We were pretty successfully rather quickly, and the attendees quickly grew past most local company's ability to host our meetings. Costs in Norway for rooms/foo

We were pretty successfully rather quickly, and the attendees quickly grew past most local company's ability to host our meetings. Costs in Norway for rooms/food & drink is higher than normal; plus, we tried to bring in a lot of external speakers. So, all in all, we were pretty dependent upon a decent amount of funding. I wasn't suggesting that companies we were working with would stop people coming; but at least when we were starting, getting people to actually attend was a struggle. Building the community can require a bigger outlay that people assume - it's not just "meet up and they will come". So, I'm just saying that some communities might want to think twice about this.