Based on this post, I added a “Pioneering new meetups” section to the most recent (currently non-public) version of the meetup guide. It now reads as follows:
Pioneering new meetups
Then I had an idea of an experiment. I was travelling to Budapest last week for 3 days to visit my family and I thought that I would simply try to organise a meetup there. In the worst case, I would spend a couple of hours in a cafe reading a book. My guesstimate was that 3-4 of my friends (whom I reminded several times) and maybe 1-3 people I don’t actually know would turn up.
I was surprised to find that 14 people attended the meetup, two of them travelling all the way from Bratislava to Budapest. We spent almost 4 hours in a fantastic discussion, a mailing list was created, and a second meetup is happening tomorrow. My experiment produced a result I didn’t expect. -- Alexey Morgunov, Setting up LW meetups in unlikely places: Positive Data Point
If you are traveling to a major city that doesn’t yet have an active meetup group, you may wish to try creating one there during your visit. This is especially the case if you’re already an experienced meetup organizer or participant, but you shouldn’t let a lack of experience deter you if you aren’t.
To pioneer a new group, start by picking a location and announcing the meetup on the site, as if you’d do when starting a meetup in your hometown. When you post the notice, be sure to mention the fact that you’re only visiting and won’t become a regular attendant—people are more likely to show up if they think they won’t get an opportunity to meet you again anytime soon. If you are not already familiar with the area, you may have to rely on someone local to choose the actual site of the meetup. Try to avoid a situation where you get stuck waiting for somebody to recommend a site, or for the locals to decide on the best place, however—you’ll want to make sure that you actually confirm the location of the meetup in time. In the worst case, search for a list of cafés in the region and just pick one that looks nice. Near the center of the city is usually optimal, but if you don’t know the city well and are worried about getting lost, near the place where you’re staying is better than nothing.
It might be that you’re unlucky and won’t get any people to attend. But if you do get participation, you don’t want the meetup to remain just an isolated incident. Try to identify one or two people who seem particularly active and talk to them about organizing future events. Get people’s e-mail addresses and create a mailing list. Use it to help with choosing a time, a venue, discussion topics and activity ideas for the next meetup. Announce it on the website. Get the chosen organisers to help you and gradually let them do it. Point them to this guide if they don’t know of it already. With some luck, the group will live on without you.
Also based on this post, I added the following to the “The First Meetup” section:
People may not know what to expect from a Less Wrong meetup, so you’ll probably need to lead the discussion in the beginning. Some questions which might be suitable for being discussed in the first meetup are:
How did you become interested in Less Wrong?
Which particular aspects of the range of Less Wrong topics are you the most interested in?
How does being a Less Wrong reader translate into your regular life?
Great post!
Based on this post, I added a “Pioneering new meetups” section to the most recent (currently non-public) version of the meetup guide. It now reads as follows:
Also based on this post, I added the following to the “The First Meetup” section: