Why we started a meetup and why you should too.

I run a meetup along with my good friend Jamie.

We started Middlesbrough Front End in January 2019 and to date have hosted 7 events as well as a Christmas party.

I'm going to share with you why we started it, how we started it and why we think you should start a meetup.

The Idea

Back in January 2019 we decided we wanted to start a meetup focusing on Front End Development. We both live in Middlesbrough which is a small post-industrial town in the North East of England. It's not the most glamorous of places, but it has a small thriving tech scene full of talented people.

For people in Middlesbrough the majority of the tech meetups take place in the cities around us. Leeds and Newcastle are the closest tech hubs, but these take anywhere from 60-90 minutes to get to and from.

With this in mind we assumed that people don't have the time to travel on an evening after working all day. This gave us our target audience, developers in Middlesbrough and the surrounding towns.

We had our idea, but we had no idea where to start. So we did a twitter poll, this got us some feedback but in hindsight it wasn't the best idea. We had no idea who had responded to the poll and the majority of the feedback came from people we already knew. The aim of the meetup for us was to bring people together who we didn't know.

In the end the best advice came from the founder of another local meetup: "Just do it". So we did.

Getting Started

First of all, we needed a venue. We had a couple offers from companies to use their office space but we wanted it be somewhere neutral.

Fortunately for us the local council have their own digital support network. The team at Middlesbrough Digital reached out and offered us their support and use of a local bar.

It's worth reaching out to local independent bars and coffee shops. They may have a 2nd room where you could hold your meetup for free.

Sponsors

So we've got our venue sorted, but it'd be nice to provide some pizza and possibly drinks. So it was time for us to try and secure a sponsor.

First reach out to your employer, most are usually happy to sponsor in the form of some money behind the bar or pizza.

If you are still struggling to find a sponsor I recommend contacting companies directly. You ideally want to contact companies who have a department that matches the area your meetup is focusing on.

In our case, Middlesbrough Digital were happy to sponsor us both in the form of a venue and pizza for the attendees. A local agency who focus on Front End specifically also sponsored by providing a bar tab for the evening.

Promotion

Make a twitter, create a mailing list and setup a ti.to account for tickets.

This is the best advice we can give you, these 3 things have seen us well since we started and are what we use for every event.

To get the name out reach out to past work colleagues and friends within tech. Ask them to share your links within their company we found this to be an effective way of getting signups.

Finding Speakers

I'll be honest, finding speakers isn't easy. But you will get there eventually, but sometimes you might have to step in and speak to fill a slot.

Luckily for us the local digital sector has provided us with some great speakers. Some of which have gone on to speak at conferences around Europe.

We also have been lucky enough to get speakers from companies such as Netlify and Google. I'd recommend reaching out to larger organisations as some of these companies are happy to send speakers to these events.

The Event

Your first event is nerve wracking. You want everything to be perfect, but it won't be and don't worry about it because no one can tell anyhow.

We turned up early at the venue for our first event to setup. Jamie and I checked the tito event to see we had 50 signup. We'd set ourselves a goal of 15-20 people, that's all we wanted. To see so many names was a shock, we were pumped for it.

At the first event we had around 80% of the 50 sign ups turn up. That trend has continued and when speaking with other meetup organisers they've also said similar. So it's worth baring this in mind if you're ordering pizza or drinks for attendees.

One key bit of advice I can give is to set a schedule. For our events we give each speaker a 30 minute slot and have a 15 minute break between the two talks. We also found that not serving pizza until after the final speaker would make people hang around for longer and spend more time socialising.

Meetups in the Coronavirus Era

So 2020 starts, we're pumped, we've got big plans for 2020, we've even spoke about a conference! Then COVID-19 happens. The majority of the world goes into lockdown and a meetup is the last thing on your mind.

The UK went into lockdown on the 23rd March, we had an event penciled in for 26th March. Unfortunately myself and Jamie are classed "at risk" due to our medical conditions. The last thing we wanted to do was put anyone at risk, so we made the call in early March to take the meetup online.

Neither of us had ever ran meetup online before. We had never even live streamed before so we knew it was going to be a learning curve for us both. We noticed that the vast majority of meetups were cancelling events completely, but we both wanted something to take our minds off what was going on. Hopefully an event would take others mind off it too, even if it was for only a few hours.

In the end our first livestream was a success, we didn't get 100s of views, but we got 10s and we were delighted with that.

If you're looking to live stream your event we recommend trying Lightstream Studio. It's super easy to use and for your speakers it's just like joining a Google Hangout.

Takeaways

Running a meetup isn't easy, we both see it as a luxury and something that we're lucky to be able to do. We're proud of what we've created. We've brought speakers to our town who may never have otherwise visited. We've also met people who we may never have otherwise met, which was the main aim of starting our meetup after all.

It really is a great experience and one I recommend you try if you can. If you need any help, guidance or advice feel free to reach out to both me or Jamie, we'd be happy to help!