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This analysis examines global trends in WordPress MeetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. events from January 2023 to June 2024, focusing on both in-person and online events with at least 50 RSVPs, while excluding canceled events. The goal is to understand WordPress Meetup trends globally and identify commonalities with other tech groups active on Meetup.com.
Note: I focused on events with more than 50 RSVPs to identify the types that generate the highest interest among our worldwide meetup members, but this does not mean that I consider events with fewer than 50 RSVPs unsuccessful. Our 750+ groups range from fewer than 20 to over 5000 members.
TL;DR:
The Learn WordPress Online Workshops, led by full-time sponsored contributors, emerged as a significant trend, with sessions on modern web layouts and JavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. being particularly popular. In-person events saw the highest engagement in Ahmedabad and Mumbai, India, while online events drew attention to SEO, accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), and AI topics. The WordPress Accessibility Meetup, an online-only volunteer-run group which cover accessible navigation and writing, also received substantial interest.
Regionally, Asia, especially India, showed strong engagement in in-person events. This could be tied to a higher population rate compared to other regions. Online learning events attracted more interest than their in-person counterparts, and accessibility remained a high-interest topic across the board.
General Meetup trends for other Tech groups indicate seasonal declines in attendance and a post-COVID shift towards virtual events. Popular topics for online events included AI and APIAPIAn API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. design, while in-person events focused more on gaming, security, and AI development.
Next steps: Looking ahead, I’d love to develop further regional analysis to understand the types of events that are most successful in each area. Community feedback and participation in this endeavor are encouraged. Please leave a comment or reach out to me on SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. (@ peiraisotta) if you want to join me.
For those who enjoy delving into the numbers, please read the extended analysis below.
2023: We had 3890 total events (2223 in-person and 1667 online). Of those, 110 in-person and 189 online events had 50+ RSVPs.
2024 (as of June 26): 1207 in-person and 659 online events, with 52 in-person and 72 online events having over 50 RSVPs.
Average Attendance:
In-person events: 17 RSVPs
Online events: 24.5 RSVPs
Premise: The Location Challenge for Online-Only Meetup Groups
Meetup.com requires you to pick a location before creating a group, even for our online-only groups. The widgetWidgetA WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. in the WordPress dashboards shows upcoming events based on the selected location. This means that online-only events are not automatically visible to everyone. The WordPress Accessibility Meetup group and other theme-based, online-only meetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. would benefit from appearing in everyone’s WP events dashboard widget, not just the arbitrarily designated city. For instance, the WordPress Accessibility Meetup group and the Learn WordPress Online Workshops are registered in San Francisco, US, and the Quedadas Online en Español (WordPress Gatherings in Spanish, with organizers and members both in Europe and LatAm) are registered in Madrid, Spain.
Top Trends
Learn WordPress Online Workshops:
Hosted 374 events with an average of 47.5 RSVPs per event.
Top events included developer-focused sessions like “Building modern web layouts with WordPress blocks” and “JavaScript for modern WordPress development.”
Top Trends Excluding Learn WordPress Online Workshops:
In-person events: 3430 events with an average of 17 RSVPs.
Online events: 1952 events with an average of 20 RSVPs.
Top in-person events: Mostly in Asia, particularly India.
Top online events: Focused on accessibility and AI.
Regional Trends
Excluding the Learn WordPress Online Workshops group, which is registered in the US/Pacific time zone, but including the WordPress Accessibility Meetup group, also registered in the US/Pacific time zone, the following is the regional activity of WordPress Meetup events, both in-person and online, from January 1, 2023, to June 26, 2024.
Region
Total Groups
Total Events
Total RSVPs
Africa
47
256
2954
Asia
138
1030
26060
Australia/Pacific
10
106
1597
Europe/Canary
199
1770
31291
LatAm
44
221
4302
US/Canada
134
1999
31553
Number of Events per Group
Below is the average number of events each group organized between January 1, 2023, and June 26, 2024.
US/Canada: 14.9
Australia/Pacific: 10.6
Europe/Canary: 8.9
Asia: 7.5
Africa: 5.4
LatAm: 5.0
Note: Among our groups, some meet consistently one or more times per month, while nearly half haven’t had any events in the past three months. These disparities impact the averages.
Want to help reactivate the inactive WordPress Meetup groups in your region? Join the Reactivation initiative!
General Meetup Trends
I asked our point of contact at Meetup.com Customer Success about worldwide trends for Meetup events within the ‘Tech’categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. to make the analysis as relevant as possible.
It is important to note that Meetup.com’s popularity as an event and community platform varies by country, and the following feedback refers only to Meetup.com trends. Therefore, it might not represent global trends within tech communities that do not use Meetup.com.
Below is the feedback and information received. In general, Meetup.com observes:
Seasonal decreases in activity due to summer vacations and winter holidays.
General decline in attendance at in-person tech events post-COVID-19.
Shift to virtual events: 40% of RSVPs for tech events are online. For non-tech events, the percentage of online events VS in-person events is 17%, showing a stronger preference to online events for tech events compared to event types.
Below are some potential reasons identified that explain the shift to virtual events:
Remote work culture has changed professional dynamics and networking habits. (People seem less likely to go to the city for an event if they’ve been working from home all day, some have moved away from city centers, others got more used to online networking, etc.)
Content accessibility: Event recordings and online resources reduce the need for real-time attendance.
Changed priorities: Increased focus on personal time and family, which results in decreased meetup attendance and engagement.
Popular General Meetup Topics:
Online: AI, API, Design.
In-person: Gaming, Security, AI, Development.
Key Insights
In-person WP events: engagement appears to be stronger in Asia, especially in India, compared to other regions. It could be useful to understand whether this is primarily related to the high population rate or if there are specific organizational characteristics that other communities could learn from.
Online learning events seem to attract more interest than in-person learning events.
In-person social events seem to be more popular than in-person learning events.
Accessibility seems to be a high interest topic among community members.
Observations
There is a noticeable disparity in activity levels among WordPress Meetup groups, with some groups being very active, while many others organize less than two events per year. This highlights the importance of initiatives like the current Meetup Reactivation effort, which aims to invigorate inactive groups. Such initiatives are crucial for fostering an active and engaged community, ensuring that more groups can benefit from regular events and increased participation. By reactivating these groups, the WordPress community can enhance collaboration, knowledge sharing, and overall engagement across different regions. If you want to get involved, please reach out to @devinmaeztri or @courtneypk, or drop a message in the #community-team channel on Slack.
The above analysis focuses on WordPress Meetup trends worldwide, comparing countries of different sizes, population rates, WordPress Groups, and members. To gain a real understanding of regional trends, it would be interesting and useful to analyze the activity of each region and each country separately.
Feedback and additional insights from the community are welcome to enhance this analysis.
Call for interest
I intend to analyze the regional activity of our Meetup groups to determine which events are most successful in each region, providing organizers with valuable insights into the types of events that attract the most interest in their area. If anyone is interested in joining me, please leave a comment under this post or reach out to me via Slack (@ peiraisotta) before Friday, July 26, 2024.
Our Meetup.com contact Marie-Lou, has asked us to pass on this note with information about the company’s acquisition by Bending Spoons and a feedback form that goes directly to their product team.
If you want to share feedback about Meetup.com, please use the form instead of posting in the comments. Their new parent company is planning to invest in improving the product and would love to hear our needs. Please use the feedback form instead of posting in the comments.
Currently, the form will stay open indefinitely and the team is eager to hear our feedback so Meetup.com can better meet the needs of the WordPress community.
Hello WordPress community,
It’s lovely to connect with you all. I’m Marie-Lou from MeetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.’s Customer Success team, and I have the pleasure of working closely with the WordPress Community Team to help your groups and events thrive.
I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself, update you on some recent changes at Meetup, and share a new way to send us direct feedback about your Meetup experience.
Earlier this year, Meetup was acquired by Bending Spoons—an Italian-based tech company with an ambitious vision for Meetup’s future.
Bending Spoons acquired Meetup because they believe in our mission to foster human connections. Over the next few years, our new parent company intends to invest nearly $50 million into improving the product and growing membership. In particular, the team has plans to improve event discoverability and reduce the friction for organizers to create events and engage with their communities.
I believe these changes will make your Meetup experience even better, but we’d love to hear from the WordPress community directly! To do so, we’ve created this dedicated form to collect your feedback. Please use it to share how we can improve the Meetup platform.
I’m excited to continue working with this vibrant community during this new chapter!All the best, Marie-Lou
In November 2022, WordPress meetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. organizers expressed their disappointment in Meetup.com’s accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) overlay, and brought this to the attention of the Community Team. All details can be found in this post.
Below the latest updates from the meetup.com team:
meetup.com team completed an assessment with Deque on Dec 31, 2022.
After the holiday break, they kicked off planning of the scope of work for remediation.
The Deque assessment identified a total of 732 issues.
meetup.com team plans on addressing the issues as follows:
Phase 1: Design remediation issues (Design/Color Contrast – ~40% of all issues):
they plan on hiring an external consultant who will both guide the design/engineering teams on the best way to fix the issues and also train the Meetup staff & help update the processes to ensure future releases are compliant.
Phase 2: Web remediation issues (Remaining issues – ~60%):
Website Components
Component Library Components
Remainder
Thank you @angelasjin for the input to share these updates.
There were a number of changes to the Global Sponsorship program for 2021, to reflect the current status of the WordPress events program. A new benefit to global sponsors this year was to feature sponsor logos on WordPress MeetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. chapter homepages and event pages. In recent months, the Global Sponsorship Working Group has been working with Meetup.com to implement some design changes so that global sponsors are featured alongside the people who make WordPress events possible: the organizers and attendees.
I’m excited to share these changes with you! In the coming weeks, all meetup pages will have a new, rotating shelf of sponsors. Global sponsors will automatically be added to all Chapter meetups starting July 2021. Local organizers won’t be able to make edits to the global sponsors, but will still be able to acknowledge local sponsors. Local organizers will also be seeing some improvements to the user interface for managing local sponsors come August 2021, although all functionality will remain the same.
The maximum number of local sponsors that any meetup group can feature is 15, according to Meetup.com. The global sponsors do not count toward this limit. At the moment, this shouldn’t impact any chapter meetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook., but if you want to add more than 15 sponsors, please send an email to support@wordcamp.org.
Please comment below if you have any questions about these changes. Major gratitude to organizers, attendees, and sponsors (both global and local!) – WordPress community events aren’t possible without your support and efforts!
With 575 meetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups on the chapter account (and always growing!) we like to check in every so often to confirm if the groups are active. However, there are some meetup groups in the program that are inactive or dormant, and we need to figure out how we should manage them going forward.
Groups highlighted in Red haven’t had an event in over a year.
Highlighted in Orange haven’t had an event in 6–12 months.
Highlighted in Yellow haven’t had an event in the past 3–6 months.
You’ll notice a column titled “Upcoming Events”, which we’ll need to investigate for each group, as it can mean they have an event listed, but don’t have a location and/or date yet.
In some inactive groups, organizers are still interested, but they are struggling with attendance and/or finding event topics. We should check if this is the case, and if we can help advise/support them in any way.
I propose the following plan:
Email existing organizers of dormant groups that we have contact info for (according to the Meetup Status doc).
Also reach out to the organizing team via message on Meetup.com (this will help ensure that the message reaches organizers that we don’t have email addresses for, and/or if their contact information has changed).
If we don’t hear back from any organizers for a particular group by 5 March 2018, we will then reach out to all the members of the group via Meetup.com message to ask if anyone is interested in organizing.
If no members of the group volunteer to organize the group by a 12 March 2018, we will remove the group from the chapter account.
Below is the email that I’ve drafted, which is based on an old annual survey email that we sent to dormant groups. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for changes and/or additions.
Rolled in two meetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. to the chapter program this week:
I’m hoping to begin posting what happened with meetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. each week as a recap so everyone can stay up to date and get involved if they’re interested. So here it goes:
Processed all remaining applications that were in the meetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. queue
Scheduling chats for creating and/or rolling in other meetups to come
As you know, the process for existing meetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. to join the chapter account has been a pain since day 1. They apply, we say yes, they go on a spreadsheet, we wait for meetup.com to contact them, meetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. org has to reply to email and fill out form, half the time the meetup email goes to spam, we ask meetup to resend, repeat, repeat, and eventually meetup.com adds the group to our account. ARGH! (says any meetup organizer who had to go through that)
Shiny new process:
Existing meetup org applies (same as before)
We review, chat with them, approve (same as before)
We have the WordPress account join the meetup group
The current owner uses meetup.com tool to nominate WordPress to be the new primary organizer (pay the dues) following the meetup.com instructions in the section labeled Nominate a new organizer.
We receive email from meetup.com and accept the role.
Donezo!
Why did we have to follow the old process for so long? No one seems to know, and the person who started us doing it that way has moved on from the company. In any case, now it’s easier. @chaselivingston has been handling meetup applications, but we could use another volunteer or two to help.
If you’d like to volunteer to help:
You should have excellent written and verbal communication skills.
You should be capable of recognizing when someone is not respecting the WP trademark and/or license.
You should be someone who’s known to Jen or Andrea and considered trustworthy (via this team is fine, doesn’t need to be known in person), since the limitations of meetup.com require us to share a username/password with this volunteer.
You should be part of a meetup group that’s on the chapter account, unless you are in an area that doesn’t use meetup.com, in which case you should be part of a meetup group that can be approved as meeting the guidelines (since we’re now starting to approve non-meetup.com groups outside the US).
If you’d like to volunteer, leave a comment and/or mention it in tomorrow’s meeting.
Good news on the meetup.com front: the personnel change that had us in flux has turned out to be a good thing. Now that Laura at Meetup.com is handling the chapter program, she has agreed to let us do existing group roll-ins monthly rather than quarterly. This is great news, because the once-every-3-months thing was a pain in butt logistically, and sometimes meant that dues came up for renewal before the next roll-in (though meetup.com has generally been good about prioritizing people in that situation). With this new schedule, we can keep forward momentum going a lot easier from the moment someone applies to join the program.
Emails were sent from meetup.com to everyone on the current quarterly roll-in list. So far in this round, these meetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups have been added to the WordPress account:
The quarterly roll-in is a little behind. For some reason we didn’t get confirmation of our payment until April 8 (about a week later than expected), and the person who does the roll-ins of existing groups hasn’t been in touch (normally that happens immediately upon payment of the quarterly bill). I contacted that person and the person who runs the chapter program yesterday expressing my nervousness about the timing, especially since a couple of the groups joining the program had expiring dues and were marked in red on the spreadsheet. I’ll do everything I can to make sure no group has $$ trouble because of this delay.
There are 18 existing meetupsMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. waiting to be rolled in (some were from the last time who filled in the application so close to the end that they didn’t make it in that round). There are about half a dozen new meetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. (no existing group) applications in process.
