Meetup Checklist for Venues (Shared)

Thank you for offering to host our {{MEETUP_NAME}} meetup in your venue! This checklist will guide you through everything you need to know about hosting one of our meetups. Along the way, we will ask for some information about your company and the venue.

All fields are optional unless noted otherwise with an asterisk (*) next to the field label.

If you have any question please don't hesitate to contact us!

Gabriel Somoza
Magento Architect & Meetup Coordinator
Owner, Strategery

Email: [email protected]
Phone: {{MEETUP_PHONE}}

Please fill-in the following fields in order to tell us a bit more about your business. This information will be kept strictly confidential and will only be used for the purpose of planning the meetup. With your permission, it can also be used to advertise your business as a sponsor for this event.

Contact Information

Please provide the following information so we can contact you for planning purposes.

General Information

If the venue is located on a buildings with multiple rooms / floors:

Parking

The vast majority of our members will arrive to the venue by car, so its very important that the venue has parking possibilities nearby. Paid parking is ok.

The best way to tell our attendees how to find parking is to supply one or more images explaining the exact location of the venue and parking spaces. This can be done quickly by using an online service like ScribbleMaps or simply taking a screenshot of your venue in Google Maps. When possible, use the Satellite/Terrain view. You can also use Street View to show the entrance to a garage, etc.

Accessibility

If the answer to the previous question is "NO":

Safety & Security

Please make sure the venue follows all legally required safety and security standards.

Offering some free food and enough drinks are essential to a successful meetup. 

In the case of food: snacks would be enough, but usually sandwiches or pizza are more common. We recommend providing enough variety to cover different dietary needs: vegetarian, lactose intolerant, low on fat or fat-free. 

In the case of drinks: please make sure you provide enough water, but everything else is optional. In the typical meetup we have a selection of soft drinks (including sugar-free variations). Beer is also optional, and if available an atmosphere of responsible drinking should be encouraged.

If glasses must be used for drinking, we recommend providing a means for people to label/identify their glass for re-use. Some ideas that could work:

• Multiple small coloured straws or elastic bands in the case of breakable glasses (so people can colour-code their glass).
• Or a marker in the case of white plastic cups so people can write their name/initials.

The speaker will need at least one big surface to show his/her presentation to the audience. A projector is ideal, but one or more big TVs can also do the job depending on the size of the meeting room and the number of attendees.

Internet access is also essential to a successful meetup, because it enables live interactions such as tweets, photo uploads, etc. 

We also like to Live Stream our meetup using YouTube (visit our channel). The video then stays in YouTube as well. But this is optional: if for any reason you don't want that to happen inside your venue you'll have the option to opt-out below.

Rights to Mass-Solicitation

We expect that all companies attending a meetup that are NOT sponsoring it abstain from mass-distributing business cards or any form of contact information, job offers, etc., to our attendees, unless they're doing so in a natural one-to-one conversation. This means that the evening will be generally free from mass-solicitation from other companies other than those directly sponsoring the event.

As the main sponsor for the evening, you are of course exempt from this limitation. You can therefore use the opportunity to reach out all attendees in order to advertise job vacancies, your products or services, etc. We only ask that you do so in a reasonable degree, so as not to overwhelm any attendees who may be not looking for what you offer.

The opportunity to advertise or solicit extends also to the main talk of the evening and therefore also to the Live Stream. For example we can arrange for someone from your company to have a slot of 5 minutes before or after the main talk - in order to introduce your company and promote your services, job searches, etc.

Check the following items to communicate your plans regarding advertising / solicitation:

Raffle

At the end of the meetup we like to raffle some special prizes to attendees as a way of thanking them for being there and providing feedback to the speaker.

We have some "raffle sponsors" that provided us with free licenses for their products. If you want more information on that please let us know.

You're also encouraged to participate in the raffle by providing prices. This could be a good way to "wow" our attendees and further advertise your company / services.

Goodies

Goodies are a great way to make sure everyone takes home a memory from the evening. As the main sponsor for the evening, you are encouraged to distribute your goodies among all attendees. Some examples we've seen in the past:

• Branded notebook + pens, which was useful to take notes during the talk
• Branded usb-sticks or portable usb-chargers
• Branded coffe mugs
• Business cards
• Stickers
• etc!

We may occasionally distribute our own goodies as well - which typically include stickers from our sponsors (usually online tools / services such as PHPStorm or PluralSight), t-shirts and other apparel (e.g. usually leftovers from PHPBenelux), etc. If you think there might be a conflict of interest please let us know so we coordinate which types of goodies will be distributed.