Introducing River: the in-person event platform for distributed communities
After being in beta with The All-In Podcast and My First Million, anyone can now spin up their own community & host events on River.
Today we’re launching River: an in-person event platform to help distributed communities get together in real life.
We’re helping The All-In Podcast, My First Million, and This Week in Startups turn their audiences into connected communities. But River is not just for podcasts — Latinx Tech Group is also getting together in real life on River, and soon dozens more will join.
River makes it effortless to orchestrate events at scale with vetted, volunteer hosts. After producing events for The All-In Podcast, we’re coming out of beta and releasing self-serve community events.
Despite being hyper-connected online, it’s increasingly difficult to meet people with shared interests and values. As I was growing All-In Meetups, a worldwide community of podcast fans getting together at fan-hosted meetups in 50 cities, I realized the current event platforms are great if you are personally hosting an event and already have the details figured out. But they aren’t built to let members apply to host (and control for quality and data privacy).
So we built River. Here’s why:
→ Influencers & brands want to delight & engage their audience
→ Fans & community members want to meet like-minded people in their city
→ People will step up to host if they know great people will show up to the event
→ Sponsors will pay more for targeted in-person events than digital impressions
Here’s what you can do on River:
🌎 Produce dozens of events without having to do any work
Create dozens of branded events with just a few clicks
Let your community RSVP or apply to host
Or let your community propose events for admin approval
🎯 Vet hosts & review events proposed by fans/members
Review host applications for events
Review events that fans/members propose
Once approved or rejected, applicants are notified via email & their permissions are updated
🤝 Empower hosts to produce great events with proper controls in place
Hosts can manage event details without being able to edit community or sponsor info
Hosts can send messages to attendees without accessing personal information
River collects feedback on hosts and venues to ensure quality over time
👯♀️ Let your fans/members meet like-minded people in their city
People within online micro-communities feel like they have “inside jokes with strangers” when they meet IRL
Hosts are able to build a lot of social capital while giving back to their community
People who connect in curated small groups are more likely to stay in touch than at big, generic tech events
Find an event near you or bring your community together in real life on River: app.getriver.io
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