[group-organizers] RSVPs

[Simeon Franklin]

On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 8:13 AM, Don Sheu <dinaldo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Our point is not to charge for the monthly meetup. Our no-show has been all
> over the place recently. Earlier in our org's life, RSVPs were pretty
> accurate.
>

This plagues us as well. SF Python Meetup typically can fit 225 people in
our largest venues. We have used Meetup to take reservations and send at
least 1 "Please release your reservation if you do not intend to attend"
email in the day or two before each event. We still can count on 45% no
shows (350 registrations <200 in the house) and the percentage fluctuates
sometimes up to as much as 65% no show (only 120 in the house).

The main harm this causes is food wastage which annoys our sponsors. We
could also do some promoting to drive up attendance if we knew in advance
that attendance would be low...

We have kept some attendance sheets and are considering doing an email
campaign to frequent no-shows reminding them not to RSVP yes if they don't
know if they'll come. Has anybody reached out to frequent no-shows and had
a positive impact?

-regards
Simeon
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