[cookiengineer]

COVID really hit the scene over here in South Germany. There were a bunch of meetups that tried online meetup events during lockdown for maybe 2-3 times, but then eventually they all stopped.

And it's not language- or topic-specific either: Java, JS, golang, cyber security, devops, all types of meetups really aren't what they used to be. You're lucky when you organize an event and more than 20% of registered people show up, even when you made them pay 10 bucks for it that they get back on arrival.

The biggest event I've attended to last year were Chaos events (Gulaschprogrammiernacht / GPN, CCC etc), BSides events, and that's pretty much it. All other events kind of either died out, or have been taken over by software consultancies holding the same old "we are cool with PWAs, Angular and FuGu, now hire us!" type talks that they never change and repeatedly broadcast to as many who will listen.

I tried to start a cybersecurity / devsecops / golang related meetup again, and we're now around 10 regular people of the former ~150+ ones. I am now thinking of starting a dedicated developer forum (maybe even in German), because even reddit isn't what it used to be in this regard.

I don't know what changed specifically, but I think the threshold of "when" people consider going to an event changed radically through COVID, and they rather be a lazy ass in the evening than meet people. Maybe that's the global social depression everyone is talking about. Dunno.

Did you observe similar behaviors?

[Voultapher]

MUC++ organizer here, yes we are probably the exception. We are based in Munich which is south Germany and did stick to roughly one event per month, even though we went online only during the pandemic. We have been doing more on-site events for the last year and are back to a ~40-50% no-show rate. The Rust Meetup is also doing better than ever. So I'd argue your experience does not generalize to all tech Meetups in south Germany.

[arp242]

"Only part of the people who register show up" has always been a thing. Depending on what kind of meetup you have, you've just got to account for that. I don't think it's a big deal. It's hard to tell if it's worse since COVID.

I do know that a lot of these social things (meetup, couchsurfing, facebook events) died out during COVID and that in many places the bounce-back has been lacklustre at best. I don't really know why or what to do about it, but the old days of "move to a new city, meet lots of people on meetup.com events" seem to be gone for many places.

[eecc]

The housing crisis + inflation spike might have contributed to the loss of this "move to a new city..." think you mentioned. Younger generations have a much harder time getting income, a stable one, and paying the exorbitant costs of living.

[datadrivenangel]

Yeah we're back to ~40-50% noshow rate which was normal before the pandemic.

[disgruntledphd2]

> And it's not language- or topic-specific either: Java, JS, golang, cyber security, devops, all types of meetups really aren't what they used to be. You're lucky when you organize an event and more than 20% of registered people show up, even when you made them pay 10 bucks for it that they get back on arrival.

20% is pretty good. As long as you can find a free space, attendance shouldn't matter that much. It does vary by seasonality and weather though (very few people want to go to a tech meetup when it's great weather, or additionally if the weather is so bad they don't want to leave the house/office).

[em-bee]

it's going to bounce back. CCC is one of the biggest events which just happened for the first time after covid (also the summer camp). i think these big events will motivate smaller events to eventually reactivate too.

keep up updated on that developer forum. i am interested in joining (in german or english)

[Dioxide2119]

> Maybe that's the global social depression everyone is talking about. Dunno.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with this, is this a reference to something like [1]?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38935605

[dgellow]

Same in northern Germany :(

[bagels]

People are still out there exchanging Covid. Meetups are a great way to catch it still.

[jacamera]

Is this an argument for or against meetups?

[bagels]

It's an explanation of why I won't attend any, and I assume some others as well.