I seek to find ways to arrange physical (meatspace) gatherings between members of the Social.Coop community. To start, I think this could be best achieved through small, limited gatherings restricted only to Cooperative members and their close friends. In the future, this could possibly be opened up to members of other communities.

Benefits:

Social bonds

Meatspace gatherings are integral to community development. sharing experiences and ideas in a face-to-face manner are integral to personal growth, in ways that online interactions can't match.

Skill-building

As we seek to build social structures and collaborate in ways that transcend the internet into meatspace, I believe that the best place to start is with ourselves, in our own community. How else can we learn how to organize communities together towards having an impact on the world, than to start small, with ourselves, and have an impact on each other? Meatspace gatherings present a special opportunity between members of a community to share and develop skills in a supportive environment.

Developing inter-community ties

As gatherings grow in complexity, they naturally require more complicated social and material infrastructure to maintain. This is an opportunity to develop ties with social and trade communities which might otherwise be unlikely. Developing these community ties can be incredibly valuable for mutual support. For smaller gatherings, this would likely be seen mostly in developing ties to communities local to wherever the gatherings are hosted.

Risks:

the internet is a powerful tool for collaborating and organizing. As the world becomes more exploitive, and threat actors seek to find more ways to exploit online communities for personal gain, the risks and difficulties in arranging meatspace gatherings between members of primarily online communities become harder (but not impossible) to avoid.

Swindlers, grifters, and exploiters

people who seek to exploit others for their own ends are difficult to avoid in digital spaces. As wealth becomes more and more concentrated in the hands of a very few, what little is left for the rest of society becomes the target of more and more dedicated efforts by scammers and conmen. In any community open to outside members, there's a risk of people seeking to exploit spaces for their own personal gain, whether for monetary gain, or to exert control.

Imbalanced resources

There are numerous examples of online communities attempting to arrange gatherings and meetups, aiming too high, and failing catastrophically. At the most basic level, these are incidents where the infrastructure and skills in place were not properly aligned to the size of the event. Frequently, this is a case of resources being over-provisioned, and not enough people showing up to make up for the cost of the infrastructure which was reserved. Sometimes this is a case of not enough infrastructure being provisioned for the needs of the event. These incidents can be learned from.

Illness

Covid-19 remains a significant threat to the well-being of individuals. This threat to people's well-being must be understood and mitigated to the best of our ability.

Instability, Uncertainty and resistance to change

Humans are averse to change. When a stable dynamic is found, it is natural for people and communities to seek to maintain this stable dynamic. A change in the status quo, of a community being primarily an online community, towards being a meatspace-integrated community, may present a risk for some that is difficult to overcome. Hosting gatherings is also an exercise in flexibility and adapting to change. Sometimes campgrounds get rained out. Intense weather patterns in our era of climate instability make long-term planning difficult to reliably follow through on.

My own experience in digital-to-meatspace communities and gatherings:

For most of my life, I've been involved in various online communities, like many millenials. I've been involved in various fandom communities, and attended a few fandom conventions, both big and small. Some of the ones I've been to continue yearly operations, as an example of a successful and sustainable gathering. Others I have attended, both big and small, have failed, either deciding not to continue operations, or failing catastrophically. I believe these can be learned from, and plans developed to avoid their failures and pitfalls.

I have a number of stories of my experiences with conventions which I believe contain valuable lessons in organizing gatherings, problems to avoid, and examples of success.

Case Study, personal experience: Las Pegasus Unicon

Key benefits: Social bonds

Key failures: Imbalanced resources, grifters, swindlers and exploiters, instability

In 2013 I attended a Brony (My Little Pony Fandom) convention in Las Vegas; Las Pegasus Unicon. I lived in Las Vegas at the time, and was a part of the local Brony community.

Background:

Prior to the convention, the local Brony community gathered at a local monthly arts festival called First Friday, where artists, craftspeople, and food vendors would set up stalls to sell their wares. This was a very informal gathering, where people would just meet up to chat and hang out. I had been attending these monthly meetups for a few months at this point, and had developed friendships with a number of fellow community members. At this time I was in my late teens.

Sometime in late 2012, a couple, Sandi and Eddi Haas came to the meetup who I can't quite remember meeting before, although I think they had come to at least a couple prior meetups. They were a bit of an odd couple. Sandi was a large motor-scooter-bound woman, and Eddi was a very tall skinny man who had an affinity for flat-brim straw hats, and both were in their mid to late 30s at least, possibly in their 40s, which was an odd contrast to the rest of the Brony community, made up of people mostly in their teens and 20s. They announced they were planning a convention and handed out flyers printed in black-and-white on orange construction paper. At the time I thought it was a bit odd that they would announce such a sizable event so cheaply, but didn't think much more of it. The flyer announced that the convention would have a lot of talent from the show My Little Pony, and they had a website where people could track the progress of the convention and book room packages.

In the lead-up to the convention, some of the promised amenities and services available included room packages, where attendees could gain a discount for booking their room through the convention, as well as "convention bits" which was sold as a convenience to avoid holding large amounts of cash on hand. The premise was that attendees could exchange their money for "Bits" which could be spent with vendors, and the vendors could then exchange their Bits for money at the end of the convention

The convention arranged for many members of the cast and crew of My Little Pony to attend this convention, and these names were featured prominently on the website, including Tara Strong (Voice of Twilight Sparkle and Timmy Turner, among many others), Writer M A Larsen, and John De Lancie (most widely known for portraying Q on Star Trek)

The Event:

The organizers planned for around 2000 attendees. This was the number that was sold to the venue as a condition of hosting.

One of the things that the organizers sold as a way to pay for the event was advertising spots in the convention booklet, as well as premium packages which gave access to balcony areas of the venue.

Day one, friday:

When I arrived, it just seemed like a regular convention. I hadn't been to very many fandom conventions before and it didn't seem too far from what I'd come to expect. It seemed a bit cheap, and not very well organized. No one had planned very well for how to keep track of merch sales for the convention, and someone scrounged up a notebook and crayons, and that's how sales were tracked. It also turned out that they hadn't actually printed as many convention booklets as they'd promised, with only a couple hundred booklets being made and handed out. Keep in mind that people who bought ads in the booklets were promised that every convention attendee would have one. This problem was somewhat lessened by the last problem that became apparent on the first day: lack of attendees.

The organizers had overestimated how many at-the-door tickets they would sell. They had around 1200 pre-sale tickets, and had expected the remaining 800 (!) attendees to show up day-of to make up for the remaining expected attendance. I can tell you as someone who has lived in Las Vegas for some time, that locals are very uninterested in local conventions unless it's something they're already interested in, and I know for certain that there were not 800 MLP fans living in Vegas at the time.

The planned convention events for the first day go off fine.

Day 2, saturday:

On the second day, it became clear to the organizers and staff that they had problems. The numbers weren't balancing out, and this was a problem, but they still had time to sort it out. What I saw as an attendee, was that some staff were rushing from place to place, but everything still seemed fine. In the middle of the day, the fire alarm goes off, and the whole convention is evacuated to the parking lot. This turns out to have been unrelated to the convention, and was caused by kitchen staff. I ended up meeting John De Lancie, who I can say from personal experience is an absolute delight, just a phenomenal person. Also on the second day, as reported afterwards, Tara Strong was very upset because catering tried to serve her eggplant, which she is severely allergic to.

Day 3, sunday:

I arrive in the morning, and attend a few early panels, but it's clear something is very wrong. Convention staff are rushing everywhere, and by noon, the convention is in full meltdown. All panels and events are replaced by one single event: there is no money for the convention. Some of the talent in attendance head up this emergency panel. An emergency fundraising auction is held to pay for the talent who showed up. M A Larson signs a banana and auctions it off.

The hotel assumes control of the situation. People who had booked their room through convention room packages had their incidental cards on file with the hotel charged to pay for their rooms. Some individuals were double and triple charged, and ended up stranded in Las Vegas with no money to get home.

Any vendors that accepted bits were out of luck. Most vendors didn't break even, due to accepting the convention cash. The hotel reportedly attempted to seize money from vendors in the artists alley.

There was a report that Tara Strong's agent went up to the convention merchandise table and grabbed a fistful of cash out of their cash box. There is no way to conform whether this happened or not.

At some point I pass through the front of the convention area and see Sandi Haas in the cashier cage, with the shutters pulled down, looking like prison bars, and she was crying.

By noon, the convention empties out.

Aftermath:

It's known that after the convention, Tara Strong fired her agent. At some point, eventually, all of the convention attendees finally make their way back home.

In the days and weeks that followed, some members of the local community sought to understand: what the fuck had happened? I was one of the members of the community which had come together with others in the local community to try to understand what had happened and why. Although we never found definitive answers, we arrived at a number of conclusions from the investigation:

Sandi and Eddi Haas weren't their real names, although I don't know what their real names actually were

This wasn't the first time that they had attempted to host some event for an internet community, and woefully failed. They were known in the online pagan communities for organizing pagan cruises, and disappearing with the money once they fell through.

The investigators had determined where they lived, and attempted to talk to them directly to ask them what happened. The sound of many birds could be heard from inside their house. No one answered the door.

On the second day of the convention was a blackjack tournament in the casino attached to the venue. The theory that we arrived at for how the convention could be so short of money is that Sandi entered the blackjack tournament on the second day, and lost the money.

After a few weeks, the sound of birds could no longer be heard from their house. They were gone.

Meanwhile, the local brony community was in crisis over the failure of the convention, and the ensuing investigation. Some members like myself were dedicated to trying to determine what had gone wrong, and others were intensely defensive, insisting that the convention organizers had done nothing wrong, everything that had gone wrong was the hotel's fault, and anyone trying to determine the truth was just looking to find a scapegoat.

I arrived at my own conclusion as to the root cause of the failure of the convention.

I don't think that Sandi and Eddi Haas set out to scam the fandom. I think what they wanted was to try to integrate themselves into the fandom community, by putting on a big event that would gain the trust and praise of the community. I think they were desperately lonely people, and only ever wanted to be a part of a community. I think that their failed past attempts to put on large events failed for the same reason, that they were overambitious, and couldn't make it work, and they ran away out of shame.

Among other things, I believe this event began the long decline of the My Little Pony fandom.

What can be learned?

One of the common defenses to the news of the failure of the convention was "I don't see what's so bad, I attended and had a wonderful time!" This is a natural response. Most people tend to see situations from their own perspective, and if they didn't suffer the worst of the impacts of the failure of the convention, it might be easy to defend it by saying that they don't see what's so bad.

As a way to meet people, to share fun experiences, you don't actually need that much to give people a good time. All the complexity of a convention was probably significantly more than what most actually need. What most attendees were looking for was just an opportunity to share excitement for a common interest.

Communities are fragile, especially communities built solely to meet social needs. I think a lot of community members wanted the local fandom community to go back to the way it was before the convention, and they felt like the members of the community who were trying to figure out what happened were detrimental to the community, preventing it from going back to the way that it should be.

Case study, personal experience: Furry Meetups and conventions

key Benefits: Social bonds, skill-building, inter-community ties

key risks: illness, grifters and exploiters

I've attended a number of furry meetups and conventions, having joined the furry community after my experience at Las Pegasus Unicon, in the Las Vegas and Spokane area, and there's a wide variety to how the furry community organizes meetups and conventions. These gatherings can be roughly charted by how open vs intimate they are, and how large vs small they are

At the simplest, being very open and small, is park meetups. Someone will organize and announce a meetup at a park. Whoever has time will show up. Whatever food and water is available is whatever people bring. Whatever entertainment is available is whoever shows up to entertain. Members of the local furry community who are DJs may show up and play music. It's a very flexible gathering, and people show up and leave as they wish. Folks mingle as they wish. If there are issues, it's expected that people will handle those issues themselves, and if they're larger issues, those problems should be taken up with the local community chat moderators. Often, local moderators will attend these park meetups. There are usually several each month, on different sides of the city, in order to accommodate community members with different transportation capabilities.

Moderately more involved are house meetups and house parties. These are more intimate than park meetups, often with the host taking direct responsibility for the party. Often alcohol is present, and depending on space available, guests may sleep overnight. The resources available vary by host. Sometimes the host will provide lots of food, sometimes it's up to the guests to provide food. If it's a party where alcohol is welcome, guests are welcome to bring their own to share with the other guests, although it's commonly expected that the alcohol will be held at the bar, where the host and their close friends will be responsible for it. At house parties, the hosts are expected to take more direct responsibility for what goes on, and handle issues with guests if they arise, up to and including ejecting them from the party for poor behavior.

Often, house parties are hosted directly after park meetups, so the gathering of community members goes from a very open gathering, to a more closed and intimate gathering. This is a common thread of how community gatherings are organized.

Moving up in complexity and size are furry conventions, which are often much larger than park meetups, and slightly more closed, requiring a ticket rather than being open to anyone passing by. Groups of local community members may get together, pool their resources and time, in order to organize a local convention. Local conventions are often organized by groups of local community moderators, who form their own group within the community, and when things are going well, share the responsibilities and load of community moderation, and share information about troublesome community members.

Conventions often involve hundreds to thousands of attendees, and are kept intentionally cost-effective, in order to allow local attendees to join for minimal cost. Room blocks are sometimes organized by the convention, where the convention organizers reserve a block of rooms for a discount, and out-of-area attendees can book one of these rooms from the convention room block. Note that this is how a convention sells room packages when they actually have the money to put on the convention. Conventions are much less common, usually with only one, maybe three large conventions at most happening in the whole United States within any one-month period. The relative infrequency of conventions means that people with more means are able to attend distant conventions, and people who are less able to travel may get to meet their online friends at a local convention that they only have to travel across the city for.

Conventions also have variety in whether they are aimed towards adults or open to individuals under 18. Furry conventions in Reno and Las Vegas Nevada are often restricted to 18+ attendees, and a recent convention I attended in the Salt Lake City area had all areas of the convention open to all ages at all times (through the will of the venue). Normally, in a furry convention, the vendor area and dance hall are open to all ages during the day, and after a certain time in the afternoon, there is an age-restricted vendor area and dance hall.

Conventions almost always host panels whose purpose is to share skills and connect people together. These are often but not always related to art. At a recent convention I attended, there was a panel on amateur radio. These panels usually run concurrently with some kind of entertainment which takes place in the main hall of the venue.

Moving down in size, and being much more closed and intimate, are convention room parties. Sometimes a whole floor of a hotel will be booked as the "loud floor" for room parties. Room party hosts will set up their room for guests, often providing their own food and drink. Sometimes information about room parties will be spread by word of mouth. Some room parties are open to whoever wants to come by, and others require an invite, or to be a member of a chatroom for that specific party, to control who attends. Room party hosts are directly responsible for what happens in their rooms.

Room parties are organized completely separate from the convention itself, with the room party blocks usually being purchased outside of the convention organization.

Recently, I was at DEFCON, and the local Las Vegas furry community organized a mini-convention room party kind of event through the whole weekend, including their own panels.

In my experience, local communities have the most success when there is no central organizing body that aspiring meetup and party organizers have to go through to have their meetups "approved" to be announced to the local community. Often, house party organizers won't even publicly announce their house parties in the wider local community chats, and will instead have their own chat specifically for announcing parties.

The same is true of conventions. There is no central convention organizing authority, and often conventions that are part of some larger parent organization end up folding (or more accurately collapsing) due to drama and organizational failures. Often, failure of large convention organizations comes about due to some combination of greed and denial of reality. It's common for popular individuals to try to exploit their popularity for personal gain, and this can end up causing a convention to fail.

What can be learned from how furry communities organize events?

Members of furry communities have the opportunity to meet and develop connections with people that they would otherwise be unlikely to meet. This can result in improved personal outcomes from difficulties and struggles, thanks to support from community members of higher socioeconomic class. Often furries will find roommates through the local community, and even support their roommates through unemployment, providing a kind of family support stability which might otherwise be difficult or impossible for them to possess.

Local communities, being made up of so many varied kinds of people with varied experiences, collectively possess a wealth of skills, and members are often excited to share their skills.

Community-hosted events are very modular. They are organized usually at the smallest scale that they need to be, and any organizational overhead past the local level is often detrimental to the success of the event.

Moderation is usually also handled at the lowest level that it needs to be, to be effective. If there's a member of the local community that's abusive, word spreads between the moderators. If there's someone at a party that's getting belligerent, they'll probably be ejected from the party, and asked not to come back, but consequences past that will usually be limited to the opinion of community members, unless the behavior is egregious enough to warrant community action. Rather than a central authority determining who is and isn't welcome, which is vulnerable to being exploited, there are lots of lower barriers preventing abusing and exploitive people from gaining power or responsibility in a community.

Since the local communities that exist are those that have persisted through community drama and instability, there is also a fair bit of experience in most local communities (unless they have been taken over by grifters) in dealing with and shutting out bad actors. I believe the modular and non-hierarchical nature of furry communities and event organizing is integral to this resilience against exploitation, with many community organizers having enough experience with failed conventions to have a good idea of how to avoid the worst failures.

Even when a whole convention suffers from the actions of a grifter or exploiter, the wider furry community as a whole adapts around the failure. New conventions are organized, and even if a community in a particular area collapses, there will still be other local communities, and conventions in other areas.

Illness is now an inescapable part of life, and a significant downside of the way that the furry, and other fandom communities operate. I believe that these dangers can be mitigated through proper preparation, isolation, testing, and precautions, however conventions are not very highly motivated to enforce such restrictions, and I don't believe most attendees would be readily capable of adhering to isolation requirements due to their dependence on work.

How can we make a community gathering happen?

I think that our community is in a place where we have the collective means to organize a gathering, and I think it would be a great way to develop deeper friendships, share skills, and make plans.

What are some possibilities for where this could be held?

What kind of events could we organize? Group camping? Small conference at a hotel? Gathering at someone's house?

What means do we have to manage resources for an event? How would food be managed?

How could resources be shared to minimize expenses? Could people carpool? Volunteers for cleaning/organizing in exchange for having their way paid?

Does anyone have experience with other kinds of gatherings? What lessons did you learn from them?

Edit: in around a week, I'll consider this thread concluded, and write up some ideas and conclusions based on it