Checklist for Meetup Organizers

This blog posting is part of a series about organizing Meetups. While mostly centered around PostgreSQL Meetups, large parts can be adapted by other Meetups as well. All postings in this series:

• Checklist for Meetup Attendees
• Checklist for Meetup Speakers
• Checklist for Meetup Organizers (this posting)
• Overview posting

You are organizing a Meetup. Congratulations, this is big!

Here are some recommendations:

• First things first: find a date. Pay attention to school holidays and public holidays, especially for in-person Meetups. Check for other large events in the same city, or from the same community. For PostgreSQL Meetups, check the Event Calendar.
• If you plan to run Meetups regularly, stick to a schedule. Like the second Thursday of every month. Granted, this is easier to do for online Meetups.
• As for the time of the day, try to schedule Meetups at the same time every time. This gives you continuity.
• Remember that your own work starts early, the venue must be secured before announcing the Meetup.
• Announce the Meetup 4-6 weeks in advance. This gives attendees time to place the event in their calendar. You can already announce the Meetup while you are completing last details, like a speaker or venue details. On Meetup.com, use the „Announce this Meetup“ feature once you are ready.
• Consider informing the Event Calendar team to include your Meetup.
• Recruiting speakers also takes time. You can reach out on Social Media and ask for speakers. It helps when the date is already set.
• Sarah Conway wrote a useful blog posting how to Promote a Technology Meetup.
• Talks about current topics are always useful, as example about features in recent or upcoming releases.
• Have a plan for when a speaker does not show up. Can someone from the organization team, or from the audience present on short notice?
• Post your Meetup on many Social Media platforms, but focus the signups on only one platform.
• Ask your speakers for their social media profiles, post about the Meetup and mention the speaker. Ask the speaker to share your post.
• Consider creating a slide with the details (Meetup name, logo, speaker name, role, organisation, talk title, venue or location, date, time and possibly time zone for virtual Meetups). This works as a promotion card when shared online.

Organizing an in-person Meetup

For an in-person Meetup, consider the following:

• Two talks seems to be the sweet spot for in-person Meetups. There’s something for everyone, and food in-between.
• In the last few days before the Meetup, and on the day of the Meetup, keep an eye on the various chats and your email inbox. There might be questions from attendees.
• Start the Meetup with housekeeping announcements, like Code of Conduct, thank you to speakers and sponsors, bathroom directions, ask if someone would like to speak at or host the next Meetup. Mention next conferences and Meetups, if already known.

PostgreSQL US (PgUS) has a Checklist and Planning Timetable for an In-Person Meetup

Boriss Mejias, with help from others, created a useful guide for room hosts during a conference. Parts of this also apply to Meetups, like how to welcome and announce a speaker.

Venues and Room(s)

• A dedicated meeting room or conference area is generally better than an open area inside a building. Make sure the venue has a large screen or a projector. Company sponsors have meeting rooms available, some public buildings offer similar rooms.
• Another way to find a venue is renting a meeting room in a coworking space, and ask a sponsor to pay for it. The coworking space can also do the catering, and you can split the costs between two sponsors, one for the venue and one for the catering.
• If your venue requires presenting a photo ID, or requires registration, communicate this clearly visible at the beginning of the description. Send another reminder („know before you go“) to all attendees one or two days before the event.
• Add precise address instructions, including which building entrance.
• If possible, place a sign outside of the building which directs attendees to the Meetup.
• If your venue does not use standard video equipment, discuss the available options with your speakers. HDMI is pretty much the standard these days. Any kind of required software installation is a no go for corporate laptops, you might have to provide a dedicated presenter laptop. Screen sharing solutions (virtual meeting rooms) do not play well with Digital Rights Management (DRM) content in presentations. Offer a test run for speakers, if possible. Ask for a PDF version of the slide deck before the Meetup, just in case.
• For a larger room, see if there is a microphone and loudspeakers available. People in the back like to hear the talk as well.

Speakers

• Consider lightning talks, around 5 minutes. Ask for lightning talk speakers to send you the presentation, this avoids long laptop switching times and avoids problems with the equipment. Make sure the speaker does not extend the 5 minutes into a full talk. One way is to have the audience clap after the 5 minutes are over.
• Ask speakers to bring a PDF version of the slides on a USB stick, or upload or send it to you. In case the laptop is not working, another device can be used.
• Ask speakers to upload the slides, and provide a link to the slides to all attendees in a follow-up message to the attendees. If you already know the next Meetup date, include it in the message.

Attendees

• Depending on location and Meetup, between 30% and 60% of signups will show up. You can carefully oversubscribe the number of attendees to get a „full room“.
• If the Meetup includes workshops, and attendees need a laptop, make this clear in the event description. You can even add this as a question which the signup process asks: „Did you notify that you need to bring a laptop for the workshop?“
• When you order food, consider vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options. In the western hemisphere, pizza is always a safe choice. Consider ordering the food for the break between talks if you have two talks; otherwise consider whether it’s better to eat before or after the event. If you are providing food at the event and it starts soon after the end of the work day, serve the food before the talk, or everyone is too hungry to pay attention to the talk.
• Providing food is optional, and not doing so gives everyone a good opportunity to go to a restaurant afterwards to discuss the talk.
  • In this case, research nearby options and provide a list to the attendees.

Sponsors

• Name your sponsors for the Meetup. Both for the venue and for food. Offer the sponsor a short presentation at the beginning, where they can introduce the company or organization, their products, open source activities and open jobs.
  • Count in that larger companies need more time to review and approve any usage of their names and logos.
• Good choices of venue sponsors are companies which are hiring for the topic of your Meetup. This gives the company a platform to advertise the open job positions.

Checklist

Here’s a handy checklist to make sure you did not forget anything:

• Find a date (pay attention to holidays and vacation times), create the Meetup and announce it
• Add venue address and description
• Include access restrictions (like Photo ID required)
• Find speaker(s), update the Meetup description with details
• Consider Lightning Talks
• Post about the Meetup on Social Media, mention the speaker(s)
• Check video setup with speakers, ask for PDFs as fallback
• Order food, include vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options
• Get a PDF version of the slides, as fallback
• Name the sponsor(s) during opening and closing announcements
• Ask speakers to upload the slides

Organizing an online Meetup

Online Meetups are different from in-person Meetups.

Preparing the Meetup

• Usually there’s only one talk.
• Make sure to communicate the details of your online platform to the speaker, especially any restrictions in terms of software. Offer to do a test run with the speaker a few days ahead of the event, consider making it a requirement for new speakers.
• People can decide last minute to join, a social media outreach on the day of the Meetup helps to remind everyone of the event.

Running the Meetup

• Open the Meetup 10-15 minutes early, so attendees can already dial in and use the time to chat.
• Start the Meetup with housekeeping announcements, like giving thanks to speakers and sponsors, and asking if someone would like to speak at or host the next Meetup. Mention next conferences and Meetups, if already known.
• Announce if and when the Meetup will be recorded. Make sure you have permissions for recording the talk from the speaker, and a place to upload the recording. If possible, get a volunteer to generate subtitles for the recording and make edits for accuracy - this is incredibly helpful for ensuring accessibility.
• Offer to gather questions in the chat while the speaker is presenting. Discuss with the speaker beforehand if they take questions from the chat during the presentation or at the end of the presentation. Include this information in the opening statement.
• Make sure to mute everyone during the presentation, except the speaker.
• Maybe after the talk, or during the mingling session, ask for feedback on the event or what they would like to see in future talks, or send out surveys
• Ask the speaker to upload the slides, and provide a link to the slides to all attendees. Let attendees know where they can expect the slides at the end of the talk (via email, on social media, on the website, etc.)

Useful resources for Virtual Meetups

PostgreSQL US has guides how to run a Virtual Meetup:

• PgUS Checklist and Planning Timetable for a Virtual Meetup
• PgUS Guide to Virtual Meetup
• PgUS Guide to Security on Zoom

Checklist

Here’s a handy checklist to make sure you did not forget anything:

• Find a date, create the Meetup and announce it
• Find speaker(s), update the Meetup description with details
• Check video setup with speakers, ask for PDFs as fallback
• Post in the days before, and on the date: attendees can sign up last minute
• Secure the video conference, only allow the host and the speaker to speak and present
• Ask speakers to upload the slides
• Post about the Meetup on Social Media, mention the speaker(s)
• Announce housekeeping rules at the beginning
• Also announce if and when the Meetup will be recorded
• Watch the chat for questions

Thank you

I’d like to thank Stacey Haysler, Floor Drees, Elizabeth Garret Christensen, Sarah Conway, Ellyne Phneah, Sergey Dudoladov and Boriss Mejias for reviewing this posting, and providing valuable input.

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