Hosting
You don’t have to run a weekly thing.
Most people who read this think hosting is a bigger job than it is. It’s worth being specific about how small it actually is.
You can host one event. One date, one place, once. That’s a complete use of this and plenty of people never do anything else.
Most tables didn’t start as tables. They started as somebody’s one-off that people asked about again.
What you actually do
Pick a time and a place. That’s the job.
SoberOut does the asking. It posts the event, it puts it in front of people nearby, it collects the people saying “I’m coming,” and it emails you when someone does. You don’t message anyone individually, chase replies, or talk anybody into it.
You don’t need a venue that’s yours, and you don’t need a private room. A café, a park, a bowling alley, the back of somewhere that serves alcohol and doesn’t mind that you’re not drinking — all of it works. The event page states whether the venue serves alcohol, so nobody is surprised on arrival.
Two people is a success
Not a consolation. It’s the design target.
The whole product is built so that a two-person event is a real one: a time, a place, a chair, and somebody in it who knew they were expected. Nothing on the site scores your turnout. Nothing displays your event as underfilled. There is no number you’re being measured against.
If twelve people come, fine. It isn’t a better event.
If nobody comes
Sometimes nobody comes. It happens to most hosts at least once, and usually it’s the first one.
Then nothing happens. The event closes. It isn’t shown to anyone as a failed one, it doesn’t appear on your profile, and you can post the same thing again next month without anybody being told it’s a second try. The most common reason nobody came the first time is that nobody knew yet.
The door
Every event has one person on the door — whoever is arriving first and watching for anyone who ticked “first time” when they said they were coming. They say hello, and they sit with them. That’s the whole role. No script, no training, no badge.
If you host, you’ll probably be on the door for the first few. After that it passes around: SoberOut asks a named regular ahead of each date, and they accept or decline. Declining is a normal answer and the next person gets asked. The point of the rota is that it stops being one person’s job.
The three-week point
If you’ve hosted the same thing three times, SoberOut asks whether you want to make it a table — a recurring slot with a door rota, which is where the coordination tooling starts earning its keep.
You can say no. Declining is a full-sized answer, not a delay, and you won’t be asked again unless you ask to be. It isn’t a commitment you’re signing, and there’s no version of this where saying no makes the thing you already run any smaller.
Plenty of people host a one-off every couple of months, indefinitely. That’s a use of this product, not a failure to graduate.
What it costs
Hosting a one-off costs nothing, ever.
You will not hit a paywall doing it, at any point, for any number of events.
A table costs $5 a month, paid by whoever holds it. That’s on pricing.
And the chair stays open regardless. If a table’s payment lapses, the table keeps running and the door rota keeps running. A table does not stop keeping a chair open because its host didn’t pay.
If you want to stop
Hand the table to somebody else, or close it. Handing it over moves the rota and the recurring slot to the new host, and their name replaces yours. Closing it takes the recurring dates off the calendar and leaves the recaps up.
Neither one needs a reason and neither is announced as a departure.