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https://www.eventnoire.com/Kimberly Wilson
The Wave founder on building community from the ground up, and why keeping people together matters more than ever.
Long before The Wave became synonymous for Black professionals finding their people in a new city, Jason Kelley was a kid from Richmond, Virginia simply just throwing parties and curating vibes.
He got his start through the Iota Alpha Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, Fraternity Inc., where the brothers took home awards for service work and still had a reputation for throwing the party everybody wanted to get into. That combination of substance and celebration never left him, and it became the blueprint for everything he has built since.
Now fast forward to The Wave… It started the way a lot of good things do. Two weeks after Kanye West dropped The Life of Pablo, Kelley and his friend Greg Jackson started a group chat just to keep their circle in the loop about where to be and when. Jackson pitched calling it The Wavy People, and Kelley trimmed it down to something that stuck immediately. None of the thirteen people on that thread had any idea it would turn into a platform with 40,000 members spread across 40 cities, plus its own event lineup in The Set R&B and The Black Bar Crawl. As a matter of fact, he’s still throwing parties and curating vibes, just on a much more major scale.
Kelley now runs it all as CEO of Wave Consulting and co-creator of The Wave USA, and the years since that first text thread have been a masterclass in scaling something deeply personal without letting it go cold (get it? APhiA — going cold?). In this installment of our Curator Spotlight series, we got Jason talking about where the name really came from, the one thing most people get wrong when they’re planning an event, and why keeping the energy alive through a pandemic and two Trump presidencies has tested him more than anything else.
Eventnoire: How did you get started in event curation, and what led you to launch The Wave?
Jason: I got my start producing events in college through various organizations, but specifically through the Iota Alpha Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, Fraternity Inc. We won awards for our events and service work, but we also threw the best parties. The Wave was a solution to streamline invites amongst friends that grew into something much bigger, so it was a happy accident that I was uniquely equipped to nurture.
Eventnoire: What’s the story behind the name The Wave, and what does it represent for you now?
Jason: The Wave was created two weeks after Kanye’s album The Life of Pablo, and the original suggestion from Greg Jackson was to name it The Wavy People. I countered with just calling it The Wave and it stuck. At this point it means a lot more to me, the fluid nature of community and the power of a group moving in unison was obvious very soon into the existence of the group chats.
Eventnoire: How would you describe The Wave’s signature style, or the vibe you’re known for?
Eventnoire: What’s a detail most people overlook that you think makes or breaks an event?
Jason: I think a lot of people don’t clarify what success means to them, and that can leave them feeling like a good event was bad or a bad event was good. I’ve lost thousands of dollars on a good time because the budget got out of hand, and I’ve thought an event was bad that ended up making money. The life of an event producer is to create the space and give people the opportunity to have fun, so as long as intentions are good and the effort is genuine, I sleep well about the success of an event.
Eventnoire: What’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned running The Wave?
Jason: The hardest lesson has been keeping things interesting in difficult times for the country. How do you keep the vibes high in a pandemic, in a recession, in two Trump presidencies? Despite the temperature of the social climate, people need to get together, and that’s where we come in.
Eventnoire: What’s the most memorable event you’ve curated under The Wave, and why?
Jason: There’ve been a lot of memorable events, but the ones that stick out the most are the ones that grew out of humble beginnings and ended up somewhere unexpected. The Set R&B grew to do dates at Howard Theatre and The Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center made me proud because as a theatre kid I dreamed of performing on those types of stages, and I was able to.
Eventnoire: Where do you see The Wave in five years?
Jason: In five years we’ll be producing events in the political and startup space while producing events across a wider range of locations. I also see us producing more family friendly programming to allow people to include their families in the social experiences.
Stay Connected
Follow: @thewaveusa @jasonfromthewave
Visit: https://thewaveusa.com/ https://theblackbarcrawl.com/
Partnerships: https://thewaveusa.com/partner