Episode 85

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever you are I hope you have blue skies, a breeze on your back and sand between your toes. Welcome to That Other Lifestyle podcast. I am your host Jayson, leave Vanilla behind as we talk about meetups.

This show is for adults only. We will talk about sex, relationships, the lifestyle, and Ethical non-monogamy in an honest way with lots of real talk. If you are under 18, this is your only warning to go find a different show right now. Around here, on the beaches of sex freedom, consent, education and good times, everyone is welcome, lifestyle, vanilla or the curious. Whatever your gender identity, expression, truth, flavor you are welcome here. I do my best to use inclusive language, though you may hear words like husband or wife or man or woman to keep things simple.

Want to connect? Send me at email to host@thatotherlifestyle.com. Go to my website, thatotherlifestyle.com and use my promo code TOL15 for 15% off your order at STDHero.com. Testing takes a community to make a difference so get STI tested and be safe out there. For the best lifestyle parties, check out risquelifestyleparties.com. We love their vibe, attitude and always have fun and I promise you will too.

You ever wake up at 3am and eat pizza? This is not a philosophical question or a deep look into the human condition. This is me, eating leftover pizza at 3am and deciding it is a good time to write. My cat Bart is on my desk, fighting me for position right now because he is an asshole who is a terrible writing partner and keeps wanting to sniff my pizza. He does very little to contribute to the process besides being adorable and occasionally biting me.

Now obviously don’t eat the pizza while you record the episode, but eating it and writing, you can do that. If you have pizza, you are awake, you can do that. You are an adult and if you are not of legal age, stop listening to my show. In between bites of pizza, I outlined all the stuff I want to share about meetups that I have learned and fuck me this is going to be a long one today. Then a friend gave me more tips I will sprinkle in here. Do you mind if I go long today? I took a hiatus so this is my way of balancing out my lack of content production. I feel like I should because I have a lot to share on this but hey listen to it and you will be good to go to host your first meetup.

Freedom to do what the fuck we want like eat pizza at 3am which is a good starting point for today’s episode. Meetups. Summoning heathens together for a night of fun. How to do it. Not how to attend, this is a guide on the actual process. You know you have the freedom to do this. Based on your geography, social circle, capacity to organize shit, yes you can put on a meetup. There is no magical mystery to this despite what some people may say. I want to demystify this topic, so you feel empowered to do it.

I have organized meetups. I have attended meetups of all different kinds. Let’s share advice, thoughts, considerations, traps and how to pull this off. This topic was suggested a few months ago, went on the big list of future ideas and this early morning feels like a good time to throw this out into the ether.

A meetup. What is it? If you are new to the Lifestyle or the maybe vanilla listening, going to blow your mind. Lifestyle people, swingers gather together in public locations to meet up, mingle, dance and interact. That’s it. It can happen in any venue, public or otherwise, does not have to be at a dedicated lifestyle venue either. Yes, at some point in your life, there may have been a meetup going on around and you didn’t know it. Which is fucking awesome. It means no one blew their cover.

To dispel any myths out there. Lifestyle people can gather together and not fuck on the dance floor. We can behave ourselves enough that we blend in with everyone else in the bar. I love the idea that before we joined the lifestyle, there may have been a meetup going on around us and we didn’t know. Which is actually a good thing. Discretion is a big part of meetups and I will talk about that later and why having our cover blown wide the fuck open is a reason I don’t really host meetups anymore personally.  Depending on where you are in the world you may have a different term to call a meetup. I don’t know these different terms so I will stick with meetup.

A meetup, to differentiate it from a house party is usually at a public venue, usually a bar or a place that serves alcohol because people like to drink. This is also different than say a group of 50 people going to a sex club at the same time as a group. For my purposes, a meetup is at a location that does not have on premise sex rooms.

Meetups are a vital part of our Lifestyle ecosystem. Why would people want to gather together and not fuck if our hobby is fucking people we meet on the internet? To mingle, to meet in the real world, to enjoy our culture together in a safe place. Not every interaction we have, needs to focus on sex. A date is usually two couples interacting and a meetup is 50 couples interacting.

Going off on a tangent early today. Loneliness and humanity. We live incredibly lonely lives. We are shut off, shut away, shut down from connecting with other people. Yes, the internet makes it possible to connect with people, still no replacement for actual human interaction. Meetups are a place for us, lifestyle people, to go and enjoy our hobby together. No different than a group of people getting together to do their fantasy football draft together on a Sunday afternoon in a bar. Meetups are the cure for lifestyle loneliness we all experience.

How often have you looked through a dating site, trying to find someone to catch your eye and reach out? The better way, more efficient way, is to go to a meetup. You can instantly decide if there is a mental or physical connection because these people are in front of you. They can’t fake their physical features, no filters, no bullshit pineapple sticker over their face. They are real and here, and you can talk to them.

What do people do at these meetups? Not fuck on the dance floor. We are in a public vanilla space, we are in their space, so we must obey their rules. That includes rules on dress, behavior and discretion. I have been to meetups where people forget that we are not in our native environment, we are in alien territory and completely act like wild asses. Titties pop out, people start making out with people they did not arrive with, someone gets drunk and decides to start hitting on the vanillas by the bar, someone else decides to play grab a dick. This shit happens. You need to be ready for it.

Meetups serve a vital purpose in the lifestyle. Less formal than a hotel takeover and cheaper, they give us a way to interact in person versus online. They can introduce newbies to the lifestyle in a low-pressure environment. They allow us to meet new people in a neutral location. They are important and appear daunting from the outside to organize. Meetups are important to our swinger ecosystem, pollinating and disseminating. Ha semen.

Every local community probably has one or two people who take it upon themselves, either selflessly or selfishly to organize and host meetups. To organize a meetup is both work and not work. It is stupid fucking easy, cannot stress this enough. Stupid fucking easy to organize a meetup. It could be a simple as a phone call to a bar and a post on a social site. Yes they can get more complicated which naturally requires more effort on your part to vet couples, organize the event, maybe run a chat group for it.

For time commitment on how long it takes to organize a meetup, could be ten minutes, could be ten hours, could be ten days. All depends on how big you want to make this. I do not want you to be deterred by the perceived effort. Some people will make this shit out to sound like they are landing a space shuttle while juggling knives. It ain’t that fucking bad.

For you, I want to encourage you to do a meetup. I want you to try. I do not want to put you off the thought of trying this. You might like it. You may enjoy the organization side of it. I know I do. Yes, there is effort involved but not as much as you think and this is easier than people make it out to be. Hardest part is getting people to show up. No matter where you are, I promise you can get ten couples together, maybe a handful of newbies and meet up with them all at an agreed upon time and place. You can do this. You have permission.

Experienced people who organize meetups fall into two camps. Those who want to make this sound so complicated that they are actively discouraging anyone else from doing it because then you are competition for their events and the sweet sweet praise they may receive. The other camp will literally help you do this. They will provide tips, assistance, all around good people because they know the value meetups hold in the lifestyle. Which leads us into talking about motivations for hosting a meetup.

Why do you want host a meetup? Answer this because your motivations will inform the how and where and the logistics. Do you want to gather your friends together in one place? Cool, does that mean you want people not in your social circle to attend? Do you want a reason to go party? Cool, do you need other people for that? What do you want from the event? Build your network? Provide a service for others? Have everyone praise you all night long for your hard work and putting it together, give you a trophy and a medal? Don’t scoff, real fucking questions. All the answers are legitimate.

One reason I did meetups and may do them again in the future. Nothing going on. There was a drought of things to do in my local community so I figured fuck it, if there is no meetup, I will put on a meetup because I wanted to go to a meetup. In your local area, if there is no meetup, you could do one. Granted the first one, might not have great attendance, I will warn you on that. They can get bigger if you nurture them in the right way.

Frequency of meetups and openness to newbies. Let’s go over here and talk about that. If you host a meetup on a random weekend, you will have people show up. If it is a one and done thing, then all those people you gathered will go in the wind. Start planning the next meetup as you wrap up plans for the first one, that way at the event, granted you want to make this a regular thing, you can tell people at your event when and where is the next one. This is a sales trick. Set up the next meeting before the first one ends. Frequency compounds attendance. The people who came to your first meetup will tell their friends, hopefully everyone who showed up the first time will bring a friend for the second one and the event can grow organically.

Openness to newbies. Another factor to consider. Everyone knows, we need newbies. If you don’t have newbies flowing in, being invited in, joining the crowd then you end up partying with the same 20 people over and over again, which could be a good thing I guess but being kind to newbies, pulling newbies in, making them comfortable at your event matters so much.

I have seen groups that are agnostic to newbies, not unwelcoming, though I wouldn’t say they are open. They make it hard for newbies to be brought it and that stifles the potential growth of the meetups. Don’t be those people. Don’t create ridiculous layers of rules for newbies to join or hoops to jump through. I have seen meetups become big cliques that actively turn away new people because everyone is happy with their current social circle. Don’t be these people. You cannot stop someone from walking into a public venue and hanging out with a lifestyle crowd. Unless you lock down the venue more on that later. Don’t be a fucking shithead and exclude people from your little club. Be open to new people.

Going along with nothing to do as a motivation, I see it as someone has to do it. Honestly, half the shit I have done in the lifestyle was because no one else was doing it and I wanted to do it. If there is nothing else going on in your area and you want to be the person to fix that, do it. You might enjoy it. I will caution, do not step on anyone’s toes in this.

We have a finite number of weekends in the year. Do not schedule your meetup the same weekend, in the same geographic area as someone else doing a meetup or a hotel takeover or a party. It is fucking jackass.

Here’s what happens. You split the crowd. Only a finite number of lifestyle people within an area and now you have given people a choice. Some may go to your event, others will go to the other event which means no one ends up with critical mass for a good event. Critical mass so important and I will touch on that later. No one wins when we compete. You end up with two shitty events instead of one really good event.

Is this always feasible and possible? Nope. The rub is the lifestyle people are secretive. There may be a group gathering next weekend and you don’t know it. Because they are a closed group but they are big enough to pull in a decent crowd. You decide to host a meetup next weekend, a public one in the same town. Oh shit, you learn last minute about this other thing going on. And people are messy. Someone will come to you and whisper that this other group’s organizers are mad at you for doing an event on the same weekend like you were supposed to know ahead of time and check with everyone in the community to make sure your event didn’t step on anyone’s toes.

This is inevitable and it happens and roll with it. Maybe reach out to the other group and make peace or say fuck it and do your own thing. Which leads me into another point.

Let’s say there is a group doing a meetup on the same weekend, same type of event. Bar meetup at a vanilla venue. Two events in kind. What do you do? Put on better events and let people vote with their presence. Competition is not a bad thing.

If your options are two bar meetups, next door to each other, both vanilla venues, which one will you pick? Toss up? Maybe both? Maybe whichever one you know more people at? But if your options are a vanilla venue or a locked down ls only venue? I know which one you will pick. If you want more people, put on better events.

All that to say though, be different. If you want to put on a different kind of event like a foam party or takeover an arcade you can do that. I am not a big fan of bars but I like doing meetups so once a year, I gather people and we all go out to the beach for the day. I like the beach. I like my friends. This is good. It is different.

Different can be bad though, so many caveats in this bullshit. Some people really fucking love bar meetups. I have seen it where we do events, there is a preparty bar meetup, people show up for that and not the big dance party. They might like the casualness of a bar, the relatively cheap cost of attending a bar meetup since there is usually no cover. They are comfortable in that environment.

I will use a bar meetup as an example this episode. Easiest to explain and easiest to pull off for your first meetup. First important step is to make sure your spouse is on board. You need their support. Second step. Location. We need a place to put these people that is not our house. For this example, we will say we want to do a bar meetup in town. Nothing else going on this weekend to contend with. How do we do it?

You need a bar. Or a nightclub. Aha here is a wrinkle. The type of bar matters. If you pick an old style irish pub people will be able to talk and interact more, if you pick a nightclub, no talking because it is too damn loud but there will be dancing. Little tip, when scoping out a place, be conscious of the music. Does the venue have space for a DJ to play music and also space for conversation away from that music? For this, I am picking a local speakeasy themed bar, which is where I organized my last meetup, earlier this year.

I will walk through what I did when I hosted meetups. I went to the bar as a patron on a random Saturday night. I looked at the space to get a relative idea of how many people it can hold. Sometimes there is a big sign that says by order of the fire Marshall max capacity is 150. Okay that tells me how big this event can be right there. If there is no sign, we will talk to the manager in a minute. I picked this bar because of geography too. Easy to get to, lots of parking, easy to explain where it is even if I give people the address. Picking a bar in a crowded downtown area, can be a hassle to park and walk to so that could impact attendance.

I looked at the overall vibe of the space. Did it have the feel I wanted for my meetup? I wanted a little bit fancy so it checked that box. What about the vanillas we will be sharing the space with? What is their vibe? Rowdy college students? Middle aged professionals? Retirees listening to Jimmy Buffet? These are people who will potentially be around your friends? Are you okay with this crowd? For this speakeasy, middle aged professionals, demure, somber sons of bitches. No threat.

How fast are the drinks being served? Do you need to go into this level of detail? No. You could get 30 people to crash a vanilla bar site unseen which happens too.

I am digging the bar so then I connected with the manager. Here is a tricky part that is a 100% judgement call for you. What the fuck do you tell the manager? At a minimum you need to tell the manager that you would like to gather a group of people together in their establishment at a certain time and date. Have a rough estimate of headcount going into this conversation. If you tell them you want to show up with 100 people, they may get happy at the potential sales but they need to be ready for it by staffing up. Staffing up cost them extra money. If you tell them you expect 100 people and you get 20, they may not be happy with you so don’t be zealous.

The first meetup you do, be conservative, especially if you have not done invites yet. The second meetup yes you adjust your numbers accordingly. Ask them if there is a private space available. This may cost money. Ask if they could do drink specials since you know the crowd you are bringing will consume a lot of alcohol. Make sure to get the managers name and direct phone number in case you need it. And give them yours.

There is an elephant in the room we need to look at and I know you are thinking it. Do you tell them that this group of people you are bringing are swingers? This is a hard one and I don’t have the perfect answer. If you tell this manager that this is a lifestyle group, you are outing every fucking person that shows up to this manager and potentially their staff. They may turn your happy ass away because they don’t agree with the lifestyle or ethical non-monogamy.

I would caution in this conversation about using the word swinger. Swinger has a connotation that may turn off people. They have expectations of what a swinger is and what a group of swinges do. They may have the impression that a bunch of swingers will start fucking in the middle of the bar. Which is wrong. I would use the term lifestyle as an umbrella and explain in a very safe conservative manner that these are people who engage in ethical non-monogamy and are looking for a place to hang out together.

Or you could say that you are a social club of some sort. Since I am on the gulf coast of the States, I use the cover story that we are a Mardi Gras krewe. It works for our area. You need to figure out one that works for your area. Cattle association or bowling league. Find one and tell everyone who is attending the cover story which fucking works until someone blows it.

Might as well share that story now. I organized a meetup two years ago. Informal thing. Told my social circle we were all going to a bar together. This is a public bar, I knew relative crowd size to expect so I didn’t alert the bar ahead of time. Small gathering, no need.

Told everyone the cover story that we were a mardi gras krewe. Even came up with a name and logo because it’s fun. 40 some odd people showed up. This bar usually holds around 200 people so no issue on the size here. This is also a cautionary tale about mixing lifestyle and vanilla people. And the need for private areas maybe.

The meetup started around 8ish I think, we all showed up and everyone is having fun. The vanillas in the bar noticed that we all knew each other and asked why we were there. Everyone said Mardi Gras krewe which was fan fucking tastic. Until one couple had a few too many beers and fireball shots and decided to be more honest. This one dude, drunk, starts hitting on a drunk vanilla woman. Proceeds to tell her that we are all swingers. Everyone on that side of the room, they are swingers and he tried to recruit her in a very poor fashion into the lifestyle that night. This is bad. He outed everyone to this stranger. This lady could have been someone’s coworker or distant cousin. This shit happens.

Oh Jayson you are overreacting. No I am fucking not. I take discretion of my associates and friends very fucking seriously. Outing a person in the lifestyle is way the fuck up there on the list of shit we don’t do. Cardinal sin right there against the dogma of the Lifestyle. I admit I picked the wrong space or invited the wrong people. Learned my lesson on that and now sharing that lesson with you.

Most meetups are going to be at bars or restaurants that serve alcohol. Why? They are third spaces, not a house, not work, a confined space that has what we need. Like air conditioning.

But Jayson why not just go to a sex club? One reason is that a meetup happens with no expectation of fuckery. I can show up and mingle without the pressure of people trying to fuck us. Not that trying to fuck us is a bad thing. I find at the sex clubs people are more interested in finding willing fuck partners versus conversation. The environment is pressure free with more social versus sexual lubrication.

Another reason there are not that many sex clubs. Major cities may have one or two of those, but I promise Podunk Nebraska does not. Sex clubs are great. Get 50 of your closet friends together and go, make it your own little clubhouse for your group. Not everyone has this option, so we need to organize meetups where we are.

Little bit more about locations and venues. Public versus Private. As in creating and getting a dedicated space for your lifestyle friends away from the public. It is possible to rent out a venue for an lifestyle meetup. Yes but that will require money. Do you want to invest money in your meetup? How do you negotiate that? Glad you asked.

The benefit of locking down a location is no vanillas around to ruin the fun. Can’t tell you how many times we have been out with friends and vanilla dudes try to crash our little circle of friends. They see all of us being friendly and handsy and assume they can do the same thing. No fuckers. You ain’t in the club.

Last weekend we attended Bunny’s Events in Pensacola Florida. You can find out more about them at bunnysevents.com. I think their next event will be January 17^th in Pensacola, Florida. I cannot speak highly enough about them and what they do. Part of the reason for doing this episode. Great owners and great group of people. They did everything right. They secured a private venue, they rented out a bar and decorated for the holidays. Decorating impresses me. It shows that they want to put effort in creating an inviting and fun atmosphere. Everyone who attended was vetted by the owner and they used a ticketing system for security. Attendees have to register in order to get in which in turn keeps out the randos who happen to stumble upon the fun. Top notch meetups. Bunnysevents.com.

This was a private venue for the event and I like that. I can relax knowing that everyone in the room is in the lifestyle and knows the general rules for how we operate as a culture.

If you are interested in renting a location for a meetup, good for you. We need to walk through the considerations. And there are a couple. Cost. Money. For you and the bar. If you approach a bar manager and say I want you to shut down for normal business, let me take a gamble on bringing in a large number of people who may or may not show up because lifestyle people are flaky as hell, they pay all of your bar staff their normal wages and hopefully sell enough alcohol to cover the cost of turning away vanilla people, you better have big balls and be ready for that conversation.

For most bars, and as someone who has never managed a bar, they want liquor sales. They make the most margins off liquor sales. Yes, the cost of renting out the space is one thing, but the profit margins on liquor sales is where they make a lot of their money. What will usually happen is the bar manager will ask for a flat fee to rent the space and then may ask for a liquor guarantee or sales threshold or liquor minimum, I have heard this called a few different terms. You can rent the space for 500 dollars and then guarantee that the bar will sell at least 5000 dollars in liquor sales for example, if they do not meet that minimum then you as the renter will be required to make up the difference. This could get pricey and there may be a contract involved that you are legally on the hook for. Obviously, this may not apply to all bars but generally there will be a fee to cover the space and a liquor minimum sales.

That’s the reason it is easier and cheaper to just crash a bar with all your friends versus formally renting the space. The manager may be willing to wiggle here. If it is the off season, for instance we live in a tourist area where from October to March there less tourist business so local bars are more willing to negotiate because we can at least bring in revenue for them during the off season. Of course, this changes during the tourist season and me offering to bring in 100 swingers is not as attractive as the normal 500 vanillas that may pass through on Saturday night.

If you rent a space, that money has to come from somewhere. Maybe you are rich and don’t care about dropping a couple grand on a meetup. Most of us are not. Let’s say the space cost 1000 dollars to rent out for the night. Where do you get the money? Usually, you front the 1000 dollars and you can charge tickets or a cover to enter the meetup. Yes, you can also pad the cost if you want. 100 people, 1000 dollars, ten dollars a person to meet the fee. We live in a capitalistic society, and you are providing a service to people by organizing the meetup, getting paid for your efforts. Adding an extra five or ten dollars is fine but if you charge 100 dollars a couple, this better be the best damn meetup anyone has ever attended. You are providing a service, people are paying money to get in, give them their monies worth.

Charging 20 dollars a couple just to stand around a dive bar for five hours, maybe it is worth it to some people, maybe not. The market will show you want an appropriate price is. Some people may balk at the idea of paying for a meetup. They think, it’s a public venue, we should be able to access it for free. And yes they can, when it is not locked down for a private event. Balance out the cost versus what are you actually offering in return.

I want to go down a tangent here about party promoters or people who do events for profit. Some of you heard that last part and started thinking, you could do meetups for profit. Yep. That’s what party promoters do. They will go to a club or a sex club in lifestyle circles, offer to bring in a set number of people in exchange for a cut of the door. No mystery here. It’s a simple proposition. I bring in x number of people, you give me 30% of the cover charge you collect for the night. Yes, if you go to a sponsored or hosted party at a lifestyle club there is a possibility the host couple is collecting money from the event. They are making profit off you being there.

If you want to go down this route and try it, you will need a large following, like however many you think you need, double it because people are flaky and all it takes is one event where you don’t meet that minimum you guaranteed and the club will not want to work with you again. As the host couple, the club will probably want you to work the event. Help clean up, greet people, provide tours. Negotiate expectations ahead of time and be clear on what the club expects from you.

Okay we have secured the venue. Either picked a public place everyone will crash with our heathen selves or a private venue. Next up is promotion. We need to get people to this meetup. How? Concentric rings of promotion here. Start with your friends then work your way out towards the internet.

A consideration is how big do you want this meetup? Ten people, 100 people? That matters just like I talked about how big is space, how big do you want this thing? You can have a great night with ten people or pack that place. If you pack the place though, you will spend more time running the event versus socializing. If you are selling tickets, you obviously want to cover the rental fee, maybe make a little extra profit. And yes, I know the bar might not let you charge a cover and what about this other caveat and what about this and this thing? There are way too many considerations for me to dive into each one of them individually in this episode. Broad strokes here.

Numbers tie back to motivation. Are you doing this to host the biggest event you can? Are you doing this to provide some fun for your social circle? There is no right answer just honesty with yourself. I will warn you about numbers, if you constantly chase bigger and bigger numbers it is a losing game. You could have three meetups in a row that grow exponentially every time then the fourth event no one shows up. Or people are bored with what you are offering and go somewhere else. Or the event gets too big to manage. But then again you want enough people to hit critical mass.

Critical mass is a key term that should be on the quiz for organizers of events. Your friends are going to show up to your event cause they like you. Your shining personality and the enticement to be around you may not be enough to attract friends of friends or randos from a dating site. You have to achieve critical mass. What that means is when a person looks at your event on a dating site and they see 10 people going, they will skip it because there is not enough people going to interest them. If they see 100 people going, they will think oh snap there is a big crowd going, I might find someone to fuck or they will get the dreaded fomo thinking this event is popular so it must be good. It is easier to jump from 100 people signed up to 200 versus 10 to 50.

It's a shitty fact. Critical mass will motivate people to show up for your event. You can help achieve critical mass for events by hosting a dedicated chat group for instance. Or get friends to help push the event. Which is where promotion comes in to help you achieve critical mass of a self growing event.

You probably have a local social circle, friends you can invite. Reach out to them first to gauge interest in doing an event. If enough people are on board, lets go. Get your friends to invite friends. Start a chat group so people can see who all is going. That ties back into critical mass. People want to know who else is going. Which is shitty to think about that people only show up if other couples they want to fuck show up but it’s human nature and part of the lifestyle.

If you want to keep it an intimate event, as in everyone knows everyone in attendance, stick to local social circle and word of mouth. If you want it to grow, post it on a dating site. Make sure you include details. People like details. Date, time, theme. Make the post as inviting to newbies as possible. Remember newbies can be timid like small deer so I wouldn’t go too hard on selling a sexually charged environment, think low pressure instead.

Should you post the location? Sometimes event organizers will not share the actual address until the day of the event. There are reasons for this. If the event gets torpedoed for various reasons then they can make a last minute change to the location without having to personally inform 200 people. Keeping the location secret adds to the mystery. I ain’t a fan of this reason. I like knowing where I need to go and where I need to park ahead of time. I am the person who will plan out my route to get there a week in advance.

Another reason to keep it secret is to discourage randos and vanillas from finding out and crashing the event. How many single dudes do you think would rush the door of a swinger party if they knew it was happening?

Story time. In 2018, the Erotic Heritage Museum and a party promoter called Menage Life wanted to do the largest orgy ever in Las Vegas. Can’t remember the total number of people but we are talking hundreds. They had medical staff available, drinks, big production. They promoted it through lifestyle channels like our dating sites and ENM safe places. Sold the tickets, rented out an entire floor of a casino hotel in Vegas. Motherfucking Stephen Colbert found out about it and talked about it on his late night television show. Whole event got torpedoed because of that. One vanilla dude exposed it to the nation and the whole party got shut down. There is a benefit and a reason for secrecy in this.

Could this happen to your event? Possibly. At least be aware of it. Bars have liquor licenses and part of having that license may have a morality clause which translate to the local government will twist any and all regulations to fuck over that bar owner if they think the bar is catering to alternative lifestyles in an area that the local government doesn’t approve of an alternative lifestyle. No bar wants to have their liquor license threatened or pulled. If uptight vanillas catch wind of a swinger gathering, they might cause a stink, put pressure on the bar owner to not allow the event to happen and then you are shit out of luck.

Sharing the location ahead of time. Let’s people know where to get a hotel room. Gives people an idea of what kind of venue they are attending. This is important for ladies. No one wants to walk three blocks in lingerie. You can plan outfit choices better. I say compromise. Don’t reveal the actual address, just the general location.

 Back to promotion, if you put this event out to the public in any channel, you will have people show up that you may not know, people show up that you may not like, people that show up that you know for a fact are going to cause drama. You may also need to do personal outreach to new couples to help them be comfortable with going to your event. See this shit gets as complicated or a simple as you make it. Some people will spend hours searching the sites, inviting people, chatting with them. Or like me, I threw it out there, show up if you want to, I don’t care I’m having fun either way.

However you decide to promote it, I will tell you that about half the people that rsvp to a meetup won’t show up. I have seen events with hundreds of rsvps on a dating site and maybe 100 show up. It cost nothing to rsvp to an event on these sites, people click shit just to see the attendee list and be nosy. Temper your expectations. You need a name and a reputation to really draw in a crowd. Word of mouth goes a long way. Remember what I said about multiple events help to grow your crowd. If people show up have a good time, they will be your champions and tell people about it. Word of mouth is the best, organic way to grow your events.

You put together a great invite. People are showing up. Managing the event. A good party host will greet people at the door and make them feel welcome. A shitty party host will stand by the bar with his clique of friends and say fuck all you npcs and background characters. A good party will make sure that people have a general idea of where everything is like the bar and bathrooms. A bad party host will provide no guidance and leave you to wander around looking for a place to pee.

A good party host will engage with everyone equally as best they can. A bad party host will spend the whole time trying to connect with one couple so they can bang it out later. Good host will keep an eye out for couples being a problem or drinking too much. Step in gently. A bad host will allow people to get shit faced drunk, fall out, and laugh at them. One more. A good host will make newbies feel welcome. There is a trick for this. A new couple shows up, introduce yourself, make small talk. Then hand them off to another couple. Do an introduction, Human A this is Human B. Yall both enjoy dirt bike racing and drinking monster energy drinks. A bad host will let that new couple hover in a corner, not talk to anyone and leave feeling unwanted.

A good host will remember they are not the person that makes or breaks a party. All you are doing is creating a space for people to have fun and it is on them to make it happen. I have been to meetups, had a decent time, then talked to people afterward who had a horrible time at the same meetup. Not the hosts fault if someone has a bad time. The host provided the space, people still have to take advantage of it. On their own.

A good meetup is like a theme park, multiple activities to engage with. At bunny’s they had a banner for pictures, a 360 degree picture platform, multiple bars, a DJ and dance floor, have different areas set up for people to do things versus standing around a bar all night with their thumbs up their asses. Activity creates and encourage engagement. Speaking of DJs, the DJ can make or break the night. If the bar does not provide a DJ or have space for one, make sure you ask for access to their sound system so you can make a playlist for the night. At a minimum, try to control the music yourself if you can’t’ do a DJ.

Security. Having security around is good. Even if you think or feel you don’t need them, having security staff in place, makes people feel more comfortable in a venue. I know it does for me. You need to have a conversation with security staff ahead of time on what is considered acceptable behavior for lifestyle people. Titties popping out, in a normal vanilla scene, is bad. For us, not bad. A guy being pushy is bad for us. Educate them if you can.

Back to my good and bad host segment. A good host will check in with the venue staff and management throughout the night. A bad host will ignore them completely until they get pissed off and have words. Strong words. Angry words.

Coat check. Can’t figure out place to put this. Set up a clothing rack for coat check especially if it is cold outside. People need somewhere to put their coats. Bunnys did this and I respect it and acknowledge it.

 A few more notes about hosting. Name tags? Every time I go to an event someone suggest we use name tags. You could. Requires buying a pack of name tags. Not a bad idea, I have never seen it put into practice. What else? Group pictures. As I have said before, I don’t like group pictures. You could set up a space out of the way for people to take pictures but gathering all 70 to 100 people at your meet up together to take a picture, that’s called evidence. Everyone in that picture is now associated with swingers and if that picture ends up on facebook, everyone in that picture got outed.

You cannot be a good host and have fun. A good host stays mobile, engages, interacts with people not chase their own strange for the night. Towards the end of the event, after people have settled in, then you can relax but generally if you are hosting you will not have as much fun as an attendee.

Congratulations. You put on your first meetup. Now what? Bask in the glory of your achievement for a few days then go ask for feedback. Honest, real feedback. Ask your friends, and people you don’t know that well. Feedback will make your next event better. Watch the event, watch where you could improve the flow of the room or little things you could do to make it better next time. Accept feedback. No meetup is perfect and you only improve by being open to feedback.

Before I depart and wrap up this very long fucking episode, I want to talk about the icky shit. The sticky sucky parts of hosting a meetup. Toxic behavior both from organizers and attendees. Attendees first. You need to know this. Not everyone will be happy with your event. Some people may be very vocal about being unhappy about the event within five minutes of showing up. I have been at house parties, motherfuckers show up, eat some chips then start trying to get a contingent of people to leave with them and go somewhere else. Fucking rude. There will be forever unhappy people who show up to your event and try to convince people to leave your event. But Jayson maybe they really want to go do something else, fucking great, don’t poach your event attendees because they are too chicken shit to go somewhere else by themselves.

Another kind of couple you may deal with are the scared to be in public. Set the scene. Meetup going on at a bar and one of the attendees happens to see their boss walk in. Oh no. They flip the fuck out like they saw a velociraptor. They grab their stuff and make for the door and in the process try to take half the meetup with them to a safer location.

Or this could all be a sneaky ruse to ditch the crowd and take select people they want to hang out with and or fuck to a second location. Can you stop this? No. Is it shitty behavior by human tornadoes with questionable ethics I am calling out so people are less inclined to do it? Yes. A person’s boss being at the bar is their problem, not yours as the host or any one else in the crowd. I don’t have a solution for this, making you aware of it.

Another icky shitty bit are drama and trouble couples. A couple may have a strong disagreement publicly. Your role is not to settle their disagreement; your role is to get them the fuck out of the way and somewhere else. Go up to them and say hey I can feel things are a bit tense between yall right now and maybe this bar is not the best place for you two to discuss these issues. Why don’t you step outside and take a breath? See easy and polite.

Then there are trouble couples. One of them gets drunk and locks themselves in the bathroom all night. Again ain’t your place to solve their shit, get them the fuck out the door. You could also have couples that are way too horny. The dude is abrasive and handsy, the woman decides that everyone needs to see her boobs way too early in the night. This may require being a jackass for this one and asking them to leave if they are being a problem.

It is better for us to police ourselves in these situations instead of getting management of the bar or security involved because that will make it hard for you to do an event there again. I promise the trouble couples do not give two shits about the relationship you are trying to establish with this business, they want to cause drama in the most bombastic way possible. Like the dude I told you about earlier going around telling everyone we were swingers. I had to pull him to the side and politely tell his drunk ass, drunk on fireball of all things, to settle down. Didn’t make it a big show though. Told his wife to deal with him.  

Another pitfall. I mention this one more time is chasing numbers. Having the biggest meetup around does not mean it is a good event. The bigger an event gets the more likely there will be cliques which no one enjoys. Or factions form. Or other dumb human ways we create divisions between us. If you are constantly trying to suck in new people then you will end up sucking in more toxic couples than anything else.

A lot of fucking talking this time around. I wanted to share everything I could think of about meetups. If this the final word, probably not. No way possible to go into every single nuance or scenario. The takeaway from today is to think about hosting a meetup. Where ever you are, do it. If there is no meetup in your area, give it a shot. Gather your friends, crash a bar and see how it goes.

If you are in an area with regular meetups, fuck it. Do your own. Put on a better event with a bounce house or a ball pit or bowling and people will come. Ha come.  

Before I go for real this time, we will be at the Risque New Year’s Eve party on December 31^st ringing in the new year in style and class in Baton Rouge Louisiana. Go to risquelifestyleparties.com for tickets. I also want to mention two events next year that you need on your calendar and should go buy tickets for today, Risque Luminous is a glow party in Fort Walton Beach Florida the first weekend of May and Risque Pulsify will be the first weekend of October. Check it out and plan on partying with us for both.

Thank you for listening and tuning in every week. Make sure you tell a friend about the show. Thank you to the love of my life, my wife who is on this wonderful lifestyle journey with me.

If you want to reach out, ask a question, suggest a topic, send me an email to host@thatotherlifestyle.com. My website is thatotherlifestyle.com.

My personal disclaimer, I am not a medical professional nor a trained and certified educator of any kind in any way. I am a guy with a microphone, sharing my personal experiences with you. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and please join us for the next episode. difference.  Go to STDHero.com, use my promo code TOL15 for 15% your order and get tested.

Whatever you may do today or tonight, I hope you do it with enthusiasm, consent, curiosity and a little bit of spice. You are appreciated, loved and I will see you for the next episode.