**405 Behind the Scenes of Our Biggest Event Ever: What Worked, What Flopped, and What's Next for Wave**

**Episode 405:** Rain or Shine Podcast
**Hosts:** Kelsey Reidl and Emily Elliot, Founders of **WAVE | Events + Mastermind for Female Entrepreneurs**

80 Women, One Room, and Everything We Learned: A Wave Event Debrief

Episode 405: Rain or Shine Podcast
Hosts: Kelsey Reidl and Emily Elliot, Founders of WAVE | Events + Mastermind for Female Entrepreneurs

Quick Summary

Fresh off their biggest event yet — an 80-woman gathering that left attendees floating out of the venue — Kelsey and Em sit down for an honest, behind-the-scenes debrief. From what went wrong to what made it magical, they share the real story of growing Wave Live Events with heart and intention.

In This Episode

How to resource yourself (and your household) in the week before a big event
The mindset shift that kept them grounded when things went sideways
The biggest level-ups from past events — including finally taking up space on their own stage
Why their event feels different from every other women's networking event
Funny behind-the-scenes moments: construction, agenda glitches, and rolling with it
How their kids stuffed every swag bag — and what that means about building a business
Post-event processing: the crash, the recovery, and the lessons carried forward
What's coming next for Wave: micro events, new cities, and protecting the community's soul

Watch The Youtube Video

Key Takeaways

Protect your energy before a big event — Have an honest conversation with your support system early. Ask for help before you desperately need it.
Presence over perfection — The most valuable thing you bring to your event is your energetic presence, not a flawless run-of-show.
Asking for help is a level-up, not a weakness — Delegating details lets you zoom out, see the big picture, and show up better.
To teach women to take up space, you have to take up space yourself — Stop hiding behind other people's stages. Your community wants to hear from you.
Heart-centered beats ego-forward every time — Five deep connections at an event are worth more than 45 business cards you'll never remember.

Memorable Quotes

"There is no perfect time for anything. You just have to do it."
"If we're teaching other women to take up more space, we need to be taking up more space ourselves."
"You leave some events feeling more disconnected than when you arrived — even in a room of a hundred people. We never want Wave to be that."

Resources & References Mentioned

Kelsey’s Instagram: @KelseyReidl
Kelsey’s Website: KelseyReidl.com
Emily's Instagram: @itsemilyelliot
Wave for Women Instagram: @waveforwomen
Wave Live Events — two signature events per year + upcoming micro/pop-up events
Locations coming: Ontario towns, Ottawa, BC, Prince Edward County

About Your Hosts

Emily is a mindset coach and co-founder of Wave for Women, passionate about helping female entrepreneurs feel seen, confident, and connected. Kelsey brings an events background and a natural gift for gathering people, building rooms where women can go deep, do business together, and walk away transformed.

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CLEANED & EDITED TRANSCRIPT
Em: So this is a very fun episode because we are about four or five days out from our biggest Wave event ever. I think I'm still processing it — wow, that was an insane day on Friday, and I haven't quite slowed down yet to really absorb all the wonderful feelings and emotions from having 80 women in a room.
So how are you feeling, Kelsey?
Kelsey: Oh my goodness. The word I used was — I felt like I was floating out of the venue. When you know that you're doing meaningful work in the world, all those little details and late-night tasks make it so worth it when you see people laughing, smiling. I think I even saw some tears. There's just a massive need right now for connection, especially among female entrepreneurs. So to bring that to life for 80 women was so, so special.
Em: It's so funny you say that — because you and I, for months leading up to this, it was emails, text messages, projects with checklists. Sometimes it just feels like a mountain of tasks to get through. But that's such a reminder that when you pour your heart into anything, yes, it feels like hard work — but when you finally get to see the fruits of that labor, it reminds you why you do the work that you do.
Not every day is glamorous. Not every day is being at an event dressed up with 80 amazing women. There were hard times leading up, but it's truly all worth it. And that's why it's so important to stay connected to the vision — because otherwise you're just doing tasks every day. But those tasks are what it takes to build an incredible experience.
Kelsey: Yes! You and I talk about that a lot — how you have to stay anchored in your why when the craziness of life and entrepreneurship hits. It's like, did I sign up to edit an agenda seven times? No. Did I sign up to leave an impact with women and make them feel seen, confident, and good again? Yes. And that comes with agenda preparation.
So I think you and I are just going to ask each other questions today, because some of the most interesting podcasts to listen to are the post-event debriefs — the real talk about what actually happened behind the scenes, what went wrong, what went right. So many of our listeners host events or want to host events, and hopefully this can be insightful for them.
Okay, let's kick off, Kelsey. How did you resource yourself leading up to such a big day?
Kelsey: This is such a good question, looking back retroactively. There were so many areas — especially in the seven days leading up — where I dropped the ball on going to the gym, making great meals, getting to bed at a reasonable hour. But having planned events before, I know that as the date approaches, things get demanding.
The Sunday before the event, my husband and I had a longer conversation — I said, "Hey, I'm probably not going to be around much this week." I asked for help with school drop-offs and pickups, with walking our dog. I gave myself permission to not be super mom that week because I was in full event-planning mode.
I'd highly recommend this to anyone who has a life partner who can step in: have a real, honest conversation ahead of time about what you won't be able to carry that week, and ask for their help. Go into the week with a plan so you can focus your full energy on the event.
The other thing that really supported me was mindset work around this idea: showing up present on the day is more important than having everything go perfectly. In the days leading up, I could see that some things were going to go sideways — because we're not perfect event planners. We're mamas, we run businesses, we have a lot going on. So I coached myself into accepting that, yeah, some things would need to be workshopped on the day — and that was okay.
Nothing was life or death. And reminding yourself of that is one of the best ways to resource yourself going into event week. You're there to have fun.
Em: I love that you took the pressure off — it's like your own wedding day. If you're so caught up in it being perfect, you're going to miss out on the best moments. You're there for the people. Nobody notices the tiny typo on a form.
Actually, I just realized there's a typo in our Wave Instagram bio that we updated the week before the event. Hopefully by the time this airs, that'll be fixed. But hey — not life or death!
Okay, next question. We've continued to grow these events from 10 women to 30, to 50, to 70, to 80. What were some of the major level-ups from this event compared to past events?
Kelsey: Our biggest uplevel was that we asked for more help. We might have even second-guessed it for a second — like, did we invite too many cooks in the kitchen? But when we arrived and saw things being set up and moving without our direct hands on every detail, we could exhale and zoom out to see the big picture again. I think that was a huge one — and I think we both felt that.
I'm also proud of us because this time, we decided to showcase ourselves. Before, we tended to hang back and let other people take the stage. But our community encouraged us — people said, "We want to hear from you guys." So this time, we did pre-submitted questions: What would you love to know about marketing and mindset? And we got up on that stage and spoke to our zones of genius — imposter syndrome, not feeling like enough, how to hold it all together.
If we're teaching other women to take up more space, we need to be taking up more space ourselves.
Em: And one more thing I noticed — as people walked into the room, you could see they recognized how much we'd grown. The branding and touch points, the vendor tables, the balloons, the activations with the Wave branding. A few people said, "Wow, you guys have really grown this." It was a cool reminder to put intention into showcasing the brand we've built and not being so humble that we shrink it down to a tiny logo on a piece of paper.
Kelsey: So true. Okay, Em — did you ever have a moment of thinking, "Who am I to host these events?"
Em: Honestly, no — and I think this will be different for everyone. I've always loved to gather people. Whether that's five girlfriends on my back deck with coffee and muffins, or bringing together people around a shared interest. Over time I've noticed that some people really don't want to open their home or hobbies to gathering — and then there are those of us who think, how cool would it be if we all got together?
Even though I never imagined it growing to 80 women, as we started with smaller events and I saw that not many people actually want to do the organizational work of this — it clicked that this was a gift I had. People at the event kept saying, "How did you do this? I could never." And I'm like — you're right, you wouldn't want to. Just like I wouldn't want to do many of the amazing things you pour yourself into.
When you're dialed into your natural gifts, there's an ease that shows up. And I think we can all study our own patterns and past experiences for clues. Maybe you loved being a barista because you're naturally gifted at communication. Maybe you keep organizing the group hangouts because gathering people is your thing. Never discount those nudges.
Em: Okay — what were some of your highlights from the event, either personally or things you heard from attendees?
Kelsey: The biggest highlight for me was the moment when women felt truly seen. So often, we hide behind our computers — we get admin done, we deliver the coaching call, we cook dinner, we go to bed. And we don't always have a mirror held up that reflects back just how much of an impact we're making.
In the breakout rooms, you could see these aha moments — someone saying, you created that? And it's this return to a sense of wonder. When we're in the daily hustle, our work can feel robotic or detached. But having women show up, be seen, and have their genius amplified? That's the best feeling in the world. Eyes lighting up. A fresh perspective on someone's business. That was my highlight.
Em: My highlight was hearing over and over again that there's just a different feeling at our events. We've all been to events where we leave on top of the world — and events where we leave feeling more disconnected than when we arrived, even though we were in a room of a hundred people and didn't make one real connection.
From the very beginning of Wave, it was never about us being the authority on a stage speaking down at people. It was about sitting shoulder to shoulder with women, being genuine, sharing highs and lows, doing business with each other — without that forced, "give me your business card" networking vibe.
As we've grown, we've really tried to maintain that intimacy we had with 10 women. We were worried: how do you grow but keep the soul? And hearing that women walked away with 20 deep connections, that the breakout groups helped introverts open up and breathe — that meant everything. We even saw a business partnership come out of it: two women who decided to launch a product together right then and there.
The feedback I heard most was, "I've never been to anything like this." There's an ego-forward approach to events, and then there's heart-centered. If you leave with 45 business cards you'll never remember, what did you really gain? Versus leaving with five deep connections you'll never forget.
Kelsey: Okay — did anything go wrong? Any funny stories?
Em: The most glaringly obvious one: about a month before the event, I had a venue meeting and they mentioned the entire town would be under construction on the day of our event. I asked them to re-read the date. I asked if they could call the city and delay the construction. Obviously — there's nothing you can do! We had to laugh that one off.
But I actually spun it in my mind: now more than ever, we need to support these small businesses because nobody can even access them. So it became a beautiful blessing to bring such a supportive group of women to Paris, Ontario.
As for things that went wrong in the event itself — honestly, they were tiny. We had an agenda glitch where one of our speakers thought she was speaking at a different time due to an email I sent. In that moment, we could have panicked, over-apologized, and paused all programming. Instead, we just rolled with it. We said, "Oops, we're going to take 22 seconds to get back on track." And people said that made us seem so authentic and real. Because we were — we had no other option!
Kelsey: It's all about perspective. We saw the construction as a catastrophe, and the next morning our kids were running outside saying, "Yay! Let's go look at the machines!" We could all take a lesson from kids sometimes.
Em: Oh — and speaking of kids. One of my favorite moments was at the very end when our kids ran into the venue with Blake and Dave. Seeing them take in everything we had built — running on the balcony, looking at the water, touching the balloons. That was so special.
I read something this week that really struck me: a child asking, "Mom, am I going to hold back your business because you had me?" And the mom replies, "No, honey. I'm going to grow my dreams with you beside me."
What people might not know is that our kids — Koa and Summer — hand-stuffed every single swag bag. They put in the kombucha, the candle, all of it. And they took so much pride in that. That's the cool angle here: you grow your dreams as you grow your children.
Kelsey: That might make me cry. That's so beautiful. We get caught up in thinking we need to keep everything separate — don't mix the kids with the business. But no, we want them to see Mama in action. That's the most magical part.
Em: Okay, last question — now that we're five days out, do you have any post-event crash? Are you still on a high?
Kelsey: I definitely crash. I need a day to just be alone in my own body, processing all of those beautiful interactions. And this time, you and I were both sick in the week before the event. We had recovered by Friday, thankfully, but there was this existential thought: there is no perfect time for anything. You just have to do it. You have to do the hard days and remind yourself it's temporary.
It was the first time we'd both been sick at the same time heading into an event — and we figured it out. And I think that's the bigger lesson. You will handle it.
Em: Any mama entrepreneur or mom in general is laughing right now — those bugs just appear out of nowhere no matter how many times you wash your hands. But you're right: there's no perfect time, and you still have to live your life. We navigate the sleepless nights, the sickness — and we made it to the other side.
Okay — final question. What changes can people expect at future Wave events?
Kelsey: We're excited to start playing with more pop-up micro events in between our bigger ones. We're pretty committed to keeping our two large events per year, but we've heard that these smaller community moments are so special too. So people can expect more invitations to cool towns around Ontario to come hang out with their Wave besties.
And the lesson we're carrying forward is to keep finding ways to make it feel intimate — accessible for both introverts and extroverts — and to never lose the magic of what Wave is: a grounded, down-to-earth, smart, ambitious community of women. We will protect that culture at all costs, even if that means staying at 80 women forever.
Em: And I just love thinking about the potential — all the communities out there we haven't even met yet. If we get to impact a million female entrepreneurs by putting a microphone to what they do and saying, "Look at this incredible woman," that is the biggest honor of all time.
Whether it's Prince Edward County, Ottawa, or BC — it is just an honor, privilege, and joy to amplify the stories of the amazing women running amazing businesses. And I'm so grateful to be building this with you.
Kelsey: I envision us in a Wave RV just dropping into cities across Canada — "You're a woman in business? Come on in!" Dosing people with swag and love and amplifying their work.
Em: As long as there's a coffee barista portion.
Kelsey: Absolutely essential.
Em: Stay tuned to our Wave for Women Instagram for all the details on what's coming up. We can't wait to invite you to the next Wave activation. Thanks for being here!

405 Behind the Scenes of Our Biggest Event Ever: What Worked, What Flopped, and What's Next for Wave