Is Create & Cultivate Worth It? A First-Timer’s Honest Review and Tips

Have you ever had to stay off of Instagram for a few days because the FOMO was so real? That’s how I felt when the Create & Cultivate Festival happened in July 2025. It looked like everyone but me was there, and all the female founders were having the BEST time. How could they not?! The lineup featured incredible CEOs and leaders, plus the musical act was Doechii! 

I knew that no matter what I had to make it to the festival this year; I put it on my vision board. And the great news is that I got to Create and Cultivate 2026 this past weekend in LA! But with tickets ranging from $400 - $1,700 next year, is Create and Cultivate worth it?

The conversation has been buzzing on Threads and I know a lot of people have questions. So I wanted to share my Create and Cultivate review as a first-time attendee of the world’s largest festival for women in business. 

If you’re thinking about going to the event, I’ll share my Create and Cultivate tips so that you can have the best experience. I’ll also let you know whether or not I’d go to Create and Cultivate 2027, or if I’d skip and go to a different women in business conference instead.

What is Create & Cultivate?

Create & Cultivate Festival is the world’s largest festival for women in business, bringing together founders, creators, investors and leaders for two days of keynotes, workshops and networking. The 2026 event happened at The Beehive in Los Angeles and had over 4,000 attendees. 

Is Create & Cultivate worth it?

Let’s get straight to the point: YES. The Create & Cultivate Festival is 100% worth it. I absolutely got an incredible amount of value from attending, and will be upgrading my experience from General Admission to a Golden Ticket in 2027. (I’ll break down the ticket tiers later.) 

The biggest value comes from going into the event with a clear intention, setting yourself up for success well before the event begins, and leaving a bit of space for magic.

As the co-founder of Pearl Spark Pages, a confidence-building stationery brand for women entrepreneurs, I wanted to connect with other CPG founders, learn from women further ahead of me, and leave with clear next steps in my business. 

And OBVIOUSLY party to Cardi B. 

A few weeks ahead of the festival, Create & Cultivate hosted a giveaway to win a pair for free tickets and I was one of the lucky winners! So full disclosure, I had a comped ticket, but I’ve never been asked to review anything, and their team has no idea about (or influence on) this blog post that I’ve written.

Let’s break down the background on Create & Cultivate, how to prep for the event, what went well, what didn’t, and how to make the most of your experience.

Background

Create & Cultivate is led by founder Jaclyn Johnson and CEO Marina Middleton. TLDR: Jaclyn sold the company to private equity in 2021 for $22 million. 

At the end of 2023, she and Marina bought the company back together for an undisclosed amount. The next year, they raised VC funds to back the company’s expansion.

The first iteration of the conference was in 2011 with 50 attendees and now in 2026 has grown to over 4,000 attendees. 

Pre-event: set yourself up for success

Connect App

A few weeks before the event happens, Create & Cultivate launches their Connect app for attendees to build out their personal profile, upload an intro video, and select the types of women they’d like to meet. 

Then the AI-powered matchmaking begins!

The app curates the perfect people for you to connect with while at the Festival and you can send DMs, schedule 15-minute 1:1 meetings in the Connect Garden, and go into the weekend knowing exactly who you’ll network with intentionally.

(I definitely want to acknowledge the Create & Cultivate team for really listening to the community! On Day 1 the table numbers in the Connect Garden were scattered, but by Day 2 you better believe the tables were in order with their numbers glued down so there wouldn’t be any confusion.)

I’ve never been to a female founder conference that has something this highly specialized. I scheduled one-on-ones with CEOs, advisors, exited CPG founders, marketers, other journal girls, and investors. 

Thanks to booking these meetings in advance, while at the event I had nine intentional meetings that have dialled in my Q4 strategy, clarified my Q1 2027 strategy, created collaboration partners for Q1 and Q2, and connected me with creators who can share our hero product, the Female Founders Journal, with their audiences.

(Were you at the festival? We’re giving away a Female Founders Journal to one attendee this Friday, September 25th. Click here to enter!) 

Not even getting into the keynotes or panels, just from setting up meetings before the event, I walked away with four tangible things to put into practice to keep growing our audience and reaching women entrepreneurs who want to feel confident while building their business. That alone was worth its weight in gold.

What went really well

Keynotes

Every year the festival has an A+ lineup of speakers. As soon as Emma Grede was announced as a keynote a few months ago, I knew I had to make it to the event. If you’re not already familiar with her, Emma is the CEO of Good American, founding partner of Skims, host of the Aspire with Emma Grede podcast, and the author of Start with Yourself.

She’s got a long list of accomplishments! 

She’s the absolute number one business woman I look up to and like a kid at a Taylor Swift concert, I near cried when she came out. 

Hearing her speak, despite the mic cutting in and out (we’ll get to that later), was the absolute highlight of the event for me.

Other event keynotes included Halle Berry, Lori Harvey and Alix Earle although admittedly I was bopping about the grounds when their talks happened.

Panels

Something cool about the festival is that it’s built with different tracks depending on your interest. A few of the tracks you could choose from included:

• Founder

• Creator

• Corporate girlie

• Investor

• Student

I attended panels for the founder, investor, and creator tracks and got insight on negotiation strategies, understanding how brands hire creators, how to turn followers into fanatics and more. Beyond learning from the speakers and panelists, in every single session I’d introduce myself to the person next to me and end up making a new friend.

The panels were affirming and confirmed my next steps. 

It may also be worth noting that since there are so many events happening at the same time, attendees can order recordings of the sessions so it’s no big deal to miss something live because you can access the video replay later.

Closing concert

Fun fact: the Friday that I flew from Toronto from LA for the festival was the day of my five-year wedding anniversary. Which means five years prior, I was rapping WAP on the dance floor while my new brother-in-law escorted his 11 year-old daughter out. Great impression as a new member of the family.

So it was only fitting that five years later I’m rapping WAP in-person at a Cardi B show.

Cardi dropped a FIRE 🔥30-minute set playing all the hits. Her set went flawlessly, the energy was high, and the fact that seeing her live was a business expense was chef’s kiss.

Another shout out to the responsiveness of the Create & Cultivate team: in theory it was a fun idea to have clear confetti-filled beach balls bouncing through the crowd to hype the audience up before the concert, but in actuality, no. It was my worst nightmare from grade school volleyball with random balls flying at me and having to keep my arms up in self-defense. Apparently a lot of the crowd felt the same way. I appreciated how quickly the team pivoted to get the beach balls out of the crowd.

Random encounters

This was the type of space where you just felt like everyone was your friend. 

There were four ticket tiers to the event: General Admission and Student (discounted GA), VIP, and Supper Club.

VIP got priority RSVP for events with limited space, early line access, a dedicated space and a special gift bag.

Supper Club was the VIP ticket plus a private dinner the Thursday evening before the event. 

All of my friends were VIP so I was just hanging out solo in the GA line and within five minutes I made friends with the six nearest girls around me and we were trading stories, shooting content, fanning each other, making sure everyone had water, it was an automatically safe space.

That theme continued throughout the weekend. If I got up from my seat for a second, I could trust that the woman next to me would keep an eye on my bag (even though she didn’t need to). At one point after grabbing a beverage I poured out personal confessions to a woman I’d just met that should have required an NDA.

There was so much magic in those unscheduled moments and opportunities to say something as simple as “Hi, I’m Lisa. What’s your name?” to open the doors to new conversations.

Opportunities & observations

The internet has been on fire since the event. Not everyone had a great time like I did. There are some observations I wanted to share, as well as opportunities for improvement for 2027.

Add a Chill Space

There are so many activations, experiences, and talks happening at the same time that I can see where it can be overwhelming for someone. And of course it’s LA hot in the sun. Creating a chill space / anti-stimulation corner for people to take a break in, decompress, and reset could help attendees with a refresher before they power through the rest of the day.

Food

Can’t relate to this one. 

I purposely skipped breakfast on Day 1 in favour of scoping the ground and getting a good seat for the event kick-off. Not eating that morning was my decision. I got lunch both days easily. There were wraps and salads, beverages everywhere, and I was actually impressed with how healthy the meals were. 

I ate well. Others did not.

While I can’t relate, I can have compassion for those who were disappointed that the food ran out, multiple times. I wouldn’t have been the happiest either. Absolutely it’s annoying to have an event promise you food and then run out. You could see the team doing whatever they could to get food on site ASAP. 

But I can also tell who the Start with Yourself girlies were. They ordered UberEats, they had Postmates delivered. They ate a huge breakfast before Day 2 because they knew to prepare themselves after Day 1. They brought snacks.

A dating coach once asked me the best question: would you rather be right or happy? I’ll drop the ego and pick happy every day of the week. So did the women who just handled it and made sure they got fed either way.

Interview Questions

Honestly, I only have one (strong) criticism of the questioning route.

I am the biggest Emma Grede fan. I watch her YouTube channel religiously, love her book Start with Yourself, and enjoy her podcast. She loves to talk seriously about all things money, business, personal responsibility and leadership. She is a brilliant marketer, inspirational CEO, and has intentionally designed her life.

I can’t put words into her mouth, but based on everything of hers that I’ve consumed, one thing she despises is being asked any question that wouldn’t be asked of her husband, Jens Grede (CEO of Skims). He always gets asked serious business questions, rarely any fluffy ones.

So when Emma was asked “What’s your skincare routine?!” I just died of second-hand embarrassment. And I can’t help but wonder if that contributed to why she stood up abruptly and wrapped up her interview seven minutes earlier than scheduled. 

When one of the most prominent women CEOs is sitting on a stage inspiring 4,000 women leaders, there are better questions to ask than if she does Botox or Sculptra.

Location

While the event venue, The Beehive, was serviceable for the festival, the surrounding neighbourhood was absolutely not. I’m being super-Canadian and trying my best to be polite when describing the area. I felt safe inside the walls of the event, but once I walked outside it was phone down, heads up and straight into the rideshare. 

After the Cardi B concert I was shocked to book an Uber that hadn’t yet been hit with surge pricing, but then I realized I’d need to walk a block to the CVS to catch it. I genuinely spent two minutes debating if I should chance it and take the walk, or if I’d be better off letting the rate skyrocket but get picked up directly at the venue. Ultimately, I called my mom, told her to pray, then called my husband and asked him to keep an eye on my location tracking.

Having 4,000 women in a sketchy neighbourhood isn’t the move and I hope that next year the event is in a different spot. 

Tech Challenges

The mics glitched during two of the keynotes I attended: Emma Grede and Olandria. It was less than ideal. Later on TikTok, Marina shared that Cardi B’s team had a specific way of setting up the audio for the concert and there were some issues with how that integrated with the event team’s AV equipment.

Like I said, not ideal. But everyone on stage did their best to work with it. I looked at it through the lens of the game of ‘would you rather.' Would you rather the mics went in and out during a few sessions, or in the middle of a concert? Sure, neither is best, but imagine how the vibe would have just crashed if the mics went in and out during Cardi’s set? 

I choose a flawless musical set. Easy. The inevitable hiccup will happen somewhere. Let’s focus on gratitude for where it did not happen.

Venture backing changes everything

While I was walking around the campus, I couldn’t help but notice a few out-of-place men in suits. My immediate thought was ‘Ahhh these must be the VCs wanting to see where their money’s at.’ The reality is Create & Cultivate is now a venture-backed company and when VC gets in the game, everything changes. 

Venture capital values scale. And speed. Its priority isn’t people. Last year’s event had 2,000 attendees. This year’s event had 4,000 attendees. Guess what the 2027 website says for next year? Six thousand attendees. 

Am I excited to see the event balloon up by another 2,000 next year? Nope. 

Do I understand that there’s a reality to balance between keeping your attendees happy and your investors happy? Yes. 

Especially after the hiccups with the 2026 event, I’m sure the Create & Cultivate team will have an iron-clad plan in place to accommodate the event’s next stage of growth. 

A lot of women in business talk about wanting to play a big game in business and that’s exactly what Jaclyn and Marina are doing. They’re setting an incredible example for the rest of us. So I’m excited to see them be brave, raise the bar, and show women what’s possible, even if the event size isn’t tailored to my personal preference.

Ultimately, yes, there were hiccups at the event and some things did go wrong. And in the grand scheme of things, 90% of things went right. Pulling off an event for 4,000 women is no easy feat. God knows I’d forget to order power or something super basic like that. 

So I tip my hat off to Marina, Jaclyn and their entire Festival team for all the effort and planning they put into creating a standout weekend for the attendees.

Five tips for first-time attendees

One of the reasons I think I had a better experience than others is that I have friends who’ve been to this event before. And they gave me some tips in advance that helped my experience so I’ll pass those along to you.

1. Be early

Arrive on site 30 minutes before admission for your ticket category opens. GA ticket holders entered at 9:30 so I arrived at 9:00 and was fully checked in by about 10:40. 

Yes, I was in line for over 90 minutes. There are 4,000 people checking in. Of course it’s not going to be a five-minute wait.

I heard that the people who arrived on time at 9:30 missed the opening kick-off, so set yourself up to win by arriving early.

2. Bring the essentials

Stack with your bag with the essentials to get you through the day: 

• Deodorant

• Hand sanitizer

• Phone charger

• Portable fan

• Makeup for touchups (definitely learned that after melting on Day 1)

• Snacks

• Sunscreen

• Tripod (this is such an underrated accessory to bring for capturing content, makes it super easy to carry your phone too)

Here’s what not to bring:

• Laptop

• Car (The number of people I’ve seen complain about a lack of parking is wild, especially when there were multiple emails making it clear there was no on-site parking available.)

And depending on their sponsor lineup next year, you may not even need to bring backup shoes, I love that Archie’s Footwear was on site giving out free flip flops all day!

Pro-tip: make your phone’s lockscreen a scannable QR code pointing to wherever destination you want to send people to. It makes it easy to connect without fumbling!

3. Define event success in advance

A lot of people go into events with no plan and just wing it. Getting clear on how to make the most of a female founder conference in advance will allow you to reverse-engineer your successful outcome.

Whether that’s what you want to learn, who you want to meet, or the collaborative outcomes, it’s easier to get what you want from an event when you’re clear on what that is. 

I know some women would love support with confidently showing up and standing out in a sea of 4,000 women so I always share my friend Britney Glass’ charm school for business, The EnSuite. She’s great at helping event attendees get clear on how they show up, work the room and make the most out of an event like this.

4. Do an intro video on the app

Set up the front-facing camera and do an intro video on the app. It’s an easy way to stand out (I wonder if as many as 100 out of 4,000 attendees made an intro video!) and have people reach out to book meetings with you.

I spotted so many people around the event from their intro videos!

5. Wear light fabrics

I do NOT regret my Day 1 outfit. The constructed blazer dress that I wore belted at the waist was gorgeous. I was also melting six minutes into waiting in line for admission.

The next day I swapped the original outfit I’d planned instead for a breezy crepe fabric two-piece set. I was much happier that day!

Definitely check in with the weather app and make fashion choices that your 5:00 p.m. self will be grateful for.

Who should go to Create & Cultivate?

If you’re an ambitious woman building a business, a creative practice or who wants to uplevel her career, you’ll undoubtedly grow and create meaningful connections at the festival.

I’m always checking out the top events for female founders and this one will be a staple on my annual list.

The weekend was full of female founders, executives, leaders, creatives, entrepreneurs, women climbing the corporate ladder and ambitious students. I met women at all ages and stages. 

Bonus points if you’re a nice person, self-aware, believe in personal responsibility, and are focused on what’s important at the event - then you’ll absolutely thrive.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is Create & Cultivate 2027?

Create and Cultivate 2027 will happen on September 26 & 27, 2027 in Los Angeles, CA. The exact location has not yet been announced.

Can you go to Create & Cultivate alone?

Absolutely! 

Everyone I met was receptive and friendly. So many people attend on their own. I invite you to be brave, turn to a random woman next to you and say the same line I did: “Hi, I’m Lisa. What’s your name?” And let unexpected magic flow from there.

Brittney Megann and Lauren from Socials & Stilettos

I have to say though, I’m SO glad I’m a member of The Entreprenista League (disclosing that’s an affiliate link), a membership community for women founders. Weeks before the event happened we started a WhatsApp thread of more than 50 of us, all coordinating hotels, outfits, meetups and dinners for the weekend. It was nice to have a built-in group of friends from the jump.

Is the VIP ticket worth it?

Based on what I heard from my friends who had VIP tickets (I had GA), we both had similar experiences. I made it through the lines around the same time as them, I sat all of three rows behind their reserved seating and there was just one event area that I couldn’t access without the VIP lanyard.

So personally, I wouldn’t pay for the VIP ticket. 

However, where I see the added value is going one more ticket tier up and getting a Golden Ticket to get access to the Supper Club dinner that’s limited to 100 women. A few of my friends were at the dinner and shared that as long as you don’t sit with someone you already know, you’re sure to get value and create deeper new connections from being in a smaller setting sharing a family-style meal.

A Note on Kindness

The easiest thing ever is to sit back and criticize people who are trying to do their best. It’s also easy to be a keyboard warrior, thinking that there isn’t anyone on the other end who’s going to experience real ramifications from unnecessary vitriol online.

We encourage women to put themselves out there, to try and to take risks. But if they aren’t the absolute pinnacle of perfection, they get unnecessarily torn down. Even by people who have absolutely nothing to do with the event which is the most “I’m the drama” thing ever. (Needed to close this out with one more Cardi B reference.)

Everyone has a right to their experience, whether good or bad, and there’s a way to share it with grace and kindness.

What people may not know is that six years ago, Marina, CEO of Create & Cultivate, was just like us attendees - sitting in the audience. She took a bet on herself, sent founder Jaclyn a DM and fast-forward now she’s the CEO of a multi-million dollar company, doing things she never dreamed of. Talk about an inspiration for all of us who are sitting in the crowd and can see ourselves playing a bigger game.

Marina: thank you for everything you did and all the hard work you and your team poured into this event. I can’t wait to come back next year and I’m so grateful to have been gifted a ticket this year. You’re an absolute inspiration.

If you’re planning on attending Create & Cultivate Festival 2027, as of writing this early bird tickets have just been released. Click here to get yours.

And if you’ve ever put yourself out there bravely to try something but need a reminder to celebrate your wins big and small, download a free 7-day preview of the Female Founders Journal here.