What happens if I need to cancel/refund an event?

1. Before cancelling an event try to reschedule

Instead of cancelling an event when a speaker can no longer speak on a certain date or has a last minute emergency, ask (and suggest a date) if they speak at another time that week, month, or future date. More time than not this will work and avoid a huge hassle. In the chance that they can not speak in the foreseeable future check out the other tips below.

2. Let all attendees know about the cancellation (or reschedule)

Please communicate any changes to ALL attendees immediately. After you the next person to know of any changes should be attendees. Make sure to communicate to everyone by using all of your feeds to reach out to them. Message ticket holder directly, potential ticket buyers on Meetup, your email list through the newsletter tool, and the rest of the community through any social feeds.

3. We do not offer refunds but are happy to offer credits to future events

Startup Grind, Meetup, and the tickets themselves clearly state that we do not do refunds. We don't do them because to plan an event you have to book a room, and order food, and having people cancel at the last minute causes big problems. So we don't do refunds.

For every person that ever requests a refund, politely say that we don't offer refunds, but that you'd be happy to honor it for a future event. This satisfies 99% of customers.

Here's a form email you can use:

Hello,

We don't offer refunds (for more information, please check our T&C), but we would be happy to honor your ticket for a future event. Let me know which one you'd like to attend and I'll put your name on the list.

Best,

(NAME)

For the 1% that insist on a refund you can grant one, but that almost never happens. If it does please email the full name of the attendee, ticket URL or number, and URL of the event to ford@startupgrind.com and we’ll process it within 2 weeks.

4. If the event was cancelled and needs to be deleted from Startup Grind

Please be sure to email everyone of the cancellation and offer codes for future events before reaching out to delete the event. Once you have messaged everyone, let us know if the event cancellation (email us at: ford@startupgrind.com) and we can delete it from the system. It can a while to go into effect so please be sure to let us know as soon as possible!  Note that no refunds can be processed after an event is deleted.