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Comment by mritchie712 | Hacker News Reader

also, many will signup to attend and bail last minute

Very true. About Meetup.com specifically (a couple of years ago at least), attending rate was something like 15-20% of the people who RSVP'd.

I get about ~40-50% attendance rate from meetup, but we've been going for years so the regulars are pretty consistent.

Higher indeed. 40% no shows for a meetup I run (60-100 slots, meeting monthly)

True, but this is also an emergent behavior of the Meetup UI. It has no (clear) way to say "I'm interested, might attend, can't commit right now, please remind me day-of." So if you want that reminder — if you want it on your calendar — you have to RSVP as if you were really 100% coming. Meetup doesn't (clearly) offer any other option.

I've RSVPed myself with this intent plenty of times. I'd use a "maybe, please remind me" button if it existed.

Contrast Doodle.com, which offers a "yellow maybe" option intermediate between "green yes" and "red no."

This is solved by charging $19 or so.

Well yes, but 100% attendance of zero people is still zero people.

Great way to guarantee I won't attend your meetup

If you distributed the $19 to the people who did actually show up... you would actually get people to show up... maybe there's some kind of business plan embedded in your comment.

That is a fascinating idea that I'm surprised I haven't heard before. I guess implicitly it sort of happens when the money is spent on food or drinks.

Double-digit is too high, you'd have people showing up just to get paid - which is not what you want.

There might be a sweet spot around $3-5 for that model.

Even better: charge $5 to book; attendants will be refunded the fee; any leftovers will be used for refreshments at future events.

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