# 014 — Secrets for a Successful Meetup
In this world which is moving quickly towards the Metavers and its virtual universe, the desire to meet in real life the people with whom we exchange online, remains present. Fortunately! Since the launch of Bitclout last March, the Desonians have organized no less than eleven meetings in different cities around the world: Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Moscow, Bangalore, San Diego, Berlin, Amsterdam …
« We’ve been interacting in the virtual world for over 200 days now, » says Mike Goldberg (@MikeGoldberg), Charleston, SC, who attended BeachMeetup in Florida. « But who are we really dealing with? It was time to find out. The first thing I realized was that I was surrounded by really smart people, with no qualms about making the first gesture of goodwill. So impressed with the conversations I had, and seeing how much depth there was to each of these folks. »
The last DeSo meeting took place November 5–7 in Madeira Beach, Florida. The 41 participants were unanimous in saying how much they enjoyed meeting in person the friends with whom they have been chatting on DeSo, ClubHouse, Telegram or Discord for six months.
« It’s really crazy how a bunch of people from so many different places can come together and gel so well », says @Sandirose, from Florida. « Regardless of my thoughts about the platform or what happens in the future, my DeSo experience is already a huge win because of the connections I’ve made with a bunch of kick ass people. »
HOW TO ORGANIZE A MEETUP IN YOUR CITY
While it becomes more and more complicated to travel due to health regulations, the option to participate in these meetings is to organize one in your city.
A meetup weekend costs a lot of money (several thousand dollars) but if you seek sponsors, it is feasible. For example, the sponsors of the Deso Beach Meetup in Florida funded the event up to $ 8,500. As a result, the participation tickets could be sold for a nominal fee of only around $ 26 per person.
We interviewed Mechell (@MechellLord), one of the host of the BeachMeetUp in Florida last weekend. She shares 14 practical tips for anyone who wants to organize a successful meeting.
BEFORE
1. Create a Team that is cohesive and collaborative defining and driving the goals for the event.
2. Outline the Goals — What’s the flow you want for your attendees? — Walking event vs Ubers? Scheduled time vs free time? How do you want them to feel when they leave? Identify entertainment, speakers, networking, food & beverage strategy, venues, transportation, marketing, budget, and who does what to make it all happen.
3. Choose dates 3–6 months in advance depending on your regions hotel/venue availability.
4. Establish Event Agend — Number of days, Why, What, When, Where, How it will work.
5. Communicate the Dates and Agenda to fans, future sponsors and attendees through a Website & Discord channel. This gets more people involved as the community starts to share and get excited about meeting each other. Keep engaged and add updates, news, and photos of location leading up the the event.
6. Invite sponsors to participate by creating a Google form (linked to website & discord) that outlines exactly what the sponsors receive for their sponsorship and how the process works. Keep the form updated as sponsorship opportunities are taken if there’s limited opportunities.
7. Sell tickets as NFTs with Unlockable content art and access to the MeetUp Posted Events (swag, food & beverages).
8. Market the event through as many channels as possible to get the consistent word out there about your event. In Clubhouse rooms, on DeSo, in Discord, Telegrams wherever your people are, they need to hear about your event a few times before they will make the choice to attend or not.
Good times at the Caddy’s during @Murkury set that was fire
9. Create surprises for your attendees! Extra swag, unannounced Guest, whatever it is, just give them something more than they expected!
DURING
10. Play with your attendees and have FUN the weekend of your event!
11. Capture moments on video and stills and Create a Video sharing the event as a whole, to post and deliver to all attendees and sponsors immediately after the event.
AFTER
12. Send Thank you letters to event Sponsors communicating the post event statistics and to give and get feedback.
13. Explore a postmortem with event planning team. What we learned, what we loved and what we would do the same and differently.
14. Share the community’s posts during and after the event, engage with posts, comments and appreciate attendees for sharing their event experiences online.
THE SCHEDULE
The BeachMeetup in Madeira Beach, Florida is a great example of a successful meet up.
« It was a lot of teamwork », says organizer Mechell. « Kati Ann (@MissKatian) and I got the idea in August. And it became more fun and connecting than we could have imagined. Initially, it was just her coming to visit me and meet for the 1st time. And then other friends wanted to join us, and it became a MeetUp. I happen to live on Madeira Beach, so the event was planned in my backyard. Finally, there were 41 participants over 3 days. »
Zach, one of the participants, tells his experience.
THURSDAY
« I got in on Thursday night », says Zach (@znmead), from Fargo, North Dakota. « I met up with the crew at HQ and hung out with @WilliamLaurent, @AylaCroft, @MechellLord, and @CateColgan. We had a good time getting all of the merch bags ready for the crowd. Stayed up waaay too late chatting and hanging out, but we had a great time. »
FRIDAY
« Woke up on Friday and headed back to the HQ hotel room, bunch of people were already there so got to know some new folks.
Hung out until dinner time, and we all walked down for the welcome dinner and spent a few hours getting to know each other, had three tables full and it was a great time.
The party moved to Cyrus’s place (@CyrusAbrahim) and again we stayed up late talking about BitClout and our lives, really good time. »
SATURDAY
The day started with a meditation guided by Lisa Mariette (@LisaMariette).
« Saturday, noon to 4 p.m., “Zach continues, « we had the beach party and DJ set by @murkury. That day was awesome. Then we played games on the beach until 8 in the evening. @Matreshka organized a yoga session also on the beach. Then we all had dinner together and went down to the bars for a bit. »
SUNDAY
After a good “DeSolator Brunch”, the participants said goodbye to each other on Sunday at the end of the morning, promising to do it again!
« The best part for me, » Zach recalls, « was meeting my long-time friends in person I’ve known William, Matreshka, Ayla, Clay and Jeff (@knight10) for a very long time, and it was great getting to hang out in person. I also made new friends. Everything was well planned and perfectly organized. »
WHAT DIFFRENCE DOES IT MAKE TO ACTUALLY MEET IRL?
« Now when I engage with those people online », says Cassius (@CassiusCuvee), « I can picture their facial reactions and vocal inflections in my brain. Also, it confirms how likeminded so many of us are and how we plan on making Deso as popular as possible »
« Lots of great conversation and people willing to listen to ideas on future projects on DeSo », says Matt (@matthope). « I’ve already made immense improvement in a project I am involved in just based off of the feedback I received that weekend and in conversations since. Definitely left with new friends that I’m excited to have for years to come. »
« Thanks to conversations during the meetup, I am actually now collaborating on a project with someone there. », rejoices @Sandirose who lives in Florida.
« Perhaps the most useful conversation I had », says Mike (@MikeGoldberg) was with @meeks who gave me the straight feedback I needed on my writing. One word: minutiae. Need to be careful not to derail myself by getting hung up on too many details. »
« I wish I could share more about everyone else I met (so many stories), but if there was one thing clear to me, it’s that this community is composed of the most diverse and inclusive group of people I’ve ever met. And if this level of brainpower is eye opening. It’s nice not having to dumb down the conversation, right? I guess that’s the biggest thing. With all these folks representative of the rest of the community, I have even greater confidence of where DeSo is going. We have the ability. And now we’re starting to have the trust. », concludes Mike.
FEEDBACKS
- « I need to give a shout out to everyone that factored into my fantastic memories from this weekend. So many interesting conversations (and the fact that a bunch of drunk people have any interest in sitting around listening to me share thoughts about blockchain and other nerdy stuff is mind blowing). » @Sandirose.
- « We still have no idea which way DESO is going to go. But what we do know is that we are surrounded by some amazing folks, and we needed to build this. @mechelllord, @missKatiann, @cateColgan and @WilliamLaurent all put in a tremendous amount of work to put this thing together, and we are very grateful for everything they’ve done. » @MikeGoldberg.
- « It was wonderful. I had the best time. Meeting everyone in person is like a dream come true. DeSonians are even better people in person. My favorite party was Wendy Leigh (@wendyleigh) surprising me and showing up in the states for the meetup. The one person who made the most impact on me was @DOZ. He’s just the coolest person ever. And @CassiusCuvee is the sexiest man alive on DeSo. I cannot finish this review without giving a special shout out to Cate Colgan, Mechell Lord et William Laurent for putting the event together for all of us. I can’t wait for the next one. » @NirvanaHTX.
- « The first thing I realized was that I was surrounded by some really smart people, with no qualms about making the first gesture of goodwill. So impressed with the conversations I had, and seeing how much depth there was to each of these folks.
@CassiusCuvee Not sure if he is a rapper turned brainiac, or brainiac turned rapper, but spend a few minutes in a room with him and you’ll realize — he’s got the gift. And it was a hell of a lot of fun watching him experience an Oculus for the first time.
@Sandirose is scary smart. Not so much in an intimidating way, but it was pretty inspiring. She’s done her homework. I haven’t formulated the words that can describe her well enough, so I’ll just leave it to you to get to know her (hint: do it).
Would have loved to spend more time talking to @kad because I think we share a similar vision about what what the Metaverse really is, and what it could be. But now we know that.
@ThePennyTrader had never been on a plane before. Never left his state before. He decided this was important enough to take that step. Now was the time. I admire his courage. Imagine the effect this experience (and the others leading from this) will have on him. I feel that. @MikeGoldberg. - @adotmays: « The highlight for me was to see DJ Murkury who is steadily becoming legendary in the EDM scene. I helped him setup his sound and we pushed the limit on the bass. Ayla Croft the podcaster was there and of course Wendy and Clay Perry in the flesh — wow. I heard they are getting hitched. DeSo rockstar couple. I had stopped by to see Mechell a few weeks prior on my way to Miami — and she is an inspiration in many ways. Sandi Rose was there and she had a wonderful energy as well. just worked her tail off to make it all happen. Cassius Cuvee? What a talented visionary — he had a real energy around him. And Cyrus Abraham I have so much respect for him. His ability to stay calm when leading a clubhouse room is impressive, a great leader. It’s always nice to be around forward thinking people and that’s what I saw. An amazing group of forward thinking people. Many thanks and respect for Mechell who does so much for the community — she worked so hard. »
Any anecdote worth sharing ?
- « Anecdotes, oh man… what happens in Tampa stays in Tampa, but there were plenty of shenanigans and tomfoolery.
Was really cool making some new friends and meeting old ones, been waiting for it for a while.
The meetup reinforced existing relationships and set the stage for a couple new ones. It was another example of how my time here has been well-spent, as as much as we do this for the money, the real benefits are the relationships and community we’re building.
Really looking forward to the next few if I can make them. Think there’s a San Fran and Vegas in the lineup. I’d highly recommend to new and old alike, both in real human age and platform account age, to attend if you’re in this for the long run, very well worth it. » @znmead
Congratz to all the organizers of the DeSo Beach Meetup: @MechellLord, @MissKatiann, @WilliamLaurent, @CateColgan.
And to all the volunteers and sponsors: @BitCloutChats, @DeSoChats, @Murkury, @LaneDigitalArt, @GiftClout, @illuMEMEnati, @DeSoGhost, @CloutWomenUnite, @MattHope, @chetBLong, @CyrusAbrahim, @all_things_creative, @NFTplus, @jodybossert, @HauntedNight, @Boogeyman, @DESOlaters, @NaderHeads, @TarTar, @Bleep, @NATALIART, @DeSosaurus, @znmead, @Matreshka, @LisaMariette.
You rock!
THE KIND OF MEETUP MISTER DESO REALLY LIKES
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT ISSUE
Editor and drawings: @PhilippeMeunier
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