A Meetup group is its members, its rhythm and its history. Moving it to the AttendBeacon event platform is mostly about the first two: a community page people can join, and a series that publishes the next meetups by itself. This guide gives the order that works.
What you can and cannot take with you
Meetup's terms of service, in section 5.4, let organisers process members' personal data only for running their Meetup group and its events. They also ask you to delete that data once it is no longer strictly necessary for running the group.
So we recommend that you do not copy your members or your attendee lists into another platform. Ask your members to join the new community themselves instead. That is also the cleaner start under the GDPR: every member signs up for what they want to hear about.
Meetup's exports are limited anyway. Its attendee list download gives you a spreadsheet of the people who RSVPed. Email addresses are only available on Meetup Pro, and only for members who agreed to share them when they RSVPed.
What you can bring is your group's own story: its name, description, logo, the talks you held and the slides you shared. Those are yours.
Step 1: create the community
In your AttendBeacon workspace, create a community for your group. It gets a public page at an address like attendbeacon.com/c/your-group, with:
- the upcoming meetups, with a countdown;
- earlier meetups, with photos, slides and replays;
- the organisers;
- a calendar feed people can subscribe to;
- a Join button.
Choose whether anyone can join, or whether you approve each request. Members join with their email address and a six-digit code, choose what they hear about, and can leave at any time.
Step 2: set up the recurring meetups
Make one meetup the way you like it: the agenda, the tickets, the capacity and the waiting list. Then turn it into a series, such as "every first Thursday, 18:30 to 21:00". Each new meetup is copied from that template. You can skip or move a single date.
When a meetup is published, the community's members are told by email and on their phone, in their own language. Meetups where every ticket is free stay free, at any size.
Step 3: bring the history, without the people
Want earlier meetups on your community page, with their talks and slides? Add them as earlier editions. In your workspace, go to Events, choose New event, then Bring your event over. You can upload a schedule, a calendar file or your own spreadsheet with the talks.
If you upload a Meetup attendee list, the import recognises it. When it asks whether to import the people, choose not to, for the reasons in Meetup's terms above. An earlier edition is built closed, free and outside the 1,000 participants limit.
Step 4: invite your members
This is the step that decides the move. Plan it like an event:
- Announce it at a meetup. Say why you are moving and show the new page. A QR code to the community page on a slide works well.
- Post it on Meetup. Write to your members on Meetup with the link to the community page. That is administering your group, which Meetup's terms allow.
- Run both for a while. Publish the next two or three meetups in both places, with a link from Meetup to the registration in AttendBeacon.
- Then point Meetup to the new page. Keep the group open with a description that says where you meet now.
Expect it to take a few months. Members who rarely come will follow later, or not at all.
Step 5: closing the Meetup group
Only when your members have moved. Meetup's help page says only the primary organiser can close a group, and a closed group cannot be reopened. Your subscription charges continue until you cancel the subscription separately.
Before you close it, delete any member data you exported, as Meetup's terms ask.
Where Meetup stays stronger
Meetup's network brings people who have never heard of you. AttendBeacon has no such network: people find your community through your own channels and search engines. If most of your new members arrive through Meetup, read the comparison with Meetup before you move.
What it costs
A community and its meetups are free when every ticket is free, at any size. A meetup with paid tickets is free up to 1,000 participants. See the pricing and free ticketing for user groups.
Meetup is a trademark of its owner. AttendBeacon is independent of Meetup and is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by it.