Notes on meetup organisation #
What feels like decades ago I went to a talk at FOSDEM. One in a dev-room. And one of the very few that proved relevant for many years after. I have no idea what the title was, nor what year it was given, I do believe it ran in the MySQL dev room - in terms of topic it provided an overview on what to do and what to watch out for when organising community meetups. A lot of the learnings shared made me nod in the audience.
I organised my own meetup before this term was used - instead mine was called “get together”. I started not knowing how many people would attend. I also started in a time when there were barely any meetups in Berlin, so it quickly grew from little over a dozen to several dozen attendees. I also started before hosting meetups was a cool thing to do for companies - so I was very lucky to have a location like newthinking store available for free - a bit like a co-working space, before that term was invented.
Over time I shared my learnings on do’s and don’ts - however usual off the record on deniable communication media. I guess it’s time to write those learnings down:
Don’t worry whether someone will attend - one or two people commit to participate is more than enough, if you start transparently with a “if nobody attends we’ll just move to a restaurant close by and exchange notes”.
Keep costs low. One cost driver tends to be location rent. You can avoid that if you can host the meetup at your employer’s premises, alternatively companies hiring often provide space for free. A third option is to book a restaurant table or meet at university.
Another cost driver can be catering. You can try to only provide for something to drink, for food moving to another place after the meetup is an option in that case. Sometimes companies providing space also provide food - that needs a good attendee estimate though.
Speaking of providing drinks: I’m not a fan of providing alcoholic drinks for free. I have heard too many stories involving free alcohol and male attendees unable to abide by basic rules of social conduct.
Speaking of people unable to behave professionally: It’s common to have a code of conduct these days. Unfortunately rules printed and published are useless if not enforced. If you yourself are not comfortable doing the enforcing, seek support for that.
Speaking of seeking support: Never walk alone! I was literally hit by a car on my way to the second or third meetup I had organised myself and broke my knee. I was lucky that nothing worse happened - I was also lucky to quickly find someone else to take over moderation. I was also lucky location availability was not tied to me being present.
Speaking of backup plans: I met speakers who agreed to give a talk, but when reminded a week in advance told me they had mixed up dates and booked the flight a month later (having more than one talk, and maybe having a backup speaker in town or a discussion topic for the audience helps). I met speakers who forgot to bring their laptop/ were unable to hook their presentation to the projector/ forgot whatever device they needed to get their Mac attached to the projector (having another laptop for presentations helps for that, so does urging speakers to test equipment, so does having common adaptors handy). I had speakers who would triple their presentation time unless stopped (signs telling remaining talk time are helpful for that).
Speaking of growing: Make sure to minimize risk. Running a 70 person company hosted meetup that is essentially free because there are not location costs can work well. As soon as money (and sponsorship) is involved: Don’t put your personal account in between sponsor and benefit provider. Newthinking always was kind enough to directly bill those who offered to cover talk recording costs. From organising meetups and conferences I know that there are sponsors who will fail to pay they promised - typically not out of malice but either because there are no processes for that yet (think startups) or because processes in place are too complicated for tiny sums like a couple hundred Euros (think large corporations). If the thought of “In the worst case I will have to cover the cost myself” gets to scary it’s time to think about how to change organisation model.
Speaking of growing take 2: As your meetup grows - keep a record. Pictures (taken with consent) will help tell the story later one. Slides collected and published are not only valuable to have to make available to attendees but also to reflect on how topics have shifted over the years. Recordings kept over decades helps share important lessons - and unfortunately you only know years later what the really impactful talks have been. If you pay for just one thing: Having one memorable URL to publish information about your meetup is really helpful. Platforms can go away, make sure that moving is easy. Having one dedicated domain that is not linked to other personal stuff also makes it easy to hand over organisation should you ever want to do that.
Another thing that helped me: Talking with other meetup organisers. Exchange best practices, learnings, recommendations. You are not the only one - try to stand on the shoulders of others.
Oh - and the most important thing last: Often meetup organisation tends to be something that dedicated people do as a side project. If that is the case: Make sure that it’s fun for yourself. Invite people, you want to hear speak yourself. Invite talks about topics you yourself are interested in. Make sure that people you yourself want to meet are in the audience. And hand the ball back to whoever complains: I got a lot of complaints about the date or time chosen for the meetup. In my case, the rule was simple: First speaker gets to set the date and time. So whoever complains, there’s an easy way out to fix their issue themselves: Submit the next talk. (Sneak behind the scenes: I cannot remember a single complainer who ended up submitting a talk, but I remember all complainers stopping those complaints after being told that rule.) To keep things fun, also make sure to set boundaries: There is no need to answer requests instantly, mails can wait. Even if this is not a side project: There are things that are more important (think health, family…) - no meetup related request is so important that it has to be answered at once. Putting messages into a separate inbox can help with that.