We are starting a community space. We don’t have a location yet (or even a name), but we’d like to share what we’re going to be doing.

To fellow community organisers,

There is so much that goes into making a vibrant community happen that every community organiser has to deal with on their own - from logistics to communication, keeping motivation to time management. Making a sustainable community that’s beyond one or two people volunteering time is hard and often a lonely challenge. We want to be the infrastructure - the literal walls and flooring and lights and location, but also share what we’ve learnt over the last 8 years of running ReRoll Board Games and Puzzled Pint Bangalore so you can focus on what actually important: filling the space and making it your community’s home.

We want to better understand what tools and support you need. Managing communication on social media and email newsletters? Helping understand your audience and how to price your tickets? Provide you with good photos of the event to post? Connect you with potential sponsors or partners?

It’s also important to reiterate that this is your community. We want you to stay with us because it’s valuable to you and your community, not because we’ve blurred the lines for attendees on whose event it is. We want to be in the background as much as possible. (You won’t see us asking to have our logo on your event posters!)

We hope to make a case for you to share a minority portion of the revenue you generate from your event (via ticket sales, sponsors, etc) so we both are incentivised to make an event that many people want to attend and support. We’ll do our best to earn that portion with the value we offer. We’ll negotiate this with each organiser independently, as it’s important to us that we have the flexibility to give away the space for free to communities that are still very nascent and have the bigger communities subsidise the space for others.

We intend to first cover our costs (mainly rent, maintenance, furniture, etc) but we’re not quitting our jobs to run this full-time, and won’t be depending on this as our sole income source - at least in the short term. We’ll be as open as we can with what we use any money we generate for and how it ultimately makes it a better space for your community and others.

We think that communities can’t be hinging on a few people’s motivation, dedication, and time. It has to be sustainable if it has to last. We want you to be able to be compensated for your work and time and encourage a culture where attendees contribute to the community’s upkeep - whether that’s through volunteering, tickets, or whatever else in between.

If this sounds like the kind of place you’d like to host your community and organize your events, please get in touch at [email protected] or @karthikb351 on Twitter.

To those who attend events,

Firstly, thanks for sticking around to read this far.

Welcoming and inclusive spaces are hard to come by. Making friends as adults is hard. Finding a place where you can disconnect from day-to-day life and indulge in something is invaluable.

We want to be the best place to participate in thoughtful, kind, and interesting community events. Communities around hobbies and interests - run by people who are passionate about them. We’re going to be very picky with whom we work with to ensure every community that we host stays true to this philosophy.

This is not a cafe with food & drinks. Everything we do will be scheduled with a start and end time. We decidedly don’t want to be a space where people come and hang out. There are plenty of those already that do a better job than we ever could.

To Bangalore culture,

Well, at least Indiranagar culture to begin with.

We want to have something interesting happening every weeknight. In our experience, getting people to do something regularly after work is the key to making it a part of their lives and schedules.

We’re tired of the default social hangout being a bar or pub. It’s noisy, it’s expensive, it’s repetitive. We want to push more people to try new things, help them meet new people, and have a richer, fuller life as a result.

You deserve a better answer to when friends ask you what you do outside of work.

There is a great term for this in sociology called third places which I encourage you to read for a better understanding of what we’re aiming to be.

What’s different about us?

Hopefully a lot! We know there are already many community spaces in the city, from small cafes to dedicated event spaces. We’ve probably done an event at many of them (and will in the future)

But there is plenty of room under the tent. We aren’t competing with other places and honestly believe the more options organisers have, the more we’ll be able to raise the bar for everyone.