[stavros]

I've hosted the Thessaloniki Python meet up for the past ten years. I had a relevant discussion in the latest meet-up, two weeks ago:

Some of the members were asking why I don't find sponsors, get some food and drinks, a bigger venue, and try to grow the meet up. I realized at that moment that I don't want to.

I don't like the business part of technology, I'd rather have a meet up of twenty people building cool random things with Python, than two hundred job-seeing networkers. I know it's a bit of a false dichotomy, but I've found that sponsors turn the event businessy quickly.

This is all to say that, if you're organizing a meet up, you should decide what you want from it. I don't want a large meet up, I want a small group of people who know each other and have fun while presenting topics interesting to them. Maybe you want the biggest meetup in the country, with everyone there finding exciting jobs. That's OK too, it just makes the approach very different, which means it's hard to give general advice.