Pro tip: double check your venue's wifi before you book a tech meetup in Corktown

Last Thursday, I was trying to run a small networking event for local app developers at a spot on Michigan Avenue. We had about 25 people show up, which was great. The problem was, the place's public wifi capped out at 5 Mbps. I found this out when the first person tried to demo their new Detroit-based food delivery app and the whole thing just froze. You could hear the groans. I ended up using my phone as a hotspot for the rest of the night, which burned through my data plan and cost me an extra $30. It totally killed the flow we had going. Has anyone else had a tech event fall apart because of bad internet? What's a good backup plan?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_terry3d ago

My kid's school had a "tech night" last year in the library. The principal was trying to show a video from a website and it buffered for a solid three minutes. Just a room full of parents staring at a loading circle. They had to give up and just talk about the slides instead. It's wild how a whole plan can just stop because of one weak link.

paulw534d ago

Honestly that's on you for not checking first.

daniel_gonzalez4d ago

Read an article that said people often skip checking details when they're in a hurry. It pointed out how easy it is to miss small but important stuff. Makes you realize we all do it sometimes.