Why The Dating Industry Doesn't Like Events

OPW - Nov 25 - Several dating services have experimented with events in the past. Most notably, Match ran Matchlive for some years, but folded it. Lavalife ran events at cinemas and mixers. Spark Networks ran Joes Club, and more recently bought Hurrydate. Cupid bought Predating in 2004, and last month sold it back to the original founder. Does the internet dating industry love events. Nope. Why? The consensus is, they're a pain in the ass to do well, and generally not profitable. They keep you awake at night, and can be sources of major customer dissatisfaction. Also, I hear, the people who come to events are NOT the kind of people who use internet dating. Large events make money. Small events are merely cost centers, unless they're run by volunteers. And its very tough to find good volunteers that don't burn out quickly. And then there's the whole aspect of liability. Ugh! Good luck finding decent insurance. 

If you want to attend some events, or would like some role models to be inspired by, here's some options I recommend looking at:

England
Spice UK - started in 1980, has 8 branches and is a very good deal.  
CitySocialising - new kids on the block, just got 250k GBP funding and are breaking out all over the UK.
OutdoorLads.com - Gay outdoor events group with lots of inexpensive camping options.

USA-Wide
Events and Adventures - Singles focused events and adventures.
Its Just Lunch - Lunch dates based matchmaker
FastLife

Los Angeles
LAPC - L.A. People Connection has been around for years, is free and is volunteer run. (Co-founded by my ex-wife)

San Francisco
OAC - Outdoor Adventure Club, the standard for outdoor adventures.
The Meeting Game - Inexpensive dating events.
Urban Diversion - Adventure and social club based in San Francisco with some evemts in Silicon Valley.

Texas
DFW Outdoors - Dallas/Fort Worth. Powered by Memberize. A popular social and outdoors club.
Hill Country Outdoors - Austin. The original club started by the Memberize founders.

Speed dating in the USA
Predating, Hurrydate, 8 Minute Dating

Speed dating in the UK
Speeddater.co.uk - acquired by EasyDate in 2008, runs events all over the UK

If you know of more great events and adventure clubs, please add them to the comments on this post. We'll review them and perhaps create a page on OPW for people to refer to in the future. Personally, Irena and I LOVE events. We're party people and would rather be running a party or adventure hike, than sitting behind a keyboard.

This post also appears at the iDate Forums.