No one showed up to my event

★★ signal-medium r/smallbusiness · ↑ 303 · 💬 165 · 2025-10-10 · kw: hours every day · open on reddit ↗

Tool

none

Issue

Event organizer spent $200+ on venue and catering plus promotion time across meetup.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, and local flyers for a business networking event but achieved 0% attendance despite 50 RSVPs, resulting in total sunk cost and reputational embarrassment.

Cost

$200+ direct spend (venue $100, catering $100+) plus unquantified staff promotion time over 5 weeks

Recommendation

Start with online/virtual events (disputed); shift timing from 6:30pm to 5:30pm weekday start; build persistence over years rather than expect first-event success; none for specific tool

extracted with

anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 · 2026-05-08

Body

I make websites and do digital marketing and there's so much going on in the industry with new AI changes, new tools, Google changing things up, new strategies, etc., that I wanted to try to make a meetup to meet new people (potential people to hire and potential new clients). I moved to a new city last year and in my old city there was a big scene for marketers with meetups and conferences every week, so I wanted to start something similar here. I spent $100 on the venue, $100+ on catering, spent money on flyers, and spent a lot of time making the presentation I was going to give, hanging up flyers at dozens of local businesses, meeting business owners, and promoting on meetup.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Several people RSVP'd and I had close to 50 people interested or saying they would come including my friends. I promoted the event with my small team every day for 5 weeks sending reminders just enough to not be annoying. I got there and set everything up and... nothing. No one came. One person had been asking me questions on meetup named Curtis and I saw one person there who looked like him so I went up to say hello and introduced myself and he looked at me strange and said his name was Shawn and it was nice to meet me. SO AWKWARD. I casually played it off and left him alone, then waited 30+ minutes after the start time by the front door of the venue like some kind of 1970's breakup song to see if anyone would show before packing up my stuff and going home. Next month I was planning a follow up and was going to have a guest speaker come out, but now I'm thinking of emailing him (a respected name in my field) and canceling next month because it would embarrass me even more. Maybe Thursday nights aren't good? Maybe 6:30pm is a bad time for a business event? Maybe my offer wasn't good enough? Maybe something else was going on last night that I didn't know about? Maybe I should have tried paid ads on the radio or Facebook instead? Maybe I should try changing it to Saturday and pay a big name to appear? Maybe this town isn't interested in marketing and I need to try the big city 30 minutes away? I guess I'm just venting into the void here. I used to be in bands and I've definitely played shows where no one came, so this is nothing new, but it's never fun to go through it. I realize I'm not good at in-person event promotion and need to keep trying things until I make progress.

Top comments (5)

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[score=128] BionicGuy

As someone who has gone to a lot of meetups and talked to the organizers, it's not uncommon what you experienced. During the first few months, it's usually frequented by friends and a few strangers *at best*. The key is persistence and doing it regularly, and thinking long term (i.e. years). I think the unusual amount of interest online might have skewed your expectations. As you can see, people are fickle and non-committal - even friends if you don't hold them accountable. Start out small. I highly doubt the day and time are the reason no one showed up (though you should check for any competing events happening at the same time).

[score=160] Ok-Bid8106

Why not try an online event next month with your esteemed colleague. Much easier to commit to.

[score=346] wesd00d

I think 630 is too late to start a business event during the week. You want to catch people before they go home. Once I am home, it's not easy to make it back out, especially if you have a family. I think a 530 start would have a better chance to capture working professionals.

[score=46] Better_Weakness7239

Keep trying different things. No one on your guest list has any idea that no one showed up, so the embarrassment you’re going through is your own. These types of events after work are difficult because people want to go home or they want to drink. How about a virtual meetup to start? Would be cool if you posted your flyer or announcement to see if something there can improve. How prominent is the fact that you are providing free food? That’s a huge draw. Hang in there!