Organizing A Meet-Up

The question was David istrying to organize a meet up.He wants to knowhow you get peopleto show up if I have any tips.What kind of audienceshould he target?What kind of subject matter?What does he need to do toorganize a successful meetup?And I think this is fantastic.David, what part of thecountry world are you from?Tulsa, oklahoma?Oh, OK.Tulsa OK, OK.Tulsa, Oklahoma I don'tknow how big of a citythat is, but in LosAngeles, in New York,it's easy to get peopleto show up, right?Because it's dense.Tulsa, Oklahoma I assume,maybe not nearly as dense.No, it's not five million, OK,but that's still enough people,it's not likethere's 300 people.OK all right.So here's the thing.Generally speaking,with smaller towns,the community is much tighter.Because that'swhat we got right,I've noticed that when I goto smaller towns or towns thatdon't have a giantdesign community,they tend to be very tight.They all know each other.They want to show up becausethis is their best wayof learning about their craft.Here's two things thatare here's somethingI observed when we do meetUPS and events at our space,physical things that peopleget together and we talkis I have to charge people.I know it sounds crazy.I have to charge people for acouple of different reasons.One I find that the rate ofpeople showing up when I chargewas much higherthan when it's free.It sounds crazy.So when I do free talks, 70, 80people register on Eventbriteand 25 people show up, whichis really disappointing for mebecause I'm going to panicthinking I need 100 chairs.And then really noteven half show up.So if you make an event openlike that, expect less than 25%of the people to show up.Now I try to find thatprice point, which is notgoing to be too much, butenough that they're going to payand they're going to show up.So it's anaccountability measure.That's all it is.When you buy aticket for a movie,you show up whenthe movie is freebecause there are people whogive you free movie tickets allthe time where we live.We don't want, we show up.So the first thingI would suggestis you come up with afee, make it affordable,even though you wantto make it free.Now if that makes you feel bad,spend all the money on the vet,buy drinks, buy food,buy snacks, do somethingwith that money and then you'llfeel better about yourselfand you can alwaysget people to show up.If you say, whattopic do you wantto talk about in this meetup?User experience design OK,the UX a pepperoni pizza.Mm-hmm OK come upwith something fun.Buy a bunch of cheap pizzas.People will showup free food if youhave the budget for alcohol,they'll show up even more.Now that seemslike a weird reasonto bring peopletogether, but if youdon't have a lot of tractionyet which you don't, Iwould do that.So people walk away, ok?That was pretty cool.I was Fed.I got to meet some new people.And I learn thingsthat was great.You can also use somebodywith a name, a headlinerto draw people there orintroduce a new conceptor just to set it up like, hey,no agenda, no slides, storiesabout user experience design.Come have a pizza with us.Bring your own beverage.Something like that.I use Eventbrite.Eventbrite is super easyto use, and that way allthe informationthat you want to putis super easy andorganize and ready to go.OK, any otherquestions about that?I guess I follow up.So we have a sponsor, sothey sponsored the fund,so it's I feel foryou and we alreadyhave the sponsor is just likethe problem is people do notcome after the first game.So we had like 250 peoplecoming in throughout the yearand the professionals,seasoned professionals,and they just don't stay there.And obviously it'sbecause the iscatered for beginners andprofessionals at the same time.They just that onehour we ask them.They either don'thave time, but Ifeel like yoursuggestion to make a feewill make it more accountablefor people to show up.Yeah, and you haveto program somethingthat's going to make peoplewant to show up and stay.You can also do a split programwhere you're very clear.Hour one the basicsof UX design hourto hear from practicingprofessionals masters of UX.So the newbies will stickaround for the pros.The pros could showlate and leave,or they can show early andbe there for the whole thing.Or you can reverse that order.Makes sense.Generally speaking, youput your anchor lastto make sure people show up.Meaning the best speaker closes.And the secondbest speaker opens.Mm-hmm That's howthey get peoplefrom deserting the entire venue.OK all right.All right.