This guide has the goal of getting you set up best on hosting your first Web 3 community meetups. The Web 3 community can host, source funding, acquire swag, and learn how to host your own Meetup or workshop here. This guide covers the main steps you need to get your own meetup off the ground.
There are 4 main steps to consider.
Apply to organize a meetup here
A. Fundamental steps (co-founders of meetup) & Budget
- i. The first step to a successful (recurring) meetup in ensuring you have a solid team of co-founders to help carry the weight. It’s crucial if you intend to continually grow a community around a meetup to select a dedicated crew to help out with the organization, planning, promotion, food & drinks etc. It’s also best to ahead of time agree on certain aspects (eg. food planner, A/V guy, marketing) you’ll be responsible for at the planning for each meetup.
ii. The next most important thing to consider is budget, most meetup planning starts 4-6 weeks before the meetup, and it’s suggested to get your meetup page live at least 3 weeks before the actual date so you can estimate successfully the amount of food & drinks. Consider that most meetups have 50-70% attendance on the final RSVP #’s so keep the budget in mind for that.
iii. Many times the event space can be provided in locations for free, if you need help finding an event location some good resources are usually, universities, entrepreneur centers & social locations. Meetup.com provides a good resource on this topic.
B. Speakers & or materials needed (for presentations)
- i.Consider who your speaker will be and find out what presentation materials they may need. In many cases a presenter may be comfortable creating their own materials, templated resources are also provided for custom materials.
C. Marketing & signups (what platform will you use)
- i.For marketing you may consider reaching out to local community groups that you are connected with in your region, many times other meetups in your area can be a great resource for new growth of your meetup.
ii.Make sure your messaging is concise in clear in what the goals of the meetup are, eg. is this a group that intends to run / host multiple meetups; or are you just getting your feet wet with a one-off event. Also consider who the main audience for your meetup topic may be.
D. Timelines & Agenda
- i.In practice it’s best to plan your meetup at least 6 weeks ahead of time. You’ll want to announce your meetup at least 3 weeks before the event, so you’ll be able to plan the food & drinks in advance.
A. Signs & materials
*Make sure your meetup is easy to find! If your venue may not be in plain view from the street/posted address, please post directional signs around the vicinity to ensure everyone’s arrival.
B. Food & beverage
We typically see pizza and beer as the standard at our meetups, but whenever available, we encourage local specialties! For example, we offered various local Chinese delicacies at our recent meetups around mainland China, just as we offered top-notch Mission district tacos at our recent meetup in San Francisco.
Altogether, plan to organize enough food for your expected RSVPs, but providing a feast is not necessary.
C. A/V Whenever possible, we encourage co-organizers to collect slides from presenters at least a few days in advance. This allows the co-organizer to upload all presentation materials to a platform like Google drive, so the transitions between speakers can be quick and efficient.
When this isn’t possible, it is important to make sure that the venue offers all standard A/V assets (HDMI, USB-C, or any Thunderbolt adapters). Speakers should prepare their slides or any visual materials in a 16:9 format to maintain consistency across presentations over the course of the event.
D. Available Presentation / Design assets for the community
Polkadot template presentation: here
Substrate template presentation: here
Polkadot Logotype White with pink DOT
After your event you can consider leaving feedback for how your experience was working with us and what we could do to help improve your meetup going off without a hitch! here