Will Anybody Come to My Party?

What selling out CounselCon early bird in 48 hours taught me about trust, in-person events and the fear of pressing send.

There is a particular feeling that arrives the second you press send on a launch email.

It is the same one you might have had at six or seven, handing party invitations around the classroom and then lying awake wondering if anybody would actually come.

I felt it again at 9am this past Saturday when CounselCon 2027 early bird tickets opened to the waitlist, despite being a grown woman with fifteen years in the legal profession behind me and a business I have been building in public for over a year now.

The weekend it landed

I had planned for early bird to run for a month. Instead, it sold out within 48 hours, before I had announced a single speaker or published an agenda.

I have extended it by another 48 hours to give the rest of the waitlist a fair go and I will reassess from there. My sister is getting married this week, so early bird may well stay open until I am home and can see properly where things sit, because we have plenty of time between now and 11 March 2027 and I would rather build this carefully than rush it.

I will be honest about the part that caught me off guard though, which was the tears! So many tears! #stillemo

Somewhere in the middle of the weekend the relief hit, along with a version of the playground question I thought I had outgrown

Do they like me? I think they like me but maybe I am just a clown making content online while everyone quietly laughs behind my back. Maybe some of them are, which is fine. What other people think of me is none of my business, right up until the moment I ask them for serious money for something that does not exist yet. At that point it becomes very much my business.

The answer this weekend was generous beyond anything I could’ve expected.

What actually did the work

None of this was luck, even if it felt like a small miracle from where I was sitting. A waitlist of 200 people had been kept warm all week with emails that followed a launch structure I worked through twice while preparing.

I had been seeding CounselCon for months before doors opened, documenting the behind the scenes of building it so people could watch the thing take shape rather than being asked to buy it cold. I answered objections and put the FAQs up front instead of waiting for questions to land in my inbox after people had already hesitated.

Underneath every one of those strategies sits the part that nobody can shortcut, which is years of working with your community. I know who you are because I have spent a long time listening to you, in DMs, coaching sessions, post comments and the occasional very long voice note.

The launch mechanics only worked because they had something real to carry.

What I got wrong

It was not flawless and I would be undercutting the whole point of this blog if I pretended otherwise.

A lot of people assumed CounselCon is only for law students, which it is not, so I clearly have more work to do on defining who the room is for. I am treating that confusion as good data rather than failure. The automated confirmation and order emails were also a genuine let down, which is not the first impression I want anyone to have after they have trusted me with their money, so they are being rewritten. If you are building anything with a checkout, have a few people run the whole purchase end to end before you open it up, because the bits you never see as the seller are exactly the bits your buyer sees first.

Why in person, why Brisbane, why The Calile

In person is back BABY and the demand this weekend proved it.

We have spent years learning and networking through screens, which has its place, but there is a kind of career momentum that only happens when you are in a room with people who just get it.

Brisbane has been my home for the last 15 years.

I cannot wait to share my local neighbourhood with the many of you travelling in from interstate. The Calile was a deliberate choice. It is beautiful, it is aspirational, it has a deeply moving heritage, the food is incredible and the whole experience is elevated in a way that tells you, from the moment you walk in, that your career, like yourself, is worth investing in.

The legal profession can good at putting its most important conversations in beige function rooms with meh coffee, so I wanted to do the opposite for you.

The trust part

People bought tickets without knowing a single name on the lineup.

I know who is speaking and I know it is going to be gooooood, but you did not know and you backed it anyway. That trust did not appear over a weekend. It was built slowly by giving information away rather than hoarding it, which is the entire premise of ungatekeeping. This weekend was the first time I saw it realised in such a concrete way.

It is a privilege that I intend to work very hard to keep.

There is a lot of uncertainty and fear moving through the profession at the moment (I wrote about some of it in Debridement), yet there is still so much to be grateful for and to look forward to.

What happens next

If you have a ticket, you will be hearing from me in the coming days with what to expect between now and March.

If you are still deciding, CounselCon is for all lawyers and all law students, wherever you are in your career. It is designed as a choose your own adventure day, in the same spirit as the Ungatekept Guide. If you want to come, listen and leave without speaking to a soul, that is completely fine. If you want to meet half the room, that is fine too. I will meet you wherever you are at.

If you are a law student who wants to be part of the day, expressions of interest are open for Counsel Crew, a set of paid positions on the day. You will hear from me early in 2027. We are also building the Big Sis Buddy program for attendees that have opted in to meet someone new prior to the day.

If you are building something of your own, the lesson I would pass on is simple. Build the relationship long before you ever need it, say the uncomfortable parts out loud before people have to ask and test the experience from the buyer's side.

This launch told me everything I needed to know.

I am on the right path.

Onwards!

Mel