3 lessons I learned from failed meetup event

Today there was a meetup of almost 32 “confirmed” attendees and 22 maybe attending bloggers in McDonalds Islamabad, which failed miserably and had only 2 attendees.

I learned many precious things out of it, few of them are:

1. Ask participants to confirm their participation

Don’t just invite people to click on “Attending” on facebook events page. Rather ask them to fill a form and submit it which includes their email and phone number.

Even better if you can make it “subscribe via sms / call” only.

That way you will get only confirmed participants, and also if someone isn’t present on the scene you can ask them what the issue is.

2. Make it paid / Sponsored

Don’t make the event Free if possible. Preferably either make it sponsored or else paid (even small fee will work).

Why? well because if someone will pay, he will definitely come to the event to recover that money so it will confirm their presence.

3. Meeting without “charm”

People have got better things to do. And every one is the “most genius” hero of his story. So no one liked going in an event just to “meet” other people of his field and to explore / learn anything that might come along.

Make a topic which isn’t covered normally around them.

Lastly… a lesson for me… never organize an event again in future . . . not atleast “just” to gather all bloggers and let them talk to and know each other, they all have better things to do and they already know the “best” blogger – themselves.

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