I was the organizer of Austrias biggest developer meetup for a few years. Took it from 5 people in a cellar to a monthly mini conference with 100+ attendees eac

I was the organizer of Austrias biggest developer meetup for a few years. Took it from 5 people in a cellar to a monthly mini conference with 100+ attendees each month. When it became to expensive to pay for Pizza and beer out of my own pocket, I got sponsors. the sponsor got logo and link to their job boards in the newsletters, and they HAD TO give a talk: 5 (to 10 min max), then 4 min Q&A, then 3 for their pitch (mostly looking for devs). hard time limit, hard format. only if they agreed to this they were allowed to sponsor our pizza and beer. oh, and the talk HAD TO include some real world code. Q&A was non negotiable. the HR department (the sponsor initiators) was surprised. the audience loved it. as the HR did send lead devs / CTO to give the talk. some of the best talks of the meetup we got that way. after some time I had waiting lists for sponsorships as the format worked so well. the secret to advertise to developers? show some real world code! meetup was called ViennaJS