a morning person, sometimes we’ll start a little bit later and then just end a little bit later in the day.
I invite you to work with your clock. If you are a morning person and you wanna start early, go for it. If you’re not a morning person, start later. That’s okay. There are no rules. We’re making this up.
Morning Session: Visioning
So we start around 10. The morning session, which I usually think about as being from around 10 till noon, or 10 till 12:30, is very much focused on the visioning.
Where are we headed? What do we wanna achieve? Where are you going?
What does this next evolution look like?
We start surfacing questions like: what do you wanna be known for? Who do you wanna serve?
Pulling out the threads of what is important and where we’re going.
Now, when it’s a group experience, I’m a little bit more intense around holding the structure. But when it’s one-to-one, we get to have more flexibility in how long that is.
It’s not like, “Oh, it’s noon time for lunch.” We want to make sure we’re honoring the organic flow. Sometimes it’s a bit sooner, sometimes it’s a bit later.
Environment Choices
In terms of environment, you have the choice of whether you move around or you host your VIP day in the same place.
In general, I like to switch up the environment, at the very least for meals. Especially if you’re visiting a new city or you’re bringing people to your city, this is a great opportunity to shift things around.
So in the morning, I like to choose a quiet, calm environment where I know we’re not gonna be interrupted. This can look like a hotel that has a little salon you can work in, or an Airbnb with a living area, somewhere you know this sacred visioning, vulnerable work is not going to be interrupted.
That’s usually where I start.
Lunch: Movement + Informal Conversation
Then we’ll break for lunch. It’s fun to choose a lunch spot that’s a little walk away. Not super far, but somewhere you get a little bit of movement.
You can keep the conversation flowing, but it’s a bit more informal. You can have a nice break and eat something delicious.
Obviously, if you have a theme or you have a vibe, if you’re like, “Oh, I wanna access that next-level luxury,” maybe we’re gonna eat something fancy.
Or maybe we’re like, “You know what? Let’s just nourish our bodies and get something different.”
This is where you get to infuse your personality.
Okay.
Afternoon Session: Two Chunks + Energy Management
For the afternoon session, I usually think about it in two separate chunks.
Let’s say lunch is an hour, so it’s like 12 to 1-ish. Then there’s the 1 to 2:30-ish chunk, a 90-minute chunk, and then a little bit of a break. And then there’s usually one more chunk of the day.
The way I’m breaking up the time is based off my experience facilitating programs and workshops at the corporate level, and knowing when people’s energy tends to flag.
There’s always a little bit of a dip after lunch. People are digesting. Maybe they don’t like to drink caffeine in the afternoon.
So choosing something that has a bit of energy to it is really helpful, whether that’s a topic that brings energy or whether it’s an activity.
Now, obviously, if you’re doing a two-day experience, you have the opportunity to bring something in here. This can be an opportunity if you want to do a spa or a photo shoot or something like that.
If it’s a one-day, at the very least, maybe changing up the environment or making sure there are sweet snackies or something to pull the energy up after lunch.
Afternoon Content: Pulling Threads + Mapping
So this might look like, for me, moving into the next level of: we know what the vision is, so now let’s start pulling the threads of what needs to change, what’s working, what’s not working.
What is standing in the way of you moving towards this next level that you want to step into?
Often for me, the afternoon is in the mapping, the details. It’s letting things percolate. It’s pulling threads.
This is where I give myself flexibility to feel into how things are landing for the client.
Sometimes clients need to end the day a little early because they’re like, “I’m full. I’m at capacity. Let’s bring this back up tomorrow.”
Other times they’re like, “Yeah, let’s keep going.”
So this is where you get to have flexibility to read your client’s energy.
Closing Day One
When we reach the end of the day, whether it’s the end of the experience or just a pause before the next day, I like to leave a good amount of time, at least half an hour, to wind things down.
Anchor in. Check in. How are things feeling? How are things landing?
What questions are coming up? What is their job? What is their work to do next?
For me, for my clients in between day one and day two, honestly their job is usually: go back to your hotel, go back to your Airbnb, and do absolutely nothing.
You’ve worked so hard all day. I want you to relax. I want you to celebrate. I want you to anchor in this energy of this next evolution that’s coming forward.
Because usually when we start naming what we want, it’s inevitable that those little fear gremlins come up and they’re like, “Wait, no, you can’t have that. Wait, you shouldn’t do that.” And there’s a little bit of a crunch.
Day Two: Anchoring Into the Body
Which is why on day two, I like to dedicate my second day of the weekend to: how do we anchor this into the body?
How do we make this expansion, this evolution, these changes feel so safe and so delicious, and so like, mm, this soft, fluffy robe just wrapped around you, where you’re like, yes, I can do this.
How I open day two is usually with a slightly shorter session where we’re checking in: how did things land? How did you sleep? How are you feeling? What came up after yesterday?
Often this is in the same place that I started day one, so there’s familiarity and routine. It’s like having a coffee or a matcha, a little morning treat.
Really just being a little bit more in the logistical brain of: how is this all percolating?
The In-Between Moments
In the afternoon of day two, I like to dedicate this to some sort of experience. More often than not, it’s a spa because I freaking love the spa.
Also, I think there’s something so beautiful about anchoring into everything you are shifting and changing and evolving in your business when you’re getting pampered.
Something I have noticed, both from facilitating workshops and retreats and these VIP days, is that often the biggest ahas happen in the in-between moments.
They’re not necessarily when we’re sitting in session. It’s when we’re walking to the next place. It’s when we’re sitting in a sauna just talking about things.
So giving that change in environment really helps your client be in a different headspace. It helps them get out of “this is just linear, how I always do things” mode.
So for me, when I’m designing a weekend, this spa experience hops between day one and day two, depending on the client, depending on how far along in the process they are, whether we’ve worked together or not, and what I know about them.
Sometimes it goes in the afternoon of day one so they can anchor into the vision. Sometimes it comes into day two.
Again, you can have a structure to guide your VIP experiences, but it doesn’t have to be this prescriptive thing. You’re allowed to have structure to hold you, and you’re also allowed to have flexibility because you’re human, they’re human, and the beauty of this one-to-one VIP experience is that it gets to be deeply customized.
You can trust your instincts based on what you want to accomplish with your people.
Spa Example: Holding the Container
So whether that is, in this case, I love to do a spa because there’s this incredible floating spa on the island that I live on. You can be waterfront in the ocean, going through different circuits, hot tubs, a covered lounge, an open lounge.
There are a lot of different environments you can move around, and I find that helps with creativity. It helps with the percolating of what’s shifting, what’s changing, to be like, “Oh yeah, actually, no, the more I think about it, the more I feel like this program needs to change,” or “this offer needs to come forward.”
I’ve had people ask, “Okay, but how do you get the more detailed work done if you’re at a spa and that’s where the thing is?”
Obviously, I’m at the spa too, which is great for me, but I’m still there as the coach, as the facilitator. So I’ve got my notebook. I’m the one writing things down.
Because I always say: the client gets to be in flow, in brain dump mode, and I am the one holding the container. I’m the one capturing the ideas. They don’t have to be in that.
Logistics, Decisions, and Cognitive Load
Regardless of what niche you’re in, when you’re thinking about your VIP experiences, this is where the importance of you setting rules, setting the container, and reminding them how held they are is so powerful.
So that part of their brain that’s like, “Wait, do I have to be writing this down? Wait, where are we going next? Where are we eating?” All those micro decisions we have to worry about.
The more you can take that off their plate and let them know, “Here’s the itinerary, here’s where we’re going, here’s what I’ve planned,” like you don’t have to think about a single fricking thing other than the questions I’m asking you, that allows them to relax.
That allows them to receive the experience of being held, and it frees up that cognitive space so they can be fully present for the task at hand.
Adding Experiences Intentionally
Now when it comes to adding in experiences to your VIP day, I encourage you to be very intentional.
Don’t just add something because you’ve seen someone else do it.
Just because I’m hosting part of it at a spa doesn’t mean you need to.
Another option I do, if it’s not a spa, is I’ll do a photo shoot for my clients, because I find photo shoots are a great way to anchor into brand evolution and your next step.
But this is where you get to bring in not only your personality and what’s important to you, but also what you know is going to support and facilitate the journey.
Because this is the thing that I see get lost often in VIP experiences.
We get so focused on, “Oh, we’re meeting in Paris. I need to show you Paris. I need to take you to all these restaurants. I need to do the spa and the photo shoot and the this and that.”
We get so focused on the stuff that, unless you are selling a VIP weekend of great things to happen to you in Paris, that is secondary to the transformation of working with you as a coach.
Those types of things are meant to support the transformation. They’re meant to support the anchoring of: “Okay, I want this to feel really luxurious because you’re stepping into next-level wealth,” or “I want this to feel really in your body because my work is about connecting you to your body.”
So we’re gonna do yoga, or we’re gonna go for walks, or whatever it may be.
Every single experience, every choice you make, where you eat, where you host it, the rooms you’re in, if you give a gift, the gifts you give, the way you structure it, all of that is meant to weave together to support the transformation.
So it’s important to not let yourself get distracted or overwhelmed by adding those things in when really some of the most powerful VIP days I have facilitated have been me and my client in a room, powering stuff out.
We went out somewhere for lunch, and then I was like, “I’ve got this planned. Do you want to go do this?”
And they’re like, “No, I’m good. Let’s just get back in the room.”
And I’m like, “Okay, sweet.”
All of that fun stuff adds to the experience. It doesn’t define the experience.
Final Check-In: Cognitive, Physical, Environmental
One of the final things I will say as you are mapping out your VIP day or your VIP weekend is: as you’re going through it, be checking in on those levels.
Check in on a cognitive level. How hard is their brain working, and when are they gonna need a break?
When are we gonna need a change in environment? When are they gonna need a snack? When are they gonna need to move their body to give their brain space to process and integrate?
How are you taking into consideration their physical needs? Snacks, movement, water, hydration, physical comfort of where they’re sitting and how you’re working.
How are you taking into consideration the vibes and the environment of the experience, and how that supports the transformation?
The aesthetics, the activities, the locations you’re choosing to eat at, all of those pieces.
And how are you facilitating and structuring and holding that container, and holding yourself in that container, resourcing yourself around that so your clients can feel fully relaxed and able to receive.
Closing
I love facilitating VIP days, and I love helping people plan VIP days.
So if you are listening and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I want in on this. I wanna hang out with Emily in Paris, and maybe we have a VIP day to plan your VIP day,” who knows? It can get really meta.
Slide into my DM, send me a message on Instagram, or send me an email.
I would love to hear your vision for the perfect VIP day.
✨ Let’s keep the conversation going
I’d love to hear what stood out for you in this episode - feel free to send me a DM on Instagram @emily.mwalker (it's my fav place to hang out!)
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