Together
By Design
Principle 2.1
Anticipate Demand
Calculate how many people you can realistically reach.
For many community builders who are starting out, their fear is not having enough people attend events. We describe this dilemma in Zero State [2.2]. As they plan their first event, they should have an idea for how many people would be needed to make it viable. For example, Dykes Who Hike Zürich believed that four attendees was the minimum required to make the event enjoyable, while Story Walk believed that a number between six and eight was optimal. Batala needs a minimum number of attendees at rehearsals in order to practice its repertoire across all the instruments. Most mature communities have a size that they aspire to (see more in The Right Size [6.4]).
With that in mind, it’s helpful to know whether an idea is viable - is it possible to reach enough of the people being targeted (as defined in Decide Who It’s For [1.3]) to make it work?
While there’s no formula that will predict the exact number of attendees for an event, there is a process that can help to estimate it:
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First, how big is the total addressable group in the area - the maximum number of people who might be interested in, and eligible for, the event. Publicly-available information can help in making an estimate. For example, 1.4 million people live in the greater Zürich area, 44% of the population are interested in hiking, 5% identify as LGBTQ+ and 50% are women - so we arrive at approximately 15,000 people (1.4 million x 44% x 5% x 50%). This may only be a very rough calculation, due to the number of assumptions made and limitations of the sources, but it serves as an ‘order of magnitude’ starting point.
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How effectively can potential attendees be made aware of the event? The best option is to find where the target group of attendees already gathers and go there. Are there bars or venues that they frequent? Is it possible to post notices on the street? Social media is also an option - in Zürich, approximately 50% of people use Instagram, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll see the event. In practice, it’s best to estimate on the low side - at most, it might reach 2% of the total addressable group.
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How many will actually sign up? Even among those people who are aware of it, the proportion who sign up will be low. People are busy and may be wary of joining a new group (especially one without a track record). Again, estimate on the low side, and assume a maximum 5% sign up unless you have information that tells you otherwise (for example from the analytics tools offered by social media platforms).
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How many will actually show up? Among people who sign up, it’s wise to expect no-shows. Meetups has a notoriously high dropout rate - sometimes as high as 60% in our experience.
Taking all those numbers into account, the actual number of attendees for a first event is likely to be low:​​​
In practice, this means that ideas which work in some places may not work in others. For example, Dykes Who Hike London is drawing on a city of 15 million people. If it were to operate in Brighton, a much smaller city but with a higher rate of LGBTQ+ identification, it might also be viable. In both these cases the group may be more viable than in Zürich. In particular it tends to mean that ideas or promotional strategies which work in big cities may not transfer to smaller cities or towns, and that the focus may therefore need to be looser (for example, all LGTBQ+ hikers in Zürich, not just women).
The good news is that that this same framework can be used to help troubleshoot and improve the number of attendees:
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Increase the size of the total addressable group by loosening the focus.
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Increase the number who see event promotions by experimenting with different methods - try social media videos rather than just plain text or make your community more visible with pop-up taster events (Experiences Beat Words [2.5]). Join up with another local group to cross-promote each others’ events or run a collaborative event (Movement Building [8.2]).
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Increase the number who sign up and show up by making the invitation more compelling (see Beacon Invitation [2.6]).
Over time this calculation will change:
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Repeated experience will enable more accurate estimation of the numbers
you’re using. -
Tactics used to reach people will become more effective (through trying out some of the approaches mentioned above and iterating from event to event).
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A group of regulars will be formed among whom - if the event is delivering to their needs as it should - attendance rates will be higher than for first-time attendees.
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Promotion will begin to happen through word of mouth as the events build a reputation and a sense of community begins to form (see Magic Circle [5.1]). Word of mouth generally produces more reliable attendees than promoting events to strangers, so the dropout rate will also reduce.
In the meantime, community organisers need to ensure their events are nonetheless a rewarding experience for them and their attendees. The Zero State [2.2] principle describes how this can be achieved.