[fishpen0]

Boston here and what we see now is the only company consistently hosting is google and exclusively for kubernetes meetups. Organizers for several meetups have communicated struggles to get anyone to host. A big part of it seems to be the bigger companies that used to host literally left Boston as a side effect of acquisitions or downsizing closing the Boston offices, leaving only buildings further out in the burbs (Burlington for example) open. A lot of the hosts that were acquired but sill in town were bought by companies like Vista Equity Partners who seem to have an outright distaste for engineering community as a whole and reject requests from their own staff to host events.

The flip side is even when a host is found, its sometimes in the burbs because that's where the bigger office space is that's still a tech space and asking people who work or live downtown to commute to a specific suburb just for a free slice of pizza and a pitch to work for a company who is RTOd and has no downtown presence gets zero interest

[hugocast]

Personally, I wouldn't get on a car or the train for a slice of pizza, but I would to catch up with friends and talk shop :)

I wonder what individual-led meetups look like in your area. I host in person in a sprawly Southeast US city and get 20-25 folks showing up consistently. I find that if you offer value, people will show up.

[losdos]

Yeah I get that distance issue. At least I’m in Wilmington when I visit family there so I’ll see what’s over in Burlington next time I’m out. I recall going to a devops meetup at Datadog when they first opened their doors in Boston. It was a nice change-up from all the ones run by consulting partner firms.