I both go to and organize meetups. But even I have limited experience with all the platforms outside of the few I’ve tried. I want to check out others. But with so many it might be worth it to see which ones are actually good. There is like 40 of these platforms even among the ones I know about. So which ones are worth the time to check out?
I’ve included an optional poll since Lemmy doesn’t have those. Maybe we can rank them.
Nextdoor is great if you want to hang out with racists.
The vast majority of the platforms you listed, I’d never heard of.
Facebook groups and events used to be good. But with the decreasing popularity of facebook, they are becoming less useful for people organizing. If you are trying to find a group, they can still be useful, though, as many groups from years past are still active - in real life, if not in the fb group itself. If you are trying to start a local meetup group, I would say that having a facebook group and posting your events there is a low-effort way to advertise. However, if the group gets popular, moderating it might become a nightmare.
Meetup also used to be good. But too many of their groups now are thinly veiled scientology fronts, and the 50+ crowd is overrepresented a lot of the time. Because of this, it tends to be diffucult to get new groups off the ground.
Partiful is a party planner. It is designed for groups of friends and informal social networks to pass invites around. I don’t think regularly scheduled events would work very well on the platform, and it would feel… idk, unprofessional? If a more organized meetup used it.
Eventbrite is for organizing paid events, like if a bar is hosting a concert or you are having spaghetti dinner fundraiser. If you tried to host meetup events on this platform, I would assume it was a one-off event, and that I would need to pay admission, and that there would be an official leader and organized activities.
I would recommend having a fb group and a meetup page. They are really your best options for organizing and finding new members. The others, I wouldnt bother with. However, I think there are some other options you should consider.
First, an oldschool website. Just spin up wordpress and make a static webpage. Say who you are (Springfield Ultimate Meetup), what you are about (fun ultimate frisbee pickup games in Springfield), when and where you meet (City Park Tuesdays at 6 pm), and a few photos and some contact info.
Second, Whatsapp. You can create a whatsapp group chat for your meetup, and then you get a number of good management tools, like the ability to break off into other more niche group chats, and the ability to ban people. This can be good for community chatter, and also for announcements/reminders about events.
IG/Tiktok. Its pretty common for groups to have their own social media pages where they occasionally post pictures or videos of whatever they did most recently. Especially if your activity is photogenic, like sports or art, this can be a good option for getting the word out.
Finally, physical media. Go make some flyers and hang them up around town. Lots of community spaces, like community centers, gyms, bars, coffee shops, or small businesses will have a cork board where whoever can hang up their flyers. You can also just show up to other events and hand out flyers - for example, if there is a taco truck rally in Springfield city park on Monday, you can hand out flyers for your ultimate frisbee meetup Tuesday.
What do you mean by “good”, OP?
I’ve been happy using gath.io for a very privacy-respecting meeting organizer that doesn’t require participants to onboard onto yet another platform.
