Recording | Meetup 101: Hosting Hybrid Events

We’re pleased to announce the launch of Hybrid Events, a highly-requested feature now available on Meetup Pro. To celebrate this new offering, we’re hosting a special Meetup 101 event dedicated to explaining the ins and outs of hosting events that accommodate both in-person and online attendees.

Meetup’s Customer Success Manager Chilan Nguyen joins our usual Customer Support hosts, Alex Marden and Colin-Pierre Larnerd, for a special demonstration of the new hybrid event scheduler. Hear everything you need to know about hosting your first hybrid event and learn how to access this new feature.

Timestamps & Main Takeaways 

• Product Updates (6:30)
  • Try using Meetup’s ChatGPT integration to generate a basic group description when creating a new group
  • Redesigned Group’s Money Page
  • New Feature: Hybrid Events 
• Introducing Hybrid Events (9:17)
  • Meetup Pro organizers can create and host events for both in-person and online attendees on the Meetup website & the Meetup for Organizers app
• What does the Hybrid Event feature look like? (10:42)
  • Both the in-person venue and the online video conferencing link will appear on the event homepage
  • Separate attendee and guest limits can be set for each part of your event
  • Set different fees for attending in-person or online

• Hybrid Events Demo (11:54) 
• RSVPing to Hybrid Events (20:12)
  • How these events appear in search results 
  • What your attendees see on an event page
• Best Practices (21:45)
  • How to make the most of this feature 
  • Coming soon: monitoring hybrid event attendance 
  • Contacting hybrid events attendees 
  • Following up for feedback 
• Additional Resources  (29:38)
  • Join the Meetup Organizer Community on Discord 

Q&A Questions & Resources (34:07) 

• I need help in understanding the Pro network I just started. What services have been added for the added premium?
  • Meetup Pro offers a few exclusive community building tools:
    • Organize or sponsor more than your standard three groups
    • Send targeted communications to members using customizable lists
    • Track your group activity with network analytics
    • Get support from dedicated Pro community experts seven days a week
    • Use time-saving integrations like Mailchimp
    • Create one network event across all groups in your network
    • and more!
• Can I set different prices? I want in person and online paid events to be two different prices.
  • Absolutely! Different prices can be set for RSVPing in person or online. And keep an eye out in the coming weeks for early bird pricing and promo codes, features that can maximize the flexibility of your event ticketing. These will all apply to hybrid events too!
• How to prevent “Zoom-bombing” in my online event
  • Here are some tips:
    • Set a password for your Zoom event
    • When you schedule an online event on Meetup, the members of your group can not see the meeting link until they actually RSVP to the event. This helps in avoiding unwanted disruptions from Zoom bombers.
    • Send the meeting link as a direct message to those you’re sure will show up, or share it in the event chat.
    • During the event, prevent attendees from taking control of screen sharing. You can also manage the chat, mute attendees, or disable attendees’ video cameras if necessary. Set these as default settings in your Zoom.
    • Everyone needs to log in with their Zoom accounts to join an event. This adds an extra layer of security, ensuring that only authenticated participants can join the event, rather than allowing anyone to join freely
    • Join Meetup Organizer Discord Community for more tips and support
• How will meeting participants communicate together when some are online and some are in person? Can you explain this in more depth? 
  • The key to this question is how your hybrid events are going to work. The approach will vary for each group. Having clear communication strategies for in-person and online attendees is the key to successful hybrid events. If the event focuses on a specific speaker who can identify and engage with attendees for questions, it’s relatively easier. However, for open discussions or classes where everyone can participate equally, having a strategy to coordinate and answer questions in both spaces is a good approach.
  • Use event chat. It is one place where everyone can contribute to the conversation and you can also use it to run live polls and drop questions to keep everyone engaged.
• Will hybrid events feature be offered to standard Meetup organizers in the future or will it remain exclusive to Meetup Pro organizers? 
  • At this time, there’s no plan to expand hybrid event functionality to standard Meetup organizers
• Do hybrid events only work with Zoom or can we use Google Meet as well?
  • You can use nearly any online conferencing platform as long as you have a pre-generated link that you can insert and you should be able to host your hybrid event using your preferred conferencing platform. The reason we are emphasizing Zoom is that Meetup has integration available with Zoom.

Resources

• Introducing hybrid events
• Creating a hybrid event
• Registering for a hybrid event
• Meetup Pro pricing and trial information
• Managing a group’s Money Page

Last modified on October 17, 2023