Free online talk listings: Eventbrite (free events) and Meetup (Starter)

Written 26 Oct 2026 for the Cedwyn e-book work. Zero spend. Owner GO before anything goes public.

What it is

List a free online talk (Zoom/Meet/YouTube Live) on an event marketplace so people who browse "history", "Wales" or "online" events find it, register, and land on the signup list. Ticket buyers are captured as registrants, and the talk ends with one next step: the free edition on /ebooks/.

The facts that set the plan (read in full at the source, 26 Oct 2026)

• Eventbrite pricing page: "No fees for free events. Publish unlimited free events at no cost." Fees (3.7% + $1.79 per ticket, 2.9% processing) apply to paid tickets only. Eventbrite states 89M monthly users and 4.7M events.
• Eventbrite's book-club/literary page: "about 30% of tickets sold are driven by Eventbrite discovery". This is Eventbrite's own figure about its marketplace, not an audited one; treat it as an upper bound for us.
• Meetup Starter (Meetup blog + help centre): free, 1 group, up to 2 in-person events per month, up to 10 attendees per event. It is built for in-person groups and the 10-person cap makes it a poor fit for a talk; paid tiers (Standard/Pro) are out under zero spend. Verdict: skip Meetup; Eventbrite only.
• No-shows (practitioner testimony in Eventbrite UK's own blog "How to manage attendance at free events"): The King's Fund plans for a 50% dropout at free events; Printkick saw about 50%; UK Recruiter saw up to 50% and cut it with a refundable deposit; one organiser oversubscribes to double the target and sees 25-30% drop on the day. A "can't wait to see you tonight" reminder a few hours before is the cheapest fix.
• Virtual events: Eventtia (Aug 2025) puts webinar no-shows at about 35% "as industry figures often cite" (secondary, not checked at a primary source).

How to do it (step by step)

1. One talk, one hour, a fixed date 3-5 weeks out, an evening slot (19:00 UK). Title = the place and the promise, not the brand: "Tŷ Mawr, Llandough: what the records show (free online talk)".
2. Eventbrite: create an organiser profile under the business name (never a person's name), event type Online, category Community > Heritage (or Arts > Literary Arts), tags: Wales, local history, Vale of Glamorgan, Llandough, Welsh history, Patagonia.
3. Ticket: Free, capacity 100 (set capacity at 2x the turnout wanted). Add one optional registration question: "May we email you the free e-book and talk notes? (yes/no)". Only "yes" goes to Mailchimp (PECR consent; tag src-eventbrite).
4. Online event page: the join link lives in Eventbrite's online event page, visible to registrants only. Add the replay note ("recording sent to everyone registered").
5. Reminders: Eventbrite's automatic reminder plus one personal 3-hour-before email from Eventbrite's attendee message tool. No other sends.
6. In the talk: three slides of primary records, one slide with /ebooks/ and the signup link, QR + short URL with ?utm_source=eventbrite&utm_medium=event&utm_campaign=talk-<yyyymm>.
7. After: upload the recording (YouTube, chapters per youtube-chapters-captions skill), email registrants the replay + free edition link once, then log registrations, attendees, signups and sales to the project workspace
8. Repeat monthly only if the first talk gets 20+ registrations or 1+ sale; otherwise move the effort to Open Doors/talks circuit.

Measures (next-run check)

Registrations, attendance %, % registrants from Eventbrite discovery (Eventbrite's "sales by source" report), Mailchimp src-eventbrite count, sales with the utm tag within 14 days.

How we apply it to Cedwyn

• Draft only: put the listing text in the project workspace and a HubSpot task; nothing goes live without the owner's GO (an Eventbrite account in the business's name and who presents are owner decisions).
• Presenter: a named person is needed for a live talk; if the owner does not want to present, use a pre-recorded narrated slideshow premiered on YouTube instead, and list that premiere.
• No DMs to strangers; promotion = our own channels + the listing itself.

Sources

• eventbrite.com (read 26 Oct 2026)
• eventbrite.com (read 26 Oct 2026; 30% discovery figure is Eventbrite's own)
• eventbrite.co.uk (read; King's Fund, Printkick, UK Recruiter quotes)
• meetup.com (read); help.meetup.com article 40507261509645 (snippet only)
• eventtia.com (read; 35% webinar figure secondary, not checked)

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