After the most recent price hike ($16 to almost $30/mo for the "basic" organizer plan) I decided to quit Meetup as the host of two groups after more than a decade. It's not just the money, since you were asking about pain points:
* Notifications I get on iOS are pretty much the opposite of how I set them up; I ask for relevant notifications about people RSVP-ing and commenting on my events, instead I get notifications about their own AI / crypto virtual events.
* When I do get notifications about a new comment in the 'event chat', I tap the notification, but the app just lands me on the event main screen. When I navigate to event chat (which is surprisingly hard to find) there will be an unread symbol but more often than not the actual comment is nowhere to be seen.
* Meaningless functionality being added (start an event with AI!) while pain points such as the above, and the core organizer experience overall, haven't seen meaningful fixes or improvements in years.
* No way to slice / analyze member data.
* Related to the above, you can download the member list, which gets you a file with an .xls extension but in reality is a broken csv file.
* Increased focus on having group members pay, which is hard to manage and also very hard to get any metrics on (who has paid, when, how much?)
I could go on.
Overall, from an organizer perspective, Meetup is a buggy, stagnant and increasingly expensive platform that becomes a poorer value for money with every change they make. The only reason I've stuck with it for as long as I did is that it's really the only way for me to have people organically find my group without significant effort on my part. (I am in the U.S.)
I finished making a carpooling site a few weeks ago that automatches people into the optimal groups based on their location. My site might be a good use case for you: https://antride.ca/. Would appreciate if you consider using it to save people gas and carbon emissions :)
I always set up the same event, at the same place, etc, yet it's hard to just say "use all the values from the previous one". It doesn't have many ways to communicate with members, so I've set up a Discord server instead, which is fine. The UI is a bit confusing if you need to do anything other than set up an event. Most crucially of all, members complain that emails don't reach them, which is terrible, because then they don't know to come to the event.
> yet it's hard to just say "use all the values from the previous one"
Whaa- I'm kind of amazed they don't have this given how easy it would be to add.
I just added this exact feature to Radius because our event form was growing and becoming quite painful to fill out - it's just a dropdown with previous events at the top of the event form, nothing complex, but a huge time saver.
Maybe they added this recently, my meet-up has been on hiatus and just started up again. This definitely wasn't a thing up until a year or so ago, though.
After the most recent price hike ($16 to almost $30/mo for the "basic" organizer plan) I decided to quit Meetup as the host of two groups after more than a decade. It's not just the money, since you were asking about pain points:
* Notifications I get on iOS are pretty much the opposite of how I set them up; I ask for relevant notifications about people RSVP-ing and commenting on my events, instead I get notifications about their own AI / crypto virtual events. * When I do get notifications about a new comment in the 'event chat', I tap the notification, but the app just lands me on the event main screen. When I navigate to event chat (which is surprisingly hard to find) there will be an unread symbol but more often than not the actual comment is nowhere to be seen. * Meaningless functionality being added (start an event with AI!) while pain points such as the above, and the core organizer experience overall, haven't seen meaningful fixes or improvements in years. * No way to slice / analyze member data. * Related to the above, you can download the member list, which gets you a file with an .xls extension but in reality is a broken csv file. * Increased focus on having group members pay, which is hard to manage and also very hard to get any metrics on (who has paid, when, how much?)
I could go on.
Overall, from an organizer perspective, Meetup is a buggy, stagnant and increasingly expensive platform that becomes a poorer value for money with every change they make. The only reason I've stuck with it for as long as I did is that it's really the only way for me to have people organically find my group without significant effort on my part. (I am in the U.S.)
I finished making a carpooling site a few weeks ago that automatches people into the optimal groups based on their location. My site might be a good use case for you: https://antride.ca/. Would appreciate if you consider using it to save people gas and carbon emissions :)
I always set up the same event, at the same place, etc, yet it's hard to just say "use all the values from the previous one". It doesn't have many ways to communicate with members, so I've set up a Discord server instead, which is fine. The UI is a bit confusing if you need to do anything other than set up an event. Most crucially of all, members complain that emails don't reach them, which is terrible, because then they don't know to come to the event.
A push notification system would be nice, but...
> yet it's hard to just say "use all the values from the previous one"
Whaa- I'm kind of amazed they don't have this given how easy it would be to add.
I just added this exact feature to Radius because our event form was growing and becoming quite painful to fill out - it's just a dropdown with previous events at the top of the event form, nothing complex, but a huge time saver.
Why improve the product when you can coast on your brand's previously earned credibility until you sell again?!
(/s, just in case)
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You can copy events and set up repeating events. I do this all the time.
Maybe they added this recently, my meet-up has been on hiatus and just started up again. This definitely wasn't a thing up until a year or so ago, though.
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I do similar, but there is a "Copy event" button that I can use (and then just change the date). Is that available for you?
Don't think I have anything super premium, but am an organiser of the group