What are event chats?
Event chats give organizers and attendees a dedicated place to communicate before, during, and after an event. They make it easy for organizers to post updates, answer questions, and build community while allowing attendees to connect before meeting in person.
Meetup supports two ways to chat for your events:
- Built-in Meetup chats: A native group conversation created automatically inside Meetup. Confirmed attendees are added as soon as they RSVP "Going".
- Third-party chat channels: Link your existing external chat (such as WhatsApp, Discord, Telegram, Signal, or Facebook Groups) directly to your event.
Event chats vs. direct and group messages: An event chat is created automatically for an event and includes all confirmed attendees. Direct and group messages are personal conversations started manually between members.
Event chats are available across web, iOS, and Android.
How to set up a chat for your event
- While creating an event, go to the Event chat section and toggle on Enable event chat.
- Choose your preferred chat platform:
- Built-in Meetup chat: Meetup automatically creates a group chat in "Messages" and adds members as they RSVP "Going".
- Third-party platforms: Select WhatsApp, Discord, or Other (such as Telegram, Signal, GroupMe, LINE, Slack, or Facebook Groups) and paste your invite link.
- Optional welcome message (Built-in Chat): When using Meetup chat, you can add a friendly welcome note. A suggested greeting is pre-filled, which you can customize or remove. Organizers who include a welcome message see significantly higher response rates.
- Publish your event: For built-in chats, the group conversation is created immediately upon publishing. For third-party platforms, Meetup securely stores your invite link and displays it to confirmed attendees.
- Accessing your chat: For built-in chats, access your conversation anytime on the Messages page or through the Messages tab on the event page.
Important organizer details
- You can configure event chat preferences individually for each event.
- Event chats are not supported for recurring event series yet. Support for recurring events will be available in an upcoming update.
- Link Security: Third-party chat links are only shown to confirmed attendees (RSVP "Going"), protecting your group link from bots and public scraping.
Supported third-party chat platforms
If your community already communicates on another messaging tool, you can connect your existing tool. Supported platforms include:
- Discord
- Telegram
- Signal
- GroupMe
- LINE
- Facebook Groups
- Slack
Need support for another messaging platform? You can submit platform requests directly to our support team through the event creation form.
Notifications and preferences
For built-in Meetup chats, you receive mobile push notifications whenever someone posts in an event chat you belong to.
For organizers managing events primarily on the web, we recommend installing the Meetup mobile app to reply promptly to attendee questions on the go. You can also mute notifications or archive individual conversations at any time through the conversation settings menu.
Note: For external chats (such as WhatsApp or Discord), notification settings and delivery are managed directly within that third-party app.
Safety and moderation
Built-in Meetup chats are governed by Meetup's Community Guidelines. If you encounter spam, harassment, or inappropriate conduct, you can block or report members directly inside the chat interface. Organizers also have the ability to remove individuals from their event conversations when necessary.
When joining third-party platforms like WhatsApp or Discord, interactions are subject to the policies and moderation controls of those external platforms.