What Makes a Gathering Stay With Us

I had the privilege of attending Soulstice 2026 this year. I hadn’t been to the previous gathering, but after seeing the photographs, videos and stories the host had shared from last year, I was genuinely curious to see what she had in store this time.

What struck me fairly quickly was that Soulstice wasn’t really about any one activity.

It was about the women in the room.

Some were meeting for the first time. Others had attended Soulstice before and were looking forward to catching up.

Around me were entrepreneurs, investors, executives, creatives, business owners and change-makers. But for the evening, titles seemed much less important than simply having the space to talk, laugh, experience something different and enjoy being together.

And woven throughout that gathering were live music, food and drink, wellness experiences, art and independent businesses.

They gave people more ways to experience it.

The intention of the hosts was visible in how the evening unfolded.

People weren’t being pushed through a packed schedule. There was room to move around, stay in a conversation, listen to music, discover something, participate in a wellness experience, or simply enjoy being there.

That made me think about a useful question for anyone bringing people together:

How do you want people to feel while they are there?

Once that is clear, everything else like the music, food, art, activities, even the businesses or practitioners you invite, can either support that feeling or distract from it.

Many of those elements gave people something natural to gather around.

Music changed the energy of the space. A tasting gave people something to react to together. Art caught someone’s eye. Wellness experiences created moments of participation. Food and drinks gave people somewhere to linger.

One thing that stood out was that the businesses didn’t feel randomly inserted into the evening.

One of the folks I spoke to described that distinction afterward as:

That line stayed with me because it shifts the question for a host.

Instead of: How many things can we add?

Perhaps the better question is: Does this add something to how I want people to experience the gathering?

When the fit feels natural, guests encounter the business differently too. There is more room for curiosity, for conversation, and for understanding the person behind what they are seeing or tasting.

Instead of only “What are you selling?”, there is more room for “What is this?”, “Why did you create it?” or “Tell me more.”

I noticed something new at the Om Mamah table and asked Aparna Subbaraya about it. She had brought Ayurvedic self-care rituals to the evening and created a ritual mocktail inspired by ingredients in her hair serum. Talk about being food grade!

The drink became an unexpected conversation starter.

Guests became curious enough that some asked whether the tea bags themselves were available to buy.

I loved that moment because people weren’t simply looking at a finished product.

They were experiencing an idea around it.

Artist Angela Lin contributed to Soulstice in yet another way. She created an original Soulstice postcard as a keepsake for guests.

It became part of how the experience could be remembered. That opens up many possibilities for how artists, makers and other creative people can contribute to gatherings. Sometimes it is through something guests experience in the moment. Sometimes it is through something they carry home afterward.

For all the music, art, food and wellness woven through the evening, what stayed with me most was how naturally people connected with one another. Some women were meeting for the first time, while others were returning after last year’s event and were genuinely happy to see familiar faces again.

Introductions turned into longer conversations, founders got to talk about what they were building, and people lingered because they were enjoying themselves rather than because they felt they were supposed to network.

And perhaps that’s part of why it worked.

There was plenty of networking happening, but it never felt like a networking event. The music, tastings, art, wellness experiences and businesses around the room gave people other ways into a conversation. You could start by asking about something you had just tasted, an artist’s work, a product you were curious about, or the music playing nearby, and let the conversation go wherever it went.

For returning guests, there was also a sense of continuity. They weren’t simply coming back to the same event format; they were coming back to people and conversations they remembered from the year before. That made Soulstice feel less like a one-off evening and more like a gathering that was beginning to build its own history.

And I think that is part of what makes people want to return to experiences like this. The experiences around an event help make it memorable, but often who we met and how we felt around them are what make us want to return.

This event also made me think about how many different forms this idea could take.

The format can change completely. The question remains remarkably similar

This event was the gathering and vision of the mindful hosts that brought us together. I was grateful to experience it firsthand and, through What’s Local, to recommend and introduce a few independent businesses and an artist who ultimately became part of the evening.

It reinforced something we want to keep exploring:

There is so much creativity already around us be it through musicians, artists, makers, food founders, wellness practitioners and people creating interesting experiences.

The opportunity isn’t simply to give them somewhere to appear.

It is to recognize when what they do can genuinely add something to the experience a host is already trying to create.

And that always starts with the people in the room.