[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.