Why UK Gaming Groups Are Leaving Meetup
The platform that built the board gaming meetup scene is pricing itself out of it.
If you run a board game group on Meetup, you have probably noticed the price going up. What used to cost around ten pounds a month now sits at seventeen to twenty pounds, depending on the plan. For a hobby group run by volunteers, that is a significant expense, and across the UK, gaming organisers are walking away.
This is not a hypothetical trend. Groups like Crystal Palace Board Games and Beyond have publicly announced they are closing their Meetup pages, citing the cost as unsustainable. They are moving to Facebook groups and free websites. Others are quietly letting their subscriptions lapse and rebuilding their communities elsewhere.
So what happened, and what are the alternatives?
What Changed at Meetup
Meetup was founded on a simple idea: help people find local communities. For over a decade, it was the default platform for board game groups across the UK. Organisers paid a monthly fee, members joined for free, and everyone could find events in their area.
In 2024, Meetup restructured its pricing. The free tier was reduced to near-uselessness, capped at two events per month and ten attendees per event. For any group running weekly game nights with more than ten people (which describes most active gaming groups), the free tier became impractical overnight.
The paid plans jumped to around seventeen to twenty pounds per month. For context, that is roughly two hundred pounds a year to manage a hobby group. Many organisers were already paying out of their own pockets. The increase tipped the balance from "worth it" to "not worth it" for a large number of UK gaming communities.
The Problem Is Not Just Price
If Meetup were genuinely the best tool available, many organisers would grit their teeth and pay. The deeper issue is that Meetup has not evolved to meet the needs of gaming communities.
There is no built-in ticketing. If your group charges a door fee or runs ticketed events (common for social deduction nights, special events, and café partnerships), Meetup cannot handle payments. You end up collecting money via bank transfer, PayPal, or cash on the door, which creates extra admin and more no-shows.
The RSVP system is basic. You get a headcount and a waitlist, but no way to manage player slots for specific games, assign roles (like a DM for an RPG session or a storyteller for Blood on the Clocktower), or coordinate who is bringing which games.
Community features are limited. Meetup is built around events, not communities. There is no meaningful space for ongoing discussion, game coordination, or member management beyond a simple list.
And then there is the currency issue. Meetup bills in USD. For UK organisers, the actual cost fluctuates with the exchange rate, and the pricing does not reflect the UK market. There is no GBP billing option.
Where Groups Are Going
The honest answer is that most groups leaving Meetup do not have an obvious single replacement. They scatter across multiple tools.
Facebook Groups remain the most common destination for UK gaming communities. They are free, almost everyone already has an account, and the Events feature handles basic RSVP functionality. The downsides are real, though. Facebook's algorithm means many members never see event posts. There is no capacity management, no waitlist, and no ticketing. You are also building your community on a platform you do not control, which means the rules can change at any time.
Discord is popular with more tech-savvy groups, particularly those running RPG campaigns or social deduction games. It is excellent for real-time communication and community building, but it has no event management, no ticketing, and no discoverability. Nobody finds a new gaming group by browsing Discord.
Eventbrite handles ticketing but has no community features and charges 6.95% plus 59p per ticket, which is steep for a five pound game night. It is designed for one-off events, not recurring community meetups.
Some groups are trying purpose-built platforms. Luma has grown quickly in the events space but has no gaming-specific features and prices at $59 per month for the paid tier, which is more expensive than Meetup. Warhorn serves the tabletop RPG community specifically but is maintained by a single developer, accepts donations rather than charging, and has an uncertain future.
The gap in the market is clear: there is no UK-native platform that combines community management, event scheduling, RSVP with waitlists, and ticketing, all designed for gaming groups and priced in pounds. That is exactly the problem Backseat Gamer is built to solve.
What to Look for in an Alternative
If you are considering leaving Meetup, here is what matters most for a gaming group:
Free RSVP events should be free to create, with no cap on attendees. This is the baseline. If a platform charges you to run a free event with more than ten people, it is replicating Meetup's worst decision.
Capacity management and waitlists are essential for any group that runs events with limited spaces. Board game nights at venues with twenty seats, social deduction games that need a specific player count, RPG sessions with fixed party sizes. You need to know exactly who is coming.
Ticketing matters if you charge for events. Ideally with low fees, direct payment to the organiser, and in GBP so your members are not confused by currency conversions.
Community features like member management, forums, and ongoing communication keep your group together between events. An event listing platform is not enough. You need somewhere people belong to, not just somewhere they visit.
Discoverability is what Meetup actually did well. People could search for board game groups in their city and find yours. Whatever you move to, make sure new members can still find you.
Making the Switch
If your group has been on Meetup for years, the switch feels daunting. Your member list, your event history, your reviews, they all live on Meetup's platform.
The practical reality is less scary than it seems. Most active gaming groups have a core of ten to thirty regulars who show up consistently. Those people will follow you to whatever platform you move to, as long as you communicate the change clearly. The long tail of inactive Meetup members who joined three years ago and never attended were never really your community anyway.
Give your members advance notice. Post on your Meetup page explaining the move and where to find you. Run both platforms in parallel for a month or two if you can. Make the new platform as frictionless as possible for people to join.
The gaming groups that are thriving right now are not the ones clinging to a platform that has outgrown them. They are the ones that have found tools that actually match how gaming communities work. Your group deserves better than paying twenty pounds a month for a glorified RSVP list.