Promoting open hours through meetup.com?

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Heather Jackson

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Jan 20, 2026, 1:15:12 PM (yesterday) Jan 20
to Heatsync Labs
The makerspace nearest to me got me in the door and on the path to becoming a paid member by using meetup.com to schedule events for open hours. I had been meaning to go for ages, but having an app that was in my face about a time when the door would be open and there would be others in the room got me out of the house to actually attend.

I’m pinging the group to ask if heatsync does this or might want to. There is a fee to become an organizer, but of the 3000 or so folks in the google group, probably someone has a subscription with the bandwidth to add HSL open hours as events on meetup.

If someone wants to do this for the lab for free does it need a proposal, or is this basic do-ocracy?

Please discuss.

<3

Heather

Eric Ose

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Jan 20, 2026, 10:22:00 PM (20 hours ago) Jan 20
to heatsy...@googlegroups.com
We had Meetup and deliberately stopped paying for it. Some of the problems were discussed in this thread. It was canceled around that time (Sept 2021). The quality of the platform had decreased and it was costing more. The cost is tied to how many people are in your meetup group. A problem for us because we have 1500+ people on our communication platforms already.

I thought there would be a thread on the cancellation itself, but I don't see any. I know the board reached out to me and presumably other people who schedule events at that time.

Some of the events that happen at the lab are run by people who have Meetup, but I don't think setting up a distinct HeatSync Labs one would now be worth the cost when it wasn't before.

Eric Ose
It's just an idea until there's a date and time included.


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Heather Jackson

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Jan 20, 2026, 10:57:46 PM (20 hours ago) Jan 20
to heatsy...@googlegroups.com
That makes a ton of sense; thank you. I didn’t realize the cost scales with group size. 

On Jan 20, 2026, at 10:21 PM, Eric Ose <eric...@gmail.com> wrote:



sherman...@yahoo.com

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12:06 PM (7 hours ago) 12:06 PM
to heatsy...@googlegroups.com

Ironically that OWASP group I host on the first Tuesday of the month just sent out an email that they are moving to EventBrite since the cost for MeetUp just tripled.
S


Robert Bushman

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1:36 PM (5 hours ago) 1:36 PM
to HeatSync Labs
I was hoping to follow your lead in finding a good alternative, so I dug
in a little bit. Found the following facepalm fodder.

"""
On December 2, 2025, Eventbrite announced that it has entered into a
definitive agreement to be acquired by Bending Spoons in an all-cash
transaction valued at approximately $500 million. Under the terms of the
agreement, Eventbrite's shareholders will receive $4.50 per share,
representing an 82% premium over its recent stock prices. The
acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2026. [24]
"""

So who is Bending Spoons?

TL;DR: They own Meetup. They are nosferatu-level vulture capitalists.

"""
In September 2022, Bending Spoons acquired FiLMiC[17] and converted its
video-recording app FiLMiC Pro to a subscription revenue model.[18] In
December 2023, the original FiLMiC team were laid off, and development
of FiLMiC Pro was continued in-house by Bending Spoons.[19]

In November 2022, Bending Spoons agreed to acquire Evernote.[20] The
acquisition was concluded in January 2023.[21] In July 2023, Evernote
laid off all of its existing staff and announced it would relocate to
Europe to be closer to Bending Spoons' headquarters.[22]

Bending Spoons made a series of acquisitions in 2024. In January, it
acquired the assets of New York City-based mobile app developer Mosaic
Group from IAC Inc.; subsequently, Mosaic's entire workforce of 330
staff members was laid off, as they were not part of the
acquisition.[23][24] Also that month, Bending Spoons acquired Meetup, a
social media platform for organizing in-person and virtual
activities.[25][26] In April, the company announced that it would
acquire Hopin, owner of the popular live streaming studio
StreamYard.[27] Later in July, the company announced it had acquired
digital publishing platform Issuu.[28] Also in July, the company agreed
to acquire the Dutch file transfer service WeTransfer, then announced in
September they were laying off 75% of the company's workforce.[29][30]
In November, the company agreed to acquire video platform company
Brightcove for $233 million.[31] In March, Brightcove laid off 33% of
employees.[32]

In 2025, Bending Spoons acquired several companies, including Komoot in
March for near €300 million, soon after which it laid off three quarters
of the staff.[33][34] The company also acquired professional services
software provider Harvest in June, California-based MileIQ for $233
million in July,[35] video sharing platform Vimeo in September for $1.38
billion, and AOL in October for $1.5 billion.[36][37] In December, the
acquisition of Eventbrite for approximately $500 million was announced,
which is planned to close in the first half of 2026.[38]
"""


On 1/21/26 18:06, sherman_mohler via HeatSync Labs wrote:
>
> Ironically that OWASP group I host on the first Tuesday of the month
> just sent out an email that they are moving to EventBrite since the cost
> for MeetUp just tripled.
> S
>
>
> On Tuesday, January 20, 2026 at 08:57:46 PM MST, Heather Jackson
> <mosstly...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> That makes a ton of sense; thank you. I didn’t realize the cost scales
> with group size.
>
>> On Jan 20, 2026, at 10:21 PM, Eric Ose <eric...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> We had Meetup and deliberately stopped paying for it. Some of the
>> problems were discussed in this thread <https://groups.google.com/g/
>> heatsynclabs/c/2YhuMxsD9L0/m/BzJn8OQkAwAJ>. It was canceled around
>> that time (Sept 2021). The quality of the platform had decreased and
>> it was costing more. The cost is tied to how many people are in your
>> meetup group. A problem for us because we have 1500+ people on our
>> communication platforms already.
>>
>> I thought there would be a thread on the cancellation itself, but I
>> don't see any. I know the board reached out to me and presumably other
>> people who schedule events at that time.
>>
>> Some of the events that happen at the lab are run by people who have
>> Meetup, but I don't think setting up a distinct HeatSync Labs one
>> would now be worth the cost when it wasn't before.
>>
>> Eric Ose
>> Robot Ambassador <https://www.azrobotambassador.com/>
>> It's just an idea until there's a date and time included.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 20, 2026 at 11:15 AM Heather Jackson
>> <mosstly...@gmail.com <mailto:mosstly...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> The makerspace nearest to me got me in the door and on the path to
>> becoming a paid member by using meetup.com <http://meetup.com> to
>> schedule events for open hours.  I had been meaning to go for
>> ages, but having an app that was in my face about a time when the
>> door would be open and there would be others in the room got me
>> out of the house to actually attend.
>>
>> I’m pinging the group to ask if heatsync does this or might want
>> to. There is a fee to become an organizer, but of the 3000 or so
>> folks in the google group, probably someone has a subscription
>> with the bandwidth to add HSL open hours as events on meetup.
>>
>> If someone wants to do this for the lab for free does it need a
>> proposal, or is this basic do-ocracy?
>>
>> Please discuss.
>>
>> <3
>>
>> Heather
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "HeatSync Labs" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
>> send an email to heatsynclabs...@googlegroups.com
>> <mailto:heatsynclabs%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>.
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>> heatsynclabs/36788044-79B3-4E1E-87DF-5800EBB5AF85%40gmail.com
>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/
>> heatsynclabs/36788044-79B3-4E1E-87DF-5800EBB5AF85%40gmail.com>.
>>
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>> heatsynclabs/CAEk_gvD-
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Robert Bushman

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1:39 PM (5 hours ago) 1:39 PM
to HeatSync Labs
Looking at the bright side: Looks like Bending Spoons is giving away
money to kill competition. Anyone want to build a glorified calendar app?

austin townsend

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2:45 PM (4 hours ago) 2:45 PM
to heatsy...@googlegroups.com
I’ve been a pretty big fan of Luma recently, the free tier is really generous too. We used it for the Hackathon this summer and it worked out great.


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