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Our meetups generally have about 20 people. The problem is that without generating network effects, you can't generate awareness that the event is happening at all. We've had a brick-and-mortar location in a Chicago suburb for over 8 years. In the early days, Meetup's network effects were the only way to get people in the door, until much later when word-of-mouth spread.

Meeting up in real life is all about network effects - people make friends through networks, organize events through networks, and discover new opportunities through networks. If you're talking about small events that you found out about through sites like Meetup, those are typically successful when you have a large-enough network of people who _might_ be interested.

But how do people know about said event? Print and post adverts on telephone poles?

Yes! I went to a professional meetup with 80 people. Every single person I met was interesting, but they keep moving, so I had to pull aside the person I was talking to at the moment just to continue a conversation.