Here are 4 reasons we might cancel a Single & Mingle meetup
There are many reasons that can lead to us cancelling a meetup, and we’re experienced enough now, to predict whether a meetup is going to be a good one for you, or not.
If we know an meetup won’t be a great one, we won’t run it.
So why might we cancel?
Here are just a few reasons…
- Lack of bookings
- Technical difficulties
- Venue staffing
- A host can no longer make it
Let’s look at each of these in more detail 👇
1. Lack of bookings
The most common reason we might cancel a meetup is due to a lack of bookings.
We have a certain standard we like to meet at our socials, and one of those standards is to have a minimum of 8 people.
Let’s say we have 14 people booked on, but on the night, a handful of them don’t show up, we could be left with 8-12 people in the room – and that’s ok. We can live with that. We know that we’ve left home having hit the minimum number of bookings needed for an event to be a success.
Now, let’s say 14 people have booked on, and a handful of people don’t show up, we might be left with fewer than 8 people. It wouldn’t feel ethical for us to run an event knowing that this might be the case.
2. Technical difficulties
This has only happened once – in January 2023.
We had a meetup (one of our busiest ever) at a venue that’s no longer operating. We arrived at the venue to set up, luckily around 5.30pm (for a 7pm event) and were told that the power was out in the space we were due to be using.
We were told as we arrived, which is far from ideal.
Obviously panic kicked in and I spent a good half an hour frantically calling venues asking if they could accommodate us.
Although I managed to sort a venue, the electrician fixed the issue and the power was up and running again – so we continued to run the meetup at the original venue.
Reality is that these things happen.
3. Venue staffing
We work with some amazing venues, and we can’t thank them enough for partnering with us to create the safe and welcoming environment that people know and love at our meetups.
But they’re running a service just like we are.
Venues need to know whether to put staff on or not, which means they need to know as soon as possible how numbers are looking for a meetup (hence why we do early bird tickets).
We can’t wait until the very last minute to tell a venue that we don’t have enough people booked on to run a successful event, because that then affects their business, and isn’t fair on them.
We therefore keep venues updated on numbers on the lead up to a meetup, and generally try to make a call whether an event goes ahead or not, 1-2 days before an event is due to take place.
Some venues require us to confirm numbers up to a week before. So please do book as soon as possible to help us work in harmony with our venue partners 😉
4. A host can no longer make it
We’ve not had to cancel for this reason yet, but know that we’d do everything in our power not to cancel a meetup due to hosts not being able to make it anymore.
We had a situation recently where one of our hosts had broken her foot a few days before a meetup. She was still going to host (bless her), but on the morning of the event, the venue needed to change the location from their downstairs bar to their upstairs bar. This meant that the host we had lined up, could no longer host – she couldn’t make it up the stairs. Luckily we were able to find another host in time.
We have to remember that we’re all human and things happen.
Cars break down.
Childcare falls through.
People get ill.
What happens if a meetup is cancelled?
We run an honest service and are very transparent if we need to cancel, and try to give you as much notice as possible, and we have a cancellation policy so that everyone is clear before committing to a meetup.
Although we’d never see you out of pocket in terms of your ticket fee, do consider waiting until nearer the day of a meetup to book any transport or accommodation, as this is obviously a cost we can’t refund.
So, just to wrap up…
Shit happens!
We want all of our meetups to go ahead. We want people to have a great time. But sometimes it just doesn’t work.
We apologies in advance if a meetup you’re due to attend is cancelled – but we’d rather do that than you turn up and be dissatisfied.
Thank you for your understanding
The Single & Mingle Team
Cancellation policy
We have a cancellation policy which we encourage you to read before booking a place on one of our meetups.
