Planning Regular Social Events

Or, "Please stop inviting new Libertarians to business meetings."

For 15 years, a couple of friends and I hosted Pittsburgh Geek Night. This was a social gathering that started as an informal networking event after the dot-com bust in 1998. What began with a dozen people meeting up for drinks and dinner ended up with groups of 250-300 people meeting every other month at its height.

What follows are some of the things that we learned while running Geek Night. I hope that they will help inform and inspire you. Note that while this is geared towards the idea of having a “political” get-together, it’s generally applicable to any kind of informal, “get-to-know one another” networking type of event you might want to put together.

Logistics

Before you send out invitations to your Who (the people you want to see there), you’re going to need to figure out there What, Where, and When of your event.

This is all your call.

People are generally OK with making a single A/B choice. You’re already asking them to make one (“Do I want to go to this event?”) If you ask them to make more (“Which location? What time?”) then they will metaphorically (or literally) toss your invitation in the trash.

Pick a Name

You want people to be able to say, “Are you going to … “ and have other people know what they mean.

Try and pick something descriptive that emphasizes the social nature or the type of relationship(s) you’re building. “Geek Night” worked well because, well, we were all geeks :) If you’re inviting a bunch of lawyers, “Bar Night at the Bar” might work. Teachers? “School’s Out”. Or maybe “Detention”. 

Unless you want to attract only a certain Type of Person who prefers reading Bastiat in the original Klingon, avoid anything “typical” that sounds like politics. “Discussion”, “Roundtable”, “Panel”, “for Liberty”, “Circle”, “Citizen’s”, “People’s”, etc. 

It can be cute, corny, or serious - but there should be a handle that people can remember and look for.

Pick a Place

Guess how many people you think might show up, and look for a place that can hold you.

You want someplace you can sit and talk, or get up and move around from table to table to mingle. Live music or loud music playing constantly will keep people from talking and connecting. Someplace like a brewpub with a back room or an upstairs seating area is excellent. Barring that, an open-plan restaurant where you can “take over” a corner works as well.

Brewpubs and the like are excellent as well because they generally offer both interesting drinks and light snacks (or even the opportunity for a meal). People who are on the fence about attending might figure on going because they’ll at least be able to grab something to eat. 

Pick a Date & Time

As I said, this is all your call. However… I am going to suggest that you give some good thought to whether or not a regular, once-a-month Thursday night would work for you.

We picked “Thursday after work” for Geek Night more or less at random. For several reasons, it turned out to be a tremendously good choice. Businesses and other events seem to prefer either Wednesday or Friday, so many people had the evening free. We also found out bars are generally “slow” on Thursdays, so telling them you would like to bring in a large group tends to get their attention. 

Third Thursday, Final Friday… whatever you choose, pick a reasonable time based on your location. We were downtown, and lots of people worked downtown, so “Thursday after work” was easy. People could stop in for an hour on the way home and it was a nice break for them. If you’re out in the suburbs, you may want to have it a bit later so people have a chance to get home & change. 

… and Stick With It

People like stability. Providing it will make them more likely to attend (even if eventually).

Knowing the where and when of your event will help them make plans. Even if they can’t make it the first time, repeated invitations will show them that it’s still going on even without them. They may get curious as to who’s showing up, or why people seem to like it.

Stability helps you to build a relationship with your venue, too. If you are regularly bringing in groups of people, they will notice. You might be able to get them to offer specials (happy hour drink prices for your group) or other enticements you can use to draw people in. They want to sell drinks and food, you are bringing them people who want to drink and eat food… it’s a win-win!

Atmosphere

Once you have a name, a place, and a time, it’s time to send out invitations to people and prep for your event.

Keep it Simple

For Geek Night, we didn’t start with anything particularly fancy. Keep that in mind. Social events are for people to hang out, talk, and get to know one another. Anything that gets in the way of that breaks up the flow and the fun - and you absolutely want things to be fun. That’s what keeps people coming back.

Your average neighborhood backyard barbecue doesn’t have assigned reading, a guest speaker, or anything like that. Neither did we, and neither should you. 

Keep it Comfortable

Presumably, your purpose is to get people interested in, and thereby get them involved in a cause you’re championing. That might be your local or state political scene, the local Rotary club, or a non-profit organization you support. Whatever it is - you don’t want your event to be all about recruiting! People can smell that a mile away. That will turn them off and turn them away.

Instead, think of these events as a way to bring people together so you can figure out who might be interested in getting involved with your cause. It may surprise you, but it is rather easy to turn just about any conversation around to a topic related to what you’re interested in.

Chances are if you circulate and bring up topics, you’ll get people chatting, and have the opportunity to mention your organization or cause. That will help you seed the conversations. Talk about the topics you’re interested in, and see how conversations flow. It can happen organically if you create the right atmosphere:

• Relaxing

• Non-threatening

• Conducive to small talk
  

  

Keep it Open

Ideally, you want a mix of people with a wide variety of interests, but who also have something in common. That does NOT have to be the organization or cause you’re interested in! It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. It could be an adjacent political or social issue, a shared professional background (technology, law, social work), or a shared social background (neighborhood, school, sports organizations, etc.)

People who already know one another make for a welcoming environment. Make use of that. There’s no reason you can’t have multiple groups, either, especially if there are members that overlap to help bring them together. In fact, “Why don’t the three of us invite a bunch of our friends to a get-together” is a pretty good starting point.

Keep it Cool

Our invitations always included a mention of the Commutative Coolness Principle:

As always, your invitation is subject to the “Commutative Coolness Principle”. You were cool enough to be invited, so anyone you may want to bring along is cool enough for us, too :-)

That opens the door for a friend from work, a spouse, a neighbor, etc. to come along. Believe it or not, that makes it a lot easier for people to accept. Even if they don’t bring a friend, the fact that they can reinforce a friendly atmosphere.

Keep the converse in mind as well, though. We all know people who always seem to have more contentious or troublesome friends than usual. If that’s the case, then maybe they aren’t someone you should be inviting to an event like this.

Keep it Friendly

You’re going to want to find one or two people to help you co-host.

These will be your fellow organizers. You want to find someone who’s a real “people person”. They should also (ideally) be interested in your cause or members of the organization you’re championing.

Your shared job, above all, will be to make people feel welcome. Doing that is pretty simple, really:

• Greet people when they show up & thank them for coming out.

• Chat with them a bit, either catching up or getting to know them.

• Steer them towards a person or people who you think they might click with (“Hey, let me introduce you to…”)

In between, you can move around and spend some time chatting with people. This gives you the chance to see what they’re talking about. You might be able to throw in your two cents, steer the conversation in an interesting direction, or ask a question that brings up ideas related to your cause or organization.

Above All, Have Fun!

Frankly, your own attitude will determine how well things go, especially at first. Don’t stress about making this the Best Event Ever, or being the Ideal Host. You’re inviting a bunch of people to come to hang out with you and chat. Yes, you’re hoping to inform, educate, or maybe even recruit some of the people you meet… but ultimately, it’s about enjoying spending time with like-minded people. If you make that your goal, all the rest will work itself out naturally. So take the plunge, set things up, and see where they take you!