Some of my favorite meetups were the 2600 meetups from the 1990s (in NYC). Just a bunch of people meeting up in a pre-defined public space with no real agenda

Some of my favorite meetups were the 2600 meetups from the 1990s (in NYC). Just a bunch of people meeting up in a pre-defined public space with no real agenda but at the same time everyone there had similar interests. Basically it was a bunch of casual conversations with people who like the same things as you do. No pressure or grand event. Just a bunch of people sitting at separate tables or standing around in small groups for as little or long as you want. Nowadays most tech meetups kind of suck. I used to goto more meetups but it's always the same thing. A few minutes to mingle with people before it "starts" and then you sit in silence while you listen to 1-2 hours of presentations that feel like advertisements. Then things end with "mingle time" but by this point everyone is drained by the presentations and half of the people leave because it's already 8-9pm and some people have ~2 hour commutes to get home.