On a Sunday in March, dozens of people walked into Indy Hall for something that has become less routine since 2020: showing up in person.
For Philly’s tech meetup scene, the turnout was a signal.
Almost 20 creative and technical orgs collaborated on the Good Neighbors Meetup Mashup, a hackathon hosted by coworking space Indy Hall. Seeing groups from different corners of the tech and creative communities build civic tech together reminded Indy Hall founder Alex Hillman how strong the meetup scene can be when organizers work together.
“The highest compliment that we got was, this was the most fun I’ve had collaborating since 2020,” Hillman said. “People have a lot of scar tissue around collaborating in general, and the pandemic era of collaboration … led people to forget that collaboration can be really fun and energizing, in addition to being impactful.”
To better understand where the scene stands now, Technical.ly surveyed 83 people about how they find meetups, why they attend and what they want to see more of.
The responses show that meetups remain an important support system in Philly tech, but one that can be difficult to navigate for newcomers, early-career workers and people outside existing networks.
➡️ Jump to a section:
• Philly tech still wants to meet up
• Professional networking and personal connections
• The scene never fully returned to its 2010s peak
• Meetup infrastructure has changed
• The sustainability issue
• Community connection is key
Philly tech still wants to meet up
Today, Hillman said, people are still looking for community — and local meetups remain one way to find it.
Among respondents, about one-third said they attend meetups twice a month. The next most common responses were once a week and not regularly. More than four in 10 respondents said they belong to more than three meetup groups.
Nearly 80% of respondents said they hear about events through friends, colleagues or other people in their network. About half said they use online platforms like Meetup.com and Eventbrite to find events. Other sites that were mentioned include LinkedIn, Luma, Discord and Slack.
“We could all use more sharing across multiple groups to make it easier to reduce the barriers between groups,” one survey respondent said.
Professional networking and personal connections
About six in 10 respondents said a meetup helped them connect with someone who affected their career. Far fewer — less than 15% — said a meetup directly led to a job opportunity.
Respondents said meetups have led to investor connections, business partners, new clients and relationships that eventually helped them find jobs.
But respondents did not describe meetups only in career terms. Many people said they’ve made friends and built community through these events.
Depending on the type of community you’re searching for, Philadelphia hosts a variety of meetups. Respondents had a few favorites that were recommended repeatedly, like Code and Coffee, Sports Business Leaders and Code for Philly.
The scene never fully returned to its 2010s peak
The peak of Philly tech meetups was in the mid-2010s, Hillman said. That period had more energy, more resources and more visible support for organizers and attendees.
Many people say that the pandemic killed tech meetup culture, but before 2020 there were signals of leadership burnout and lack of succession planning for these groups, Hillman said.
During 2020, a lot of people tried to keep programming going online, but some leaders figured that this was a sign that it was time to call it quits, he said. For example, Philly’s longest-running meetup PANMA retired during the pandemic, a huge culture shift from the 2010s glory years of Philly tech.
“I don’t know if I can attribute [the slow return of meetups] to anything in particular, other than a general landscape of uncertainty and apprehension,” Hillman said. “I feel like people are just super cautious about investing in something new.”
Meetup infrastructure has changed
Several respondents said meetup culture still feels different than it did before the pandemic, but more active than it has in recent years. One respondent said they stopped attending some events because many groups had not updated their online presence since 2020.
“The central tension of the ecosystem right now is like, how do we build and rebuild more sustainably than we did before?”
Alex Hillman, indy hall
However, this year’s Philly Tech Week lineup showed the ecosystem’s event enthusiasm, with over 90 events hosted and many members of the community saying they feel a renewed sense of energy for the first time post-pandemic.
Hillman sees those two forces operating at once: caution about investing in new groups and a renewed craving for community.
“The central tension of the ecosystem right now is like, how do we build and rebuild more sustainably than we did before,” he said. “The underlying question is always, why are we rebuilding?”
As meetups started to come back after COVID, the process has been “slow and uneven,” he said. Though it’s working, as just last month, Philly Python Users Group held its first meetup since the pandemic, for example.
The sustainability issue
One of the biggest challenges facing Philly’s meetup culture is sustainability — both financial and organizational.
Groups that once ruled the Philly tech scene, like Philly Startup Leaders, aren’t active anymore, so people are looking to grassroots efforts like meetups to find community.
In the past, Hillman said, larger institutions played a bigger role in supporting the meetup scene, and organizers had access to more money and resources.
Companies once donated space, sponsorships or staff time more readily. Now, Hillman said, sponsors are harder to find, and many organizers are working with limited capacity.
“Events I’ve attended recently don’t seem to have enough strong, serious business people in the room. They remain sheltered in the ‘burbs,” a survey respondent said.
Some respondents also noted that they would like to see more resources available for meetups and that organizer burnout is an issue.
Another challenge respondents brought up was a lack of access to information about the meetups.
Some respondents said the hardest part is finding out where events are happening — especially for people who are new to the city, early in their careers or outside existing networks.
People suggested centralizing information about events through a single calendar or directory.
Hillman said part of the response could be to treat the community like one ecosystem and encourage collaboration between organizers.
“It feels like it’s a time for new leaders and organizations — more so now than in the last decade,” a survey respondent said.
Succession planning could also make groups less dependent on a single organizer, helping them last longer and strengthening the wider ecosystem — for example, by getting younger generations involved.
“We have to get the college kids more engaged to infuse the culture with youth and energy,” a survey respondent said.
When people tell Hillman they want to start a meetup, he encourages them to ask what they are adding that does not already exist.
Building with existing groups, rather than starting from scratch each time, could lead to a stronger ecosystem, he said.
“What [does] a healthy, rich ecosystem look like?” Hillman said. “The answer is one where the organizers have relationships, and one where the meetup members have relationships outside of the individual meetup.”