Part 3 of 3 – Investigative Report from My One Amor. Last July (15 months ago) one of our staff writers attended a Speed Dating event in the Miami area. What he found was that there was no event and the staff of the bar didn’t seem to know anything about it. This sent us on a year-long investigation attending events in several cities. What we found was Speed Dating events in your city may not be real.
A quick overview for those who are not familiar with Speed Dating.
It starts with the Speed Dating company running an ad for the event, typically on Eventbrite. People use Google, or sites like Eventbrite, to find events of interest. With a simple Google search of “meet singles events”, you’ll find them.
Once someone finds the Speed Dating event listing, they have the option of buying a ticket in advance or paying at the door.
When attending the Speed Dating event just minimal information is required. Basically, all you need is an email address, name and to pay the admission fee. This raises some red flags as to who the attendees really may be.
Once in, you’re give a score card to rate each Speed Date you have. Sometimes the men sit in one place and the women are rotated or vice versa. Each Speed Date usually lasts about 5 minutes. At the end of the event, the event host sees if there are any mutual likes. If so, basic information like an email address or phone number is provided to both people.
Sounds great but unfortunately, at many of these events there is no one there. So what is going on ?
We spoke to management staff of the venues (typically bars or restaurants) where these no-show events took place. What they all told us was that the events used to be popular a year or two ago. They seemed to think the events lost popularity due to running them so frequently. Sometimes the same event ran every week so fewer and fewer people showed.
What they also shared is every now and then the Speed Dating company may actually sell some tickets. In that case, the local Speed Dating event host notifies the venue on the day of the event that they need some space. Kind of like a standby airline ticket.
The problem is when there are no advance tickets sold and you’re a walk in. You now have not only wasted your time showing up to a canceled event, but the staff may not even know anything about it. So, you look like an idiot too.
It appears the only way to not totally waste your time is to call the venue on the day of the event. But, again, they may not know anything about it.
All we can suggest is, if this happens to you, then complain to the Speed Dating company. Additionally, maybe even Eventbrite for running fake ads. At a minimum the ads should say, “subject to cancellation, call on day of event to confirm”. Oh, and if you do happen to talk to one of these Speed Dating Companies, you may want to ask why they’re also pretending to be matchmakers too.
So, when we say Speed Dating events in your city may not be real, we’re not kidding.